'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎49r] (102/294)

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which had 750 x 20 tyres. Furthermore the "well”-shaped body of the
6-wheeler made it unsuitable for carrying donkeys. The four-wheeler
could carry 13 men and the driver or, if the seats were removed, about
8 donkeys. On the road it could travel comfortably with a column of
light trucks but its cross-country performance was not so good. The
Morris 2-tonner, again with 1050 x 16 tyres, was generally a more useful
vehicle than the 30cwt, and in the later stages proved most suitable to
act as a ’’RODEX" fitted with W/T to work on the move. The 3-tonners
were mostly Leylands or Guys fitted for special purposes, such as
workshops etc., and were seldom used for troop carrying owing to their
slowness and poor cross-country performance on tracks. Trailers were
found to be generally unsuited to the twisty hill roads and those which
carried such apparatus as an R/3. Fd. Coy. Air Compressor etc. reduced
the speed of a 3-ton convoy by as much as 5 m.p.h.
ORGANIZATION OF TACTICAL TRANSPORT
Only two units - 8th Hussars and Bedfs. & Herts. - had sufficient
First Line transport permanently allotted to them to carry lOQ?o of their
personnel, and in few cases was so high a degree of mobility actually
required. The number of vehicles required varied considerably with the
type of role filled by the unit as well as with its fighting strength.
The ideal was achieved if all personnel not employed on guards, picquets,
camp duties etc. could be carried in M.T. and still leave sufficient
vehicles for machine-guns, mortars, ammunition, food, blankets or
greatcoats (for cold nights in the hills), sufficient water to rofil each
water-bottle once, and the pack donkeys. Some typical motor transport
figures are given in Appendix VII.
In some cases R.A.S.C. Mechanical Transport detachments were more
or less permanently allotted to battalions, living with them - except
for periodical reliefs for mechanical maintenance purposes - and
becoming to all intents and purposes a part of their battalions. In
other cases ’’stand—by" parties of reserve M.T. were maintained at suitable
R.A.S.C. centres and allotted as required. The size of these parties
varied from two 15—cwt trucks, to carry either a section with some
stores or two sections without stores, to a complete "company lift".
Both systems worked well and varied according to local conditions, the
essential being to organize the transport on a tactical unit basis,
the most suitable being a "company lift" capable of sub-division when
required down to sections.
ORGANIZATION OF M.T. COLUMNS
The protection of M.T. columns is dealt with from the tactical side
in Chapter 14, and it is only necessary here to refer to their general
organization. Three tjqpes of columns had to be considered, ohose
composed exclusively of W.D. vehicles, those with hired vehicles^mixed
with military ones, and escorted convoys composed chiefly of civilian
cars, lorries and buses. The following rules were evolved for .applica
tion to the first type, and to a lesser degree to the second as well,
but never became much more than a pious hope so far as the third was
concerned. For the latter the best ingredients for a successful journey
were the organization of vehicles into groups under an officer, the
leading of each group by a military vehicle, an inspection to eliminate
overloaded or obviously inefficient vehicles, the abandonmen o ve c.es
which stopped from pure negligence - such as petrol shortage - and, so
far as it was possible, a preliminary explanation to the drivers as to
what was expected of them.