Rover LAC (Light Armoured Car - Aust)

History

Faced with the prospect of a Japanese invasion during World War II (1939-1945), Australia was forced to turn to its own industry to offset the constraints on its stocks of combat equipment. This is the case with aircraft, small arms and armored vehicles, which have given rise to several well-known enterprises of local players. Of the latter, the Rover Light Armored Vehicle (LAC) was developed in a hurry and pulled from the existing inventory of Ford Canada 3-ton military trucks.

Ruskin Motor Bodies were commissioned to install a simple armored superstructure on the chassis, and the LAC was born.

Design work began in 1941 and the existing Ford trucks were the 3-ton models F60L and F60S. The armor layout is as simple as possible, and the angled surfaces provide ballistic protection against small arms fire (but little else). The leaf-spring 4x4 wheel arrangement was retained, and the operator consisted of 5 people - driver, vehicle commander, two full-time machine gunners and a radio operator - in confined combat conditions.

The superstructure includes the driver's and commander's front windows, and the underside of the hull has hatches for entry and exit. Additional hatches are located above the driver and commander positions. Headlights buried in the bow provide illumination in low-light environments.

Armor protection is 16mm thick and armament consists of a 0.303" Vickers machine gun, usually paired with a 0.303 BREN Light Machine Gun (LMG). Power is provided by an original Ford V-8 gasoline engine with 95 horsepower.

Ultimately, a total of 238 design examples were produced and put into service in 1942. However, production ended in 1943 as Australians now benefited from surplus army equipment procured from American factories.

As a result, the LAC never took part in combat duty in World War I and was relegated to the Australian mainland for training.

This work resulted in two different variants - the 5.2-ton "Mk 1" (40 vehicles) and the 5-ton "Mk 2" (198 vehicles). They're built on the Ford F60L and F60S chassis, respectively, so the Mk 1 is slightly longer at 20 feet than the Mk 2 at 18.3 feet.

Both designs are the same width and height, 7.6 feet and 7 feet, respectively.

Specification

Basic

Roles

Dimensions

Performance

Performance

for everyone else in our database)

Armor

2,500 x 7.7mm ammo (if equipped with MG).

Changes