16-253 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Recon Troop, 314th IR, December, 1944 Winter Offensive
Pictured to the left is Valentin Gill.
Note the bullet hole on the left-hand side of the windshield.
When asked about it by his son, Gill replied with spartan brevity:
"They shot at us... We shot back."

Information

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[Flying10uk]

Any ideas on what's rolled up on the bonnet? Would it be camouflage netting?

[fjruple]

The canvas on the hood of the Jeep looks like a command tent. The wooden box on the front is probably for the tent stakes. The tent poles are probably folded in the center of the rolled up tent. The pile caps being worn are interesting. I thought they did not come into general use until the Korean War.

Cheers

--fjruple

[Bill Hollinger]

Ford GPW. Not often you see a radio jeep with an M2 mounted in it. In fact M2s were rarely mounted in jeeps as their recoil will break apart the MG frame mount.

[Sentryduty]

In fact M2s were rarely mounted in jeeps as their recoil will break apart the MG frame mount.

I always wondered about that, the M2 is not really a low recoil weapon system.

[browningautorifle]

That's strange though, we had MG platoon for years in the CDN army and part of it was Jeeps with .50 or .30 mounted. Never heard of any problems. Mind you, it wasn't that pattern of jeep either.

[Sentryduty]

I understand from testing of the current (then brand new) Mercedes G-Wagon with a .50 cal on the roof turret resulted in cracked sheet metal. Our patrol variants did only mount the C6 GPMG during my time.

I figure someone had HUMVEE 50 cal envy and wanted to see what would fit.

The current HUMVEE makes a decent gun truck, (although crap to ride in) the Merc G-wagon, not so much, it's more of a nice Tim Hortons coffee runner in my experience.

[browningautorifle]

the Merc G-wagon,

I wondered about them... Our jeeps during the time(about 1964) was the CJ type...someone will tell us the military number for it...

[fjruple]

Jim--

I believe they were the M38A1. The US had three different versions, the M38A1, I believe the M38A1C which had a splint windshield and folding tail gate for use of the 106mm Recoilless Rifle which is the commercial CJ5 and an ambulance version which is the CJ6 I forget the military designation.

fjruple

[Flying10uk]

Is that another weapon mount on the right side of the windscreen or is it simply a post on the side of the road?

Could someone, please, clear up a question about the Humvee which was suggested to me a long time ago and has remained unanswered; seeing Sentryduty mention it reminded me. It was suggested to me that the Humvee is too large to fit into a C130 (Hercules) transport aircraft and that a larger aircraft is required to airfreight it. I would have thought that the Humvee would have been designed to fit into a C130?