"BLITZ BUGGIES''

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 2, 12 January 1942, Page 3

"BLITZ BUGGIES''

ARMOURED VEHICLES COMPANY'S PRODUCTION 1 Australia's output of armoured vehicles was substantially increased recently when the Ford Motor Company began the mass production of ma-chine-gun carriers, known colloquially to the Army as "blitz buggies." I't is the fourth factory the Ministry of Munitions has equipped for the assembly of machine-gun carriers. The building of the fast-moving armoured vehicles at the rate of more than 200 a month isi typical of an Australian Avar-tiine industrial attainment, the magnitude of which, according to Sir Alexander Roger, chairman of the British Tank Board, "England docs not realise, and even Australia does -not fully appreciate." Two major achievements of world importance are associated with the production of these highly useful army vehicles in Australian factories: the attainment of a rate of output comparable to British, American and German war-time standards of factory production; the invention oif an original Australian process for the manufacture of armour plate. Alloys Not Needed The story of how Australian metallurgists produced, by a revolution- | ary process, a bullet-proof steel, which is cheaper to make than any armour plate yet made in Britain or the United States, is one of the many romances of Australian Avartime industry. The first bullet-re-sisting steel for Australian machinegun carriers was made in Newcastle by standard methods requiring the importation of a number of alloys, particularly nickel. A year ago when the difficulties of importing these expensive alloys became acute, the chiefs of the Ministry ef Munitions summoned a conference of five ol' the leading" metallurgists in the Commonwealth, and asked them if they had ever thought of the production of a bullet-proof steel without the use of these alloys. "That," they replied, "has been a metallurgist's dream for a quarter

of a century." They promised, however, to speed up experiments which had been in progress for several years and, in a few months, they produced in Newcastle a sloe! which not only contained none of the alloys mentioned, and therefore did net require heat treatment, but which was se malleable that it could be welded instead of riveted. This was an enormous advance on overseas practice. The significance of this metallurigical achievement may become even more marked when the time comes* to supply heavier armour-plate in large quantities for the construction of Australian tanks. To ensure the construction of ma-chine-gun carriers in numbers comparable with British. American and German war-time standards, the Ministrj r of Munitions let contracts for the manufacture of component oarts to many firms in the five States, and established four assembly shops instead of one. Thus it is possible to turn out vehicles in quantities four times as great as cculd be achieved by ordinary peace-time production methods. The new machines, which have been sent abroad in large numbers to equip the A.1..F. in Ma'.aya and Hie Middle East, are infinitely superior in performance to those which rolled oft' the assembly line twelve months ago.