T69 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage
The T69 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage combined the body of a M8 light armoured car with a Maxson turret carrying four .50in machine guns, but only one pilot vehicle was produced.
When work first began on the M8 armoured car one of the requirements was that the design could be adapted for use as a anti-aircraft vehicle, armed with a powered gun turret. This project was recommended on 17 December 1942 and approved on 31 December, by which time the M8 was already in production (although the first production vehicles had yet to be delivered).
The task of producing the T69 was given to W.L. Maxson, an experienced builder of powered turrets. The normal 37mm turret was removed from a sample M8 and replaced with a Maxson quadruple .50in machine gun turret. This had 360 degree traverse, and could move at up to 60 degrees per second. The guns could reach from -10 to +85 degrees and had a Navy Mk IX reflex gun sight. Unlike the M8, which had a manually rotated turret, the T69’s turret was power operated.
The pilot vehicle reached the Aberdeen proving grounds in May 1943. Initial tests showed that the gun mount trunnions and the sight brackets needed strengthening, as did the mechanism for discarding expended cartridges and links. Maxson made the required changes, and the vehicle then went to Camp Davis, North Carolina, to be tested by the Antiaircraft Artillery Board. There it was tested against the M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage and M17 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, two very similar vehicles that carried Maxson turrets on M3 and M5 half tracks. The T69 didn’t emerge well from these tests – the half tracks were found to be more mobile, with more effective gun fire. As a result the board decided that the T69 didn’t meet the requirements of the Antiaircraft Command and on 23 March 1944 the Ordnance Committee cancelled the project.
Stats
Production:
Hull Length: 197in
Hull Width: 100in
Height: 90in
Crew: 4
Weight: 17,140lb
Engine: 110hp Herculies JXD 6 cylinder engine
Max Speed: 55mph
Max Range: 250 miles
Armament: Four .5in machine guns in powered turret
Armour:
Ford M8 and M20 – The US Army’s Standard Armoured Car of WWII, David Doyle.
A pictorial history of the M8 armoured car and M20 utility vehicle, both of which saw service in Italy, Normandy and north-western Europe and to a lesser extent in the Pacific. Very good material on the development of the vehicle, and close up pictures of development and test vehicles as well as modern survivors, along with a useful chapter of pictures of the vehicle in service. Probably aimed more at the modeller than the historian, and will provide many useful details of otherwise hard to examine areas
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How to cite this article:
Rickard, J (5 January 2023), T69 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage , http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_T69_MGMC.html
