Special Forces Patrol

History

In service from about 1973 until the Outback 6×6 LRPV replaced them, they were catalogued under census code 6028K — 'Truck, Utility, 3/4 Ton, GS, Cargo, Modified for SASR Use'.

The Army gave the result its own census code, 6028K, 'Truck, Utility, 3/4 Ton, GS, Cargo, Modified for SASR Use'; the regiment called it the Long Range Patrol Vehicle, and REMLR records them at work by 1973. The conversion was subtractive before it was additive. Doors, tailgate, windscreen, hood, canopy and mirrors all came off, leaving the seat backs as the highest point on the vehicle; a roll bar was added later for crew protection. Onto that went two oversize spares on the bull bar, jerrycan racks that required the front chassis rails to be lengthened and the bar moved forward some 400 mm, rifle carriers along the front mudguards, sump and steering guards, and side plates cut from wartime pierced steel planking. Three extra fuel tanks — one behind each standard tank and one under a false floor in the rear — took capacity to about 360 litres for a road range beyond 1,500 km, and five more jerrycans behind the seats brought water to roughly 160 litres. A PTO winch went on the front and a pack carrier on the tail. The main armament was a machine gun on a bonnet mount (M60) or a rear pedestal (.30 calibre), with astro-navigation gear, a solar battery charger, an AN/PRC-77 for vehicle-to-vehicle work and a long-range set for base carried in the back. Mechanically almost nothing changed: the 2.25-litre petrol four, gearbox and axles stayed standard, and the whole job was described at the time as costing about $15,000 per vehicle. Notably the regiment never moved to the six-cylinder Gen 3 that entered Army service from 1977, staying instead with the older, simpler Gen 2A. The registry holds two neighbouring records that this one sits between. At the other end, the Outback 6×6 LRPV (see `lrpv`) is this vehicle's direct replacement — a purpose-built, turbo-diesel, three-axle machine of which 27 were made, and the vehicle most people now mean when they say 'LRPV'. How many Gen 2A LRPVs existed is genuinely unsettled. No authoritative published total exists, and the registry does not pick one. The Gen 2A cars were gone by the time the 6×6s arrived in full Auscam.