HALF TRACK FIRE ENGINE

[Bob Womack]

When I was a fireman on a mountain in Georgia in the 1970s we had a large Army tank truck, perhaps an M49, and a pair of brush trucks based on Dodge WCs with tanks and pumps. We would have killed for a half track-based brush truck because so many of the locations we worked were right on the ragged edge of inaccessible by vehicles due to terrain.


Bob

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[Sunray]

Probably a dandy thing to have when fighting a forest fire. Basically a 6x6 truck with a track.

[Peter Laidler]

We had some DUKW's based at one of the off shore islands in Singapore, I think it was Palau Brani with the ±RCT water transport blokes. They would swim to Singapore every couple of years for an overhaul at 40 Base Workshop but every year fewer abd fewer would make it BOTH ways. Eventually there was a line of them in the 'cast' vehicle park that were sold on as scrap. They couldn't drive on the Singapore roads for some reason. I thik that it was due to the narrow roads and dire turning circles.

We also had half tracks as REME recovery vehicles equipped with winches and cranes until about 1968 and they were replaced by the versatile 434 (M113) variant called a 434 - or to us all, the 43twice. Versatile, but alas, not as versatile as the jibbed half track for certain jobs. Reach being one shortcoming and ability to belly-out being the other