Posted by Brian A. on Tuesday, December 05, 2000 at 23:13:38:
Knowing that this forum is due to be refreshed, if there is interest I could repost this again in the new forum.
Just some basic information for the readers on this forum regarding the Swamp Fox II project. I was fortunate enough to be entrusted with a final draft copy of "Operation Swamp Fox II, Volume III, Engineering Test Team Report" prepared by 'Wilson, Nuttall, Raimond Engineers, Inc.', dated 8 March 1963. This report includes brief summaries of the vehicles utilized in the project, several of which would be of interest to this forum.
For a short history on the project itself, the testing took place from September through October, 1962 in the Republic of Panama. The objective was to test various off-road military and commercial vehicles in different areas to study the problems of vehicle mobility in tropical environments. Forty vehicles took part in the exercises, including twelve tracked and twenty-eight wheeled vehicles (five were support and thirty-five were test vehicles).
In the interest of brevity, I will limit it to the Dodge vehicles listed and their significant modifications. These included: a)one M37, modified with 14.00 x 18 Widebase NDCC Tires and Ackerman Power Assisted Steering; b)one WM300 w/w, modified with 46 x (18F & 24R) - 16R Terra Tires and Ackerman Power Assisted Steering and; c)three W300's (one gas, two diesel) w/w, modified with the same 46 x (18F & 24R) - 16R Terra Tires as the WM300 and also utilizing Ackerman Power Assisted Steering. Sorry Aaron, there is no mention or pictures of any crew-cabs being utilized in this project.
Hopefully this winter I will be able to put together a webpage devoted to disseminating more of the information from this report as well as displaying some of the many photographs taken during the project which were entrusted to me as well.