Introducing the Standard Beaverette.
Don't let that vaguely competent appearance fool you. These things began life as a chop job of a riveted hull section applied over a commercially available vehicle chassis - making them, technically speaking (ho ho), a civilian built commercial vehicle modified for military use. A Technical, in the real sense.
But like much of what Britain was shitting steel plate and Bren guns on come the dark days of 1940, the thing was abject nonsense. It was heavy, for starters. Taking a commercial vehicle and slapping two tons of superstructure on top didn't do anything to help its handling. That armour, by the by, was backed by three inch planks of oak - if these things had ever come under fire heavier than rifles, the crew would be climbing out looking like gory pincushions covered in splinters. But if you're wondering how it gets worse? Driving this thing wasn't a one man job. There was a guy behind the wheel, and he had an observer who'd tell him about road conditions, upcoming traffic, and even suggest when to begin making a turn. The Beaverette was so poorly designed that the driver had to base his steering on, quote, "observations made something like [30 feet] back."
Nonetheless, with heavy industry struggling to keep up with the demands of rearming Britain after the loss of almost anything noteworthy in Dunkirk, there were 2,800 of these godawful fucking things built. They didn't stop manufacturing them until 1942! Mostly used by the RAF and Home Guard, some would still end up in Army service, though they were seen mostly as training vehicles by the stage they started to see widespread use.
A Technical that was actually born of a pressing military need which went through four different versions, each of which was simply shite in a different way. The Standard Beaverette. The worst Technical in history.
Today I learned!
Produced by New Zealand Railways workshops in the Hutt Valley during 1941 when the threat of Japanese invasion was very present and, rather than just being plausible, extremely likely. This was the era that gave rise to the famed Bob Semple tractor tank, in the spirit of, "Well, we have to do bloody something, because I'm not standing on the beach as the Imperial Japanese Army marches up to plant the rising sun over Wellington, waiting for British equipment that's never coming."
These used salvaged ship armour from the ships Port Bowen and Mokoia which was slapped on top of variously Ford 3/4 or 1-ton trucks. 208 of them were built before production ceased in 1942 - by which point Australian and American supplies were beginning to reach Kiwi ports in sufficient quantities to phase out these abjectly insane British designs from service. Nonetheless, the Beaverette (NZ) did have a couple of slight advantages over the British designs.
They were envisioned immediately as 'lightly armoured fighting vehicles' and carried a crew of four, which included the rather grandly named 'vehicle commander' position - a glorified observer who was as helplessly trapped in this contraption as his mates - and a loader, who presumably freed up the gunner to actually shoot at things without having to act as lookout for the harried driver. You'll also notice the fact that an entire panel of the armour plate folds down at the front, affording the driver the luxury of actually seeing where roads, enemies, and other baffled New Zealand drivers were at any given moment. Proof positive, one supposes, that you can polish a turd.
Did they see combat? Thank fuck they did not. Much like the Bob Semple tractor tank would never have to brave enemy fire, these monstrous hodgepodge technicals were relegated largely to training vehicles (and even then, not for very long) before being handed to the RNZAF for airfield defence.
