The 'Tractor Artillery (Aust) No.3' was based upon a standard civilian lorry chassis, fitted with all wheel drive and equipped with a modified driving cabin and special rear bodywork to house ammunition, gun stores and the gun crew. This is the vehicle that Australia 's artillery regiments took to the Middle East and Malaya in the first couple of years of the Second World War. They performed well, but the rigours of front line service soon took their toll.

In the period between the first and second world wars, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) slowly began to move from horse drawn power to mechanisation.

And it was slow, right up to the 1930s the majority of field artillery was horse drawn, with the occasional tantalising glimpse of a mechanised vehicle.

Two such glimpses were the procurement of Thornycroft ‘Hathi’ all wheel drive tractors from the United Kingdom in the 1920s, and the acquisition of Fordson agricultural tractors for use as gun towing vehicles during the latter part of the 1930s.

In the late 1930s Army introduced a mechanisation policy that articulated a requirement to purchase mainly Ford and Chevrolet powered vehicles.

As a result the ADF’s first purpose-built artillery tractors were on Ford chassis. The ‘Tractor Artillery LP1’ was the first of a line-up of 10 different, purpose built Australian artillery tractors that would be introduced during the course of the late 1930s and the Second World War. All utilised Ford and Chevrolet chassis (and some cabins) procured from overseas, with locally designed and manufactured bodywork and all were all wheel drive, either 4x4 or 6x6.

Two distinct types of truck formed the basis of the 10 purpose built Australian Artillery tractors.

The first was the ‘modified conventional’ type (MC), a conventional civilian truck chassis and modified cabin bodywork made by Ford. MCs were equipped with an all-wheel drive system devised by the Marmon-Herrington Company. Commonly called ‘Marmon-Herringtons’ or just ‘Marmons’. They were the first of the purpose built Australian tractors and were used by the 2 nd Australian Imperial Force in the Middle East, Greece, Syria, Malaya and various islands in the Pacific such as Nauru. These tractors did a superb job hauling guns, gunners and their equipment about the countryside, but the rigours of operational service soon took their toll.

In 1941, the Australian Defence Force supplied Australian troops in the Middle East with the second type of truck, the Canadian Military Pattern (CMP). Designed as all wheel drive military vehicles from the outset, these were Spartan in both appearance and appointments, but tough, rugged and dependable. Two manufacturers, Ford and Chevrolet, built the trucks according very nicely with the pre-war mechanisation policy!

The MC and CMP makes of truck shared a very high degree of parts interchangeability, simplifying parts supply.

In total three artillery tractors were built on CMP chassis, the No.6, 8 and 9. The first, the No.6, was a medium wheelbase 4x4 with bodywork to house the crew and equipment for a 40-millimetre Bofors light anti-aircraft gun, including the spare barrel. The crew sat in their own compartment at the front of the body, immediately behind but separate from the driving cabin, while the stores and ammunition were housed in lockers in the rear half of the body that were accessible from the outside.

The No.8 tractor was the first of the Australian field artillery tractors to integrate the driving cabin with the gun crew cabin. They were very much like a military version of a four door station wagon, with access to the storage area in the rear from within the cabin, or via lockers along each side.

An improved design, the No.9 tractor, followed shortly afterwards, with production overlapping. The No.9 featured a stepped roof line for greater height and crew comfort, and internal stowage for gun stores and equipment. The No.9 also had a much wider rear access. All three CMP based tractors saw operational service during the Second World War.

While the earlier MC truck became obsolescent during the latter part of the Second World War, and were disposed of post-war, the CMP types all remained in service until the late 1960s.

The 'Tractor Artillery (Aust) No.8' was a Canadian Military Pattern chassis with an Australian designed and manufactured all-steel, integrated body to house the entire crew. The design allowed access into the rear stowage area from within the body. These purpose built military tractors remained in service into the late 1960s.