A typical operating crew involved no fewer than eight personnel and this included a vehicle commander, the driver and several machine gun operators. The vehicle's combat weight reached 6,000lb and the overall hull had a running length of 4.1 meters, a beam of 1.9 meters and a height of 1.9 meters. Armor protection reached 5mm at the critical front facing and this was reduced to just 3mm at the rear. The engine, with the armored chassis, could reach a road speed of 25 miles-per-hour on prepared surfaces - though, as with other armored cars of the war, held little to no cross-country capability due to drive power and weight.
Brutinel headed the design and development of what became a fleet of eight Armoured Autocars and, in September of 1914, the vehicles formed the newly-minted "Automobile Machine Gun Brigade No.1" in Ottawa. The brigade would encompass all eight of the armored cars as well as eight support trucks (carrying around 20,000 rounds of ammunition) and four standard cars. These would be accompanied by 130-135 men and carry about 20 total machine guns - forming what were essentially military history's first organized mechanized fighting force. Another three batteries were established to strengthen numbers and, when British Vickers Machine Guns finally became available in quantity, they superseded the American Colt installations when possible. The Lewis Machine Gun was another option.
With development and training behind it, the brigade was shipped to Europe that October. However, by this time, the war had bogged down in the slugfest known as "trench warfare" so the once-fluid fronts became stationary bloodbaths for participants along both sides. It was only when the fortunes of war began to favor the Allies in 1918 that the vehicles' value was finally seen and the stale fronts became mobile once again.
The trucks proved reliable enough and could traverse the mess that was the European countryside as well as could be expected. Machine guns had always been great support weapons in the ground fighting but the Armoured Autocars added a mobility quality that was unmatched. However, the open-topped nature of their hull superstructures, and inherently light armor to boot, also made operating crews highly susceptible to all manner of battlefield dangers -particularly artillery and machine gun fire.
At any rate, the Germans were forced to surrender in the Armistice of November 1918 and the war finally drew to a close. The Armoured Autocars certainly played their part (eventually) and became a very notable footnote in the war. The armored car would be revisited once again in the fighting of World War 2 (1939-1945) where all-new designs would emerge - sparking a renaissance of the type that would last into the Cold War period (1947-1991).
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