Fox Armoured Car

The Fox Armoured Car was a wheeled armoured fighting vehicle produced by Canada in the Second World War.

This article is about the World War II Canadian vehicle. For the post-war British vehicle, see Fox Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle. For the German/American NBC reconnaissance vehicle, see M93 Fox.
Fox Armoured Car
Fox Mark I
TypeArmoured car
Place of originCanada
Service history
Used byBritish Commonwealth and associated foreign units during the Second World War, Portugal, Netherlands and Indonesia post war.
WarsSecond World War
Portuguese Colonial War
Specifications
Mass8 t
Length4.6 m (15 ft 1 in)
Width2.3 m (7 ft 7 in)
Height2.4 m (8 ft)
Crew4
Armourup to 15 mm (0.59 in)
Main
armament
0.50 in (12.7 mm) M1919 Browning machine gun
Secondary
armament
0.30 in (7.62 mm) M2 Browning machine gun
EngineGMC 6-cylinder petrol
Power/weight?
SuspensionWheel 4x4
Operational
range
250 km (160 mi)
Maximum speed 71 km/h (44 mph)

History

Built by General Motors, Canada, based on a construction of the British Humber Armoured Car Mk III, adapted to a Canadian Military Pattern truck (CMP) chassis. The turret was manually traversed and fitted with 0.30 in (7.6 mm) and 0.50 in (13 mm) Browning machine guns.[lower-alpha 1] The four man crew consisted of the vehicle commander, the driver, a gunner and a wireless operator. 1,506 vehicles were manufactured.

It saw operations in Italy, UK and India. Among its users was Polish 15th Pułk Ułanów Poznańskich ("Poznań Uhlans Regiment"), fighting in Italy in 1943–1944.[1] After the Second World War many of them went to the Portuguese Army, which used them from 1961 to 1975 in counterinsurgency in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique. The Netherlands, faced with a shortage of Humber armoured cars for use in the Dutch East Indies, acquired 39 Foxes, 34 of which were fitted with Humber Mk. IV turrets (which had a 37 mm gun). The resulting hybrid vehicle, called "Humfox", was immediately successful and popular, and some were passed to the Indonesian Army after independence.

Former operators

Surviving vehicles
  • Karl Smith Collection in Tooele, Utah.
  • Shopland Collection, Clevedon, Somerset, UK.
  • Robert Gill Collection - three, one displayed in Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna)
  • Cavalry Tank Museum, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India
  • The Ontario Regiment RCAC Museum, Oshawa, Canada
  • Canada War Museum, Ottawa, Canada

See also

Notes
  1. The Humber had a 7.92 mm and 15 mm Besa machine guns

References
  1. Magnuski, Janusz (1998), Wozy bojowe Polskich Sił Zbrojnych 1940-1946 (in Polish), Wydawnictwo Lampart, p. 198
External image
the Fox Armoured Car
image icon WWII photo
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