Bren LMG mount

[cliff]

Originally Posted by cletrac

The Chev Cab 12 water truck doesn't have a roof hatch and I thought all 12 cabs had them.

Cab 12's only had the hatch if it was required and not all had them.

[cletrac (RIP)]

My motley seat came in the mail today. I thought it'd arrive by courier but it came with regular mail deliveries. I put it in the back of the 2B1 and tried it out for size. I can barely squeeze my butt into the seat but then they were designed for 20 year olds. It looks like the same seat could be used on the over the shoulder mount or the straddle mount. There's the verticle pipe at the back as well as one that faces forward.

[cletrac (RIP)]

Here's a pic off ebay with a different kind of mount on a Jeep.

VERY SCARCE ORIGINAL SIGNAL CORPS PHOTO SHOWING FREE FRENCH SAS RECON AIRBORNE TROOPS IN THEIR SPECIALLY DESIGNED MB WILLYS or GPW FORD JEEP WITH BREN GUN AND TWIN VICKERS " K " or " VGO" LIGHT MACHINE GUN MOUNT PICTURED AT FLORENVILLE, BELGIUM ( south of Bastogne ) during the Battle of the Bulge by an american signal corps photographer.
THE SIDE OF THE JEEP BEARS THE CROSS OF LORRAINE INSIGNIA AND THE BUMPER IS MARKED " ORADOUR SUR GLANE " : the french town where almost 600 french civilians were murdered by the 2nd SS Division DAS REICH.

Also, but this is difficult to see on my scan, the driver wears a Denison Smock with pegasus badges applied and a captured german map case.
The door of the barn behind the jeep bears two TEXACO oil company enamel advertizing signs
A must have for the collector of french , british and belgian SAS paratrooper related items like denison smock, beret , " Who dares wins " stuff etc

[cletrac (RIP)]

I've been trying to figure out how they anchored the seat when not in use. That long hinged handle under the gun support arm hooked onto something, but what? In this motorcycle pic it's being used (circled in yellow) but what would it hook to on a truck? The seat has a pin that would have been spring loaded to stop it from rotating too. This is a pretty good LIFE pic too.
It looks like the motorcycles used the same setup as the trucks except for shorter legs on the seat. These are both Mark IV mounts.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I made up this composite drawing from some defense dept drawings to come up with a Mark IV mount for a single gun. I printed it out full size using a number of pages that I taped together and it'll make an excellent blueprint to reproduce a mount. I have the seat so I'm half way there already. If anybody wants full size drawings let me know and I'll post the images.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I looked through my anti aircraft pix to see if there was anything else I wanted to post and noticed something on this one. There's the rod that the motley hooks to to stow it when not in use just to the left of the seat. You squeeze the handle on the mount part and the spring loaded pin pulls out of the way so you can hook the two pieces together. Then you let go and the pin fits into that groove in the vertical rod and the mount is held in place. I imagine that rod could be layed down on the floor when not in use though as it would get in the way sticking up like in the pic.

[marco]

Found this photo from the 12th Manitoba Dragoons in the National Archives of Canada.

Marco