Bison concrete armoured lorries
| Bison concrete armoured lorries | |
|---|---|
Type 3 Bison
|
|
| Type | Mobile Pillbox |
| Place of origin |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service history | |
| Used by | Home Guard |
| Wars | WW2 |
The Bison was an extemporised armoured fighting vehicle frequently characterised as a mobile pillbox. Bisons were produced in Britain during the invasion crisis of 1940-1941. Based on a number of different lorry chassis, it featured a fighting compartment protected by a layer of concrete. Bisons were used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to protect aerodromes and by the Home Guard. They acquired the generic name "Bison" from their main manufacturer.
With the Fall of France in July 1940, the British Government made efforts to prepare for the threatened invasion. One problem was the defence of airfields against airborne troops.
An ideal solution for protecting the open space of an airfield was to use tanks and armoured cars. However, the British Army lacked heavy equipment having abandoned much of it during the evacuation of Dunkirk. An alternative was needed which would not compete for resources with conventional armaments.
The Bison was the invention of Charles Bernard Mathews who was a director of Concrete Limited. At this time, there were many attempts to improvise armoured vehicles, but Mathews had the resources and experience to take a professional approach.
Mathews and his commercial partner John Goldwell Ambrose had been in the Royal Engineers and had a history of wartime innovation with concrete including pre-cast pillboxes and dugouts during the First World War. One of Mathews' more unusual ideas, with which he experimented in early 1939, was to stack piles of football-sized concrete spheres on top of air-raid shelters, with the intention that a bomb would expend its energy in scattering aside the heavy spheres rather than breaking the shelter.
Mathews bought twenty-four old lorry chassis on which to base the vehicles and he made up a prototype to show to local military authorities. Helpful criticism was forthcoming and Mathews was able to produce a version which met the requirements of the Army. The vehicles were essentially mobile pillboxes. Mathews said: "[mobile] Concrete pill-boxes will never take the place of armoured cars and tanks, but the enemy would find them a serious obstacle. Their great attraction is that anybody can make them – once he knows how".
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