Alvis Stalwart
The Alvis Stalwart HMLC (High Mobile Load Carrier) is an amphibious truck of the British Army .
After the Korean War, English tank soldiers demanded a very robust, all-terrain and buoyant supply vehicle. At that time they had suffered from permanent supply difficulties and out of necessity they had stormed off Centurion tanks and converted them into supply vehicles.
The Coventry-based company Alvis took up the suggestions and developed it at its own expense - there was no order with a military claim - with the equivalent of around € 5.5 million, on the basis of their FV 600 series ( Alvis Saracen , Alvis Saladin and Alvis Salamander ), the stalwart.
The development work and subsequent troop trials in England, Germany and Yemen lasted from 1959 to 1966. In that year the Stalwart Mk.I (FV 620) was introduced into the British Army. Alvis also tried to drive sales to friendly states by offering the vehicle in a variety of variants.
After the first 15 pure test vehicles with the chassis numbers PV 1 to PV 15, the introduced Stalwart Mk.1 and Mk.2 were only available in the versions supply vehicle (FV620 and FV622), Artillery Protze and tractor with Atlas or Hiab crane (FV623) as well as workshop and rescue vehicles (FV624) (also with crane). From the start of series production in 1966 until production was discontinued in April 1971, 1,110 Stalwart were built. 125 of them belonged to the Mk.1 series. Of the 970 Mk.2 Stalwart only 24 were sold to foreign buyers. These included the Federal Republic of Germany (2), Austria (3), Sweden (18) and Thailand (1). There was no major export order to other customer countries.
In 1981 the serviceability of these vehicles was drastically changed. Due to the introduction of new techniques, especially through the improvement of bridge building measures by pioneers with bridge- layers, pontoon or transfer vehicles, the amphibious ability of the stalwart was no longer required. Floating drives and steering systems were removed from the vehicles and scrapped. The stalwart was now one of many off-road trucks. In 1993 the last stalwart was retired. The BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) has been selling these vehicles to private customers since 1988.
In the spring of 1999 the last two stalwart of the BAOR were auctioned in Mönchengladbach.
Technical data STALWART HMLC Mk.2
.JPG)
- Length 6.35 m
- Width 2.62 m
- Height 2.40 m (with crane, folded) 3.30 m
- Track width 2.40 m
- Wheelbase 1.53 m + 1.53 m
- Ground clearance 0.42 m
- Weight empty 8,636 kg, with crane 9,938 kg
- Loaded weight 14,224 kg, with a crane 15,554 kg
- Vmax (land) 64 km / h, Vmax (water) 10 km / h
- Range max. 640 km
- Engine: Rolls Royce B81-Mk8B / 2 8 cyl. In-line engine / Otto with 6.522 cm³ / 220 PS
- Consumption 71 liters / 100 km
- Tires 14.00 × 20.
