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| Humber Scout Car Jan Hyrman As the Service Instruction Book says, "The Car, Scout, Humber, I is a light, fast, armoured vehicle, designed for reconnaissance, and for use as a communicating link between units". First produced in 1942, the Humber Scout Car was a vehicle designed to similar specifications as the Daimler Scout Car, which became widely used by the British Army since its standardization in 1939. The Daimler vehicles, however, could not be produced in sufficient numbers, hence an addition was sought for. In comparison to the Daimler Scout Car, the Humber Mk. I design was larger and heavier, weighing 3,444 kgs (7,593 lb.), with a more spacious fighting compartment ? Mk. II was heavier due to thicker belly armour. The vehicle was 384 centimetres long, just over 183 centimetres wide and 212 centimetres high (the Daimler Scout Car or 'Dingo' was 320 cm long, 170 cm wide and 150 cm high, but weighed nearly the same due to the 30mm front armour compared to Humber?s maximum thickness of 14mm). The Humber Scout Car had a four-speed (plus reverse) gearbox and six-cylinder side-valve liquid-cooled petrol engine (4,085 cc) mounted in the rear giving the vehicle 87 h.p. at 3,300 r.p.m. and a top speed of 62 miles per hour or nearly 100 kilometres per hour (normal road speed was about 50 kilometres per hour as per the service instructions). Road range was over 340 kilometres. Front wheels had independent suspension, rear wheels had semi-elliptic leaf springs. Four-wheel drive could be engaged at the driver's discretion, for travelling on roads and similar surfaces a more economical rear-wheel drive was available. The vehicle was capable of crossing obstacles up to 35 cm high or ford over 90cm of water, the ground clearance was just over 24 centimetres. The compact and well-balanced hull was welded and armour plated, the entrance and exit for commander and crew was by means of two sliding hatches on the roof, each on either side of the vehicle above the seats. The hull also had two doors, the hull door at the left-hand side plus an escape door on the upper plate on the driver's side. Multiple visors and hinged look-outs all-round were provided for the crew?s visibility, with horizontal slits providing visibility while in action, when the hinged visors had to be closed. The driver?s visor featured a brow pad, as the driver inevitably had to press his forehead against the visor for better overview of the situation in front of the vehicle through the narrow horizontal slit. It might come as a bit of a surprise to note that the service instructions specifically mention the rear-mounted engine as a feature giving the crew "improved observation facilities" ? this is mainly due to the fact that a great majority of Great War and inter-war designs had engines mounted in front of the fighting compartment, similarly to civilian cars, while both Daimler and Humber (and practically all later designs) used rear-mounted engines. |
| Three seats were provided within the fighting compartment, however, the vehicle usually carried a crew of two, the driver and the commander, who could operate the No. 19 wireless set and also the armament, consisting of one or two BREN machine guns (with 100-round drum magazines ? the standard issue vehicle had a total ammunition supply of 990 rounds per vehicle), sometimes changed for Vickers K-guns, mounted on the roof and controlled from the inside by a system of strings attached to motorcycle-like handlebars inside the vehicle. The mounting was a Parrish-Lakeman Mounting, a design originally intended as an anti-aircraft machine gun mounting for tank turrets. The peculiar mounting was deleted on later vehicles, some of which had open roofs (the machine gun would be carried loose). The vehicle was equipped with runflat tires, used for front line vehicles. These tires enabled to vehicle to continue its journey even in case of a puncture ? in the event of the tire being pierced by bullets, shrapnel or similar, a runflat tire would deflate by approximately 30 to 35 %. When deflated, it would still be capable of carrying its load to safety (safety had to lie within an approximate distance of 50 miles), the vehicle was supposed to be controllable at speeds up to 30 to 40 miles per hour or 50 to 65 kilometres per hour, still a rather decent travelling speed, but drivers were advised not to run a yard further than necessary with the tires deflated and preferrably not at speeds over 30 miles per hour. The trick was in the exceptionally stout outer cover of the tire, which allowed the vehicle to run on flat tires for up to 20 miles without the need of the tires even being checked by the R.E.M.E. workshop. Humber Scout Cars were the standard vehicles for dispatch riders of the Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade's (C.I.A.B.G.) Headquarters Squadron, the Armoured Reconnaissance Squadron, later converted into the 3rd Armoured Regiment, and reconnaissance elements of the two original armoured regiments, where they were used particularly as liaison vehicles, connecting units around the Dunkirk perimeter. The C.I.A.B.G. had 26 Humber Scout Cars at its disposal. Approximately 4,300 Humber Scout Cars Mks. I & II were built during the war, with a nearly fifty-fifty share between the two marks. The overall perception of this vehicle was not very good, particularly due to the thin armour and poor cross-country performance not only in comparison with the Daimler design, which had a good armour protection, shorter wheelbase and could be left in a hurry without any problems. Sources: Car, Scout, Humber, I (Service Instruction Book), Chief Inspector of Fighting Vehicles, 1943 Delaforce, P., Churchill?s Desert Rats: From Normandy to Berlin with the 7th Armoured Division, Sutton Publishing, 1994 P. Brown, British Armoured Car Production Figures 1945, WarWheels.Net P. Brown, British Armoured Cars in Europe ? 1944-1945, WarWheels.Net Wikipedia articles on Humber and Daimler Scout Cars |