Lanchester Armoured Car

[David]

The Lanchester car of 1914 was a well-designed, beautifully running, but in many ways unconventional vehicle. Based on the designs - fully supported by test research - of the great Dr F. W. Lanchester, the cars bearing his name were eminently suitable for conversion to armoured cars and, in fact, Lanches­ters were the only cars, beside the Rolls­Royce, of the turreted pattern to be built in quantity for the Royal Naval Air Service Armoured Car Division. Several 25-h.p. and 38-h.p. Lanches­ter touring cars were based at Dunkirk with Commander C. R. Samson's force by December 1914 and also one 38-h.p. Lanchester armoured car. Unfortunately, this vehicle has not been identified - it may have been one of the early open top improvised types - but it is likely that all the Lanchesters stood out well in comparison with most of the other touring cars and light lorries in the varied collection of vehicles held by the R.N.A.S. at Dunkirk. Certain it is, however, that a proto­type turreted pattern Lanchester armoured car was built by the early part of December 1914. This car closely foreshadowed in appearance the vehicles which were to go into service later, except that it lacked mudguards and equipment such as unditching boards and did not have electric lighting. The principal, and, indeed, the only, major change made between the pro­totype - which was built on a standard 38-h.p. chassis - and the first car of the production series which appeared about January or February 1915 was in the suspension. Rudge Whitworth twin wheels were fitted at the rear instead of singles. These were detachable wire­spoke wheels with wide rims which carried two tyres as opposed to the normal singles which were still fitted at the front. The Lanchester cantilever rear springs - semi-elliptic leaf type - were duplicated and the front cantilever suspension was reinforced by shock absorbers-coil springs in vertical tubes, the tops of which were attached to the upper part of the main body frame structure. The Lanchester suspension had the great merit of being very much easier on tyre wear than that of the Rolls-Royce armoured cars. The mechanical layout of the Lanchester, with the engine beside the driver's feet, made possible a more sloping and better protected bonnet in the armoured car than was practicable with more conventional cars. The low centre of gravity also made them very stable. The turret and fighting compartment of the Lanchester were almost identical to the turreted Rolls-Royce, as were the rear platform and stowage boxes (although the latter do not appear to have been fitted to some of the earliest Lanchesters). Apart from the modifications mentioned, the 38-h.p. chassis used for the Lanchester armoured cars was standard. The six-cylinder, 4.8-litre engine (R.A.C. rating 39 h.p.) developed 65 b.h.p. at 2200 r.p.m.; the gear-box was a three-speed epicyclic type and transmission was by worm drive to the rear axle. As an armoured car weighing between four and five tons the top speed was about 50 m.p.h. The crew consisted of three or four men and the armament was one Vickers-Maxim machine-gun mounted in the turret, although a Lewis light machine-gun was usually also carried, stowed inside the car. Thirty-six Lanchester armoured cars were completed by the end of March 1915 and were used to equip three squadrons of the R.N.A.S. All of these squadrons were in France by May and one of them later served with the Belgian Army. Later in 1915, twenty Lanchester armoured cars - apparently the greater part of the equipment of two squadrons which, because of the trench warfare situation, were by then inactive - were sent to the Russians. It was proposed that these cars should later be taken over by the Russian expeditionary force under the command of Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson. This force had as its nucleus both in personnel and equipment the Lanchester squadron which had been supporting the Belgian Army and was supplemented by a heavy squadron of the R.N.A.S. and extra transport, many of the service vehicles being on Lanchester chassis. The expeditionary force disembarked at Alexandrovsk (near the North Cape) in January 1916. After an immediate set-back, when the cars had to be sent back to the United Kingdom for repair to damage caused by frost and a storm en route, the armoured car force operated in support of the Russians through 1916 and 1917 until the Revolution. From the Arctic Circle, the force was sent down to the Caucasus in June 1916, from where detachments pushed down into Turkey and into Persia. Withdrawn from this area, the R.N.A.S. force was sent via the north shore of the Black Sea to support the Russians in Roumania and in Galicia (south Poland) where they were in action before the end of the year. They continued to bolster the Russian armies until the outbreak of the Revolution in November 1917 made further support of no avail. The twenty Lanchester armoured cars (referred to above) sent to the Russians in 1915 do not appear to have been made available to the R.N.A.S. force when it was in Russia. Some or all of these cars differed from the others in that they lacked the lockers over the rear wheels and had a small square cupola added on top of the turret. A few other Lanchester armoured cars beyond the original thirty-six appear to have been built, although the details are uncertain. In December 1916 however, the Lanchester Motor Company was asked to give a quotation for supplying a complete set of armour for one of the armoured cars damaged in the fighting in Roumania. The quotation given (for £198 - delivery by the end of January 1917) had to be based on Beardmore 8-mm. plate for vertical surfaces because the original slightly thicker type was no longer available. The Lanchester armoured cars stood up magnificently to the terrific wear and tear imposed by the appalling roads - or absence of them - in the Russian campaign and gave very little mechanical trouble. Some of these cars must almost without doubt have covered more ground on active service than any other fighting vehicles of the First World War. - From B.T. White: "Tanks and other Armored Fighting Vehicles 1900-1918". Published 1970.