"Armoured Cars of Finnish Army in World War 2" Topic

"When it comes to armoured cars used by Finnish Army in World War 2, almost all of them were captured Soviet vehicles. Hence I will start their story by telling little about their origin. As already mentioned in this website, armoured cars that the Bolsheviks took over and captured during Russian Civil War (1917 – 1923) served Soviet Red Army until early 1930's. Since armoured cars had played important role in Russian Civil War, it was only natural that the Red Army wished them to be replaced with new and more modern designs. Imperial Russia had possessed only limited manufacturing capacity for manufacturing of armoured cars during World War 1 and while Soviet Union was rapidly industrialised in 1920's, acquiring the know-how for mass-producing motor vehicles and building the industrial base required for this took its time. Maybe the most important single factor in this was the contract, in which the Soviets entered with Ford Motor Company in May of 1929. As a result of that contract Soviet industry received blueprints for Ford-A, Ford-AA and Ford-Timken trucks. These became the truck models, with which the Soviet automobile industry was basically started. Production of these trucks was started already year 1930 in two factories – Gudok Oktyabrya (in Nizhny Novgorod) and KIM factory (Moscow Auto Zavod in Moscow). Ford Corporation build also the Soviets a new factory named NAZ (Nizhny Novgorod Auto Zavod) in Nizhny Novgorod (soon to be renamed Gorkiy), which also started manufacturing Ford trucks in year 1932. Godok Oktyabrya and NAZ were merged as a single factory, which was renamed as GAZ (Gorkiy Auto Zavod) in mid 1930's. While these factories provided chassis and engine, also armoured hulls were needed for manufacturing armoured cars. These armoured hulls were provided by Vyksinskiy and Izhorskiy plants, which had designed and manufactured such hulls already during World War 1. These two plants also took care in assembling of the armoured cars…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Great catch Armand. With the links on that, and the other pages on that site I'll be busy for a month. Thank you.

A votre service mon cher ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand