Humber Pig
The Humber FV1609 was an armored personnel carrier (MTW) and can be considered the first true British are considered the vehicle of this class in the postwar period. Due to the disintegration of the Empire and the associated colonial wars at the beginning of the 1950s, an armored combat vehicle was urgently required to protect the British soldiers, which should offer at least ten people protection from infantry ammunition and fragmentation effects.
Vehicle manufacturer Humber had delivered thousands of all-terrain 4 × 4 1-ton FV1600 trucks to the British Army, which were new and unused in depots. The new MTW was built on this basis at GKN-Sankey and Roots in Manchester. Using 6 and 8 mm armor plates, a relatively tall vehicle body was welded together and simply screwed onto the chassis of the Humber truck. The result wasn't a real tank, but the requirements were met. 1700 of these MTWs were created when recycling the 1-ton trucks. The new Humber FV1609 passed its acid test in the Malaya conflict in 1956 and in Cyprus.
It was soon given the name " Humber Pig " by its users . Whether its pig-like appearance or the driving style that took some getting used to due to the overloaded chassis was decisive for this nickname is still controversial today.
However, its main operating period did not begin until the late 1960s with the unrest in Northern Ireland. Here it was more agile and faster than its more modern counterpart, the Armored Personnel Carrier FV603 Saracen . In several combat value increases, the armor of the Humber was adapted to the increasingly dangerous weapons of the IRA . The last version, as the FV1611 / 2/3, withstood even armor-piercing infantry ammunition. However, he was soon so overweight that increasing problems with the overstrained technology made it necessary to finally retire at the end of the 1970s.
Technical specifications
- Length: 4928 mm
- Width: 2045 mm
- Height: 2121 mm
- Weight:
- empty (FV1609 4200 kg) (FV1611 / 2/3 5270 kg)
- laden (FV1609 5640 kg) (FV1611 / 2/3 6710 kg)
- All-wheel drive 4 × 4 can be activated
- Tires: 11.00 × 20
- Engine:
- Rolls-Royce B60 No.1
- 4225 cm³, 6-cylinder in-line engine (petrol)
- 120 hp at 3750 min -1
- 5-speed manual transmission
- Vmax: 90 km / h
- Consumption: about 33 liters / 100 km
