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The Guy Armoured Car was a turret armed armour cars produced in Britain just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and which became the basis of the more successful Humber Armoured Car.
The Guy Armoured Car marked a major shift in the British Army’s attitude towards reconnaissance vehicles. For most of the 1930s the focus was on using light tanks for most reconnaissance duties. The only role for an armoured car was for long range road based reconnaissance, which could be carried out by vehicles such as the Morris CS9 armoured reconnaissance car. This was a two wheel drive vehicle, with a riveted hull, and crew of four – driver and radio operator in the hull and commander and gunner in the open topped turret.
By 1938 the War Office decided that there was in fact a role for a more heavily armed wheeled reconnaissance vehicle. The new machines were initially designated as Tank, Light, Wheeled, suggesting that they were seen as a cheaper alternative to the light tank, rather than a more capable replacement for the Morris armoured car. The new vehicles would be based on one of the new generation of four-wheel drive artillery tractors being built by Guy, Karrier and Morris, carrying a body designed by Woolwich. After tests on modified rear-engined versions of each of the tractor chassis, Guy Motors of Wolverhampton were chosen to build the pilot vehicles. Five prototype vehicles were built in 1938 using mild steel. They were based on the Guy Quad-Ant artillery tractor, and known as the Guy Quad armoured car.
The pilot vehicle had used riveted construction, but Guy suggested using welding for the production models. In order to make the job of the welder easier, Guy designed a special rotary jig that could carry the hull as it was being built. This would move the required part of the vehicle into a position the welder could easily reach, making it much quicker to build each hull. After the war Guy Motors were rewarded by the Royal Commission for Awards to Inventors for this development. The 15mm thick armour being used was alarmingly fragile before it was assembled, but once the complete hull had been welded together this problem disappeared.
A number of Guy armoured cars were sent to a trials unit in the Middle East in 1940, where they didn’t perform well. There were problems with the axles, differential gears and wheel bearings, which were prone to failure. The chassis frame was vulnerable to twisting, which then bend the selector rods and made it impossible to change gear. Most of these problems were fixed on the Humber Mk I, which used a different chassis, engine and gears.
Guy Motors built 101 examples of the Guy Armoured Car. It came in two versions. The first fifty, the Mark I, were armed with two Vickers machine guns. The remaining vehicles were armed with Besa machine guns (one 15mm and one 7.92mm), and were designated as the Mark IA. The vehicle weighted just over 5 tones and had a good top speed of 40mph.
By the autumn of 1940 it was clear that Guy Motors didn’t have the capacity to build all of the vehicles it was committed to. As a result production of the armoured car was moved to the Rootes Group, where it became the Armoured Car, Humber Mk I. Guy concentrated on building trucks, artillery tractors and civilian buses.
Guy continued to produce the armoured hulls for the first 140 Humber Mk Is, which were almost identical to the Guy Mark IA. After that a modified design was produced by the Rootes Group.
Six of them were used by Phantom Squadron in France in 1939-40. This was a liaison unit attached to General Head Quarters and run by the Royal Signals Corps. Its role was to monitor enemy and allied communications and pass that information directly back to GHQ, so the commander-in-chief had a accurate picture of what was happening. Phantom went on to serve in the Middle East, Italy and North-Western Europe.
In September 1940 four of the Guy armoured cars went to the Morris Mission, which provided escorts for the King, Queen and Prime Minister and was named after its commander, Lt. W.A. Morris. They were manned by crews from the Royal Northamptonshire Yeomanry. They remained in use on Royal protection duties until 1942. Churchill also used a Guy armoured car to tour London during the Blitz.
Production: 101
Hull Length: 13ft 6in
Hull Width: 6ft 8in
Height: 7ft 6in
Crew:
Weight: 5.75 tons
Engine:
Max Speed: 35mph
Max Range: 210 miles
Armament:
Armour: 15mm (thickest)