Bren / Universal Carriers in WW2 German service.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Some time ago this subject came up with a couple of vehicle buff friends.

One subject was the use of thee vehicles as a "scaled-up" version of the cute little "Goliath" remote-controlled demolition vehicle.

The general drift was that the Germans had quite a collection of these tracked vehicles, collected in France, Belgium, North Africa and the Eastern front.

A lot of these Carriers appeared in German service as tractors, rocket or anti-tank gun carriers, etc. The story goes that someone had the bright idea that the "scruffy" ones might make a good basis for single-use, one-way explosives delivery vehicles.. Radio or wire-guided. Any German fitter / mechanic who had worked on the Pz 1 series would have been familiar with the Carden-Lloyd suspension system of the Carriers.

So, does anyone have any more information confirming or disproving this remote-controlled carrier demolition vehicle scenario?

I also mentioned Soviet Carriers because it turned out that Canada shipped a couple of thousand of them to "somewhere in Russia".

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Wow, it's quiet in here.....

[browningautorifle]

it's quiet in here.....

I've noticed that too.

[eb in oregon]

Apparently it is quiet, I just stumbled into here. However I do have an opinion based on mechanical and fabrication training and experience. The German's used pretty much everything they captured, to include who knows how many Bren Gun Carriers.

However there is a vast mechanical difference between a small vehicle such as the Goliath (small, not too much material involved) and a Bren Carrier. Manual controls require some sort of servo (hydraulic or electric) and that requires significant engineering and material effort to make even a wire controlled vehicle serviceable enough to crawl over a few hundred yards of ground. So, no, the idea may have been entertained, but rejected due to the impossibility of receiving such resources for any number of vehicles in my opinion.