Relic from the troubles?

[Peter Laidler]

Those Humber pigs all started their lives as the Humber 1 ton XX BK XX serial number trucks that are shown elsewhere. Converted to semi AFV's by the big Base Workshops. Not a new idea as we had some similar, but Bedford QL's and RL's converted for use in Malaya and Aden.

Eventually the Humber pigs became just too heavy for the engines to cope with all of the extra armour - especially the bar armour to defeat (?) the RPG's. Mechanical spares were almost non existent and they soldiered on by stripping the wounded pigs for spares. That's why so many carcases ended up as hard targets on the firle firing ranges. I say 'hard' targets. They were hardly hard but they would easily stop small arms stuff.

Never drove one or even the truck version. A lot of these 50's era 1 tonners plus the 3 ton Commer tippers (XX BH XX type numbers) were taken to Australia and left there during the 60's clear-ups at Maralingra. I saw a couple that had been civilianised