American WWII light military trucks
The Dodge WC series (nicknamed "Beeps") is a prolific range of light 4WD and medium 6WD military utility trucks, produced by Chrysler under the Dodge and Fargo marques during World War II. Together with the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄4-ton jeeps produced by Willys and Ford, the Dodge ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton G-505 and ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑ton G-502 trucks made up nearly all of the light 4WD trucks supplied to the U.S. military in WWII – with Dodge contributing some 337,500 4WD units (over half as many as the jeep).
Contrary to the versatility of the highly standardized jeep, which was mostly achieved through field modification, the Dodge WC‑series came in many different, purpose-built, but mechanically uniform variants from the factory, much akin to the later family of High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles. The WC series evolved out of, and was part of a more extended family of trucks, with great mechanical parts commonality, that included open- and closed-cab cargo, troops and weapons carriers, (radio) command, and reconnaissance cars, ambulances, carry-alls, panel vans, and mobile telephone installation and (emergency) field workshop trucks.
The Dodge WC series were essentially built in two generations. From 1940 to early 1942, almost 82,400 of the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 4x4 Dodge trucks were built — initially called the VC series, but the great majority, from 1941, in the WC series, and in more variants. Contrary to what Dodge's nomenclature suggested, the 1941 WC models were a direct evolution of the 1940 VC models, retaining the U.S. Army's G-505 Ordnance Corps Supply Catalog number.
For 1942, the trucks bodies and chassis were largely redesigned – heavier frames and drivetrains uprated them to carry ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑tons off-road. And widening their tracks, while greatly shortening the wheelbase on the main models, plus lowering the bodies' center of gravity, gave them a much more square stance, with a much better break-over angle and side-slope stability. The trucks thus became the "shorter" G-502, ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑ton, 4×4 truck (Dodge), and from 1943 also the "longer", stretched G-507, 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton, 6x6 personnel and cargo truck (Dodge) — all while retaining Dodge WC model codes. Although the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑tons improvements meant substantial design changes, they did retain some 80% interchangeable components and service parts with the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton models — a vital Army requirement, for field maintenance and operability of the trucks.
Dodge was the U.S. Army's main supplier of ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton trucks, and its sole supplier of both ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑ton trucks and 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 6x6 trucks in World War II. With over a quarter million units built through August 1945, the G-502 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑tons were the most common variants in the WC‑series.
After the war, Dodge developed the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4-ton WC‑series into the civilian 4×4 Dodge Power Wagon; and in 1951, the WCs were replaced by the very similar ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑ton 4x4 Dodge M-series vehicles .
Though the majority of Dodges built were 'Weapons Carriers', "WC" was not abbreviated from this, but a regular Dodge model code – initially "W" for 1941, and "C" for a nominal half-ton payload rating. However, the "WC" model code was simply retained after 1941 — for both the , as well as the rated 6x6 Dodges. ;br ;
All in all, not counting mechanically related variants, the WC series alone involved 52 model versions (thirty ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 4×4, eight ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 4×2, twelve ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;3⁄4‑ton 4×4, and two 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 6×6 models). Creating vehicles of a common platform in such a variety of designs, with payloads ranging from ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton to 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑tons, had no equal in its time, and is seen as an extraordinary feat of the WWII American auto industry.
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Scope of the Dodge WC series.
The name of this article would at first suggest a focus on models that are indeed called Dodge "WC-numbers," either 4x4 or 6x6. However, the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps' central Standard Nomenclature List (SNL) Supply Catalog, covering the WC series, conveys both by its title, "SNL G-657 – Master Parts List, Dodge Trucks", as well as by the explicit types list on its second page, that (because of the large amount of shared parts and components), the family of vehicles must at least be considered to include the:
Additionally, close variants of the T-207 WC-1, and of the T-214 WC-51/WC-52, were derived and made in Canada, as the T‑212 'D8A' and the T‑236 '3/4 Ton APT' (for 'Air PorTable') respectively; and further production of T-203 variants became indicated as both the T-203B, and as the WF series.
By contrast, Chrysler / Dodge Canada built another 165,000 mostly three-ton trucks, a hasty addition to the production of Canadian Military Pattern trucks, that were more closely derived from the commercial Dodge T-, V-, and W-Series trucks, and the same is true for the 15,000 'parts bin special' (T-234) "Burma Road" trucks, ordered by Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, at the time an ally against Japan.
History and design.
1900–1939 — Dodge Brothers start making cars and 4x4 trucks for the U.S. Army.
Dodge had been the United States military's primary supplier of light wheeled vehicles, since before the U.S. joined the First World War. After starting business in 1900, producing precision engine and chassis components for other car builders in Detroit — Ford and Oldsmobile chief among these — Dodge introduced their first car, the Model 30/35 tourer, in 1914. It was stronger and more high quality than the ubiquitous Ford Model T, and in 1916, Dodge cars proved their durability, both in the 1910s U.S.–Mexico Border War — the U.S. military's first operation to use truck convoys, as well as in World War I, when some 12,800 Dodge cars and light trucks were used, primarily as ambulances and repair trucks., but also as staff and reconnaissance vehicles. All the while, Dodge maintained its reputation for high quality truck, transmission, and motor parts they kept making for other successful manufacturers.
Dodge civilian, commercial trucks were at first largely based on their passenger cars, offering light- and medium-duty trucks, like pick‑ups, station hacks, panel vans, and carry-alls. Dodge's passenger-car chassis were sturdy enough for such trucks, from their 1914 introduction. But Dodge expanded into medium-heavy duty trucks during the later 1930s and the 1940s. Crucial developments for Dodge were the switch to specific truck-frames and bodies in 1935, for a new, 1936 model-year truck generation. The dedicated truck frames were heavier and stronger than the lighter passenger-car chassis. In 1938, Dodge opened a very large new factory, dedicated to truck manufacturing, and later that same year, Dodge introduced a drastically redesigned new truck line-up again: the 1939 T-series 'Job-rated' trucks.
Dodge developed their first four-wheel drive truck in 1934, requested by the U.S. Army — an experimental 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2 ton rated model, designated K-39-X-4(USA), of which 796 units were ordered, in multiple configurations. Timken supplied driven front axles and transfer-cases, which were added to a militarized commercial truck. The Timken transfer case was the first "part-time" design, that allowed the driver to engage or disengage four-wheel drive using a lever inside the cabin. In spite of the limited 1930s U.S. military budgets, the 1934 trucks served well enough that, after a couple of years, Dodge received further Army contracts for 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton, 4-wheel drive trucks, and these were further developed from the late thirties. Dodge built the U.S. Army further batches of 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton 4x4 trucks in 1938, 1939 and 1940.
In 1938, a batch of 1,700 experimental RF-40-X-4(USA) trucks were procured, and a further 292 experimental units, typed TF-40-X-4(USA) in 1939 – the first to be built, based on Dodge's new for 1939 T-, V-, and W-Series trucks. All of the 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-ton Army 4x4s, including the 800 trucks of 1934, rode on a wheelbase, and the 1938 RF-40 and 1939 TF-40 four-wheel drives were the first for which Dodge moved to separate engineering codes, in the T-200 range (T-200 and T-201 respectively).
However, Dodge also eagerly pursued military contracts for half-ton four-by-fours at the same time. The smaller size had outperformed the 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-ton 4x4 during testing in 1938, and Dodge had invested greatly in half- to one-ton trucks in prior years. In 1936, Dodge's light, car-based trucks had been crucially redesigned — abandoning the use of passenger car frames, instead for the first time built on distinct, modern truck-style chassis, with the frame-rails "welded" to the cross-members on their half-ton to one-ton rated trucks. Additionally, Dodge had built their all new, very large Warren Truck Assembly plant in Michigan, specifically for mass-production of light and medium trucks, opened in 1938.
Then, for the 1939 model year, Dodge again presented a completely redesigned line of pickups and trucks – the art-deco styled, Dodge T-, V-, and W-Series "Job-Rated" trucks, available in an unprecedented number of sizes, payload rates and configurations, aiming the trucks to fit every different job.
1940 — ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-ton VC and 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-ton VF models.
Well before the onset of World War II, it was clear that the USA needed to update its military. The Quartermaster Corps (Q.C.), responsible at the time for providing the military with non-combat vehicles, moved to standardize truck designs, and by 1939, as the war in Europe erupted, the Army had settled on five payload-based general-purpose, cross-country truck classes: , , ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;2+1⁄2-, 4- and . Introduction of a ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton standard 4WD class meant a significant doctrine shift, away from the conventional belief that all the extra weight, costs and mechanical complexity of adding 4-wheel-drive wouldn't be worth it on any general purpose military vehicle with an off-highway payload capacity, below the (up to that point) standard 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton Army cargo unit. Mirroring the civilian market, where the use of all-wheel drive was practically non-existent in anything below payload vehicles. Light-duty off-roaders were a very small niche-market, only filled by after-market conversions, primarily by Marmon-Herrington.
By June 1940 the Q.C. had tested and approved its first three standard commercial based, all-wheel drive trucks: the " 4x4 Dodge", the GMC 6x6 and a Mack 6-ton 6x6. With regards to Dodge however, the U.S. military reconsidered its preferences for the build-up for the war almost immediately after this.
Although in 1936, a Marmon-Herrington converted half-ton Ford had become the Army's first light 4-wheel drive, and the Army had initially standardized Dodge's 4x4 trucks in the class — following Dodge's push for building ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑tons, after mid 1940 the Army decided they preferred Dodge to build the light-duty four-wheel drives, contracting for a series of half-ton trucks, while GM / Chevrolet was instead going to become the standard supplier for trucks. Dodge successfully outbid GMC's 1939 ACK-101 half-ton truck, as well as Marmon-Herrington, who could not retrofit in the required volume or price, not to mention International's M-1-4 half-ton truck, which wasn't built until 1941, for the U.S. Marine Corps. So, when in the summer of 1940 the largest government truck contract awarded went to Chrysler's Dodge / Fargo Division, for more than 14,000 (mostly) 4x4 trucks, this was in the midst of the transition, and thus included both orders for ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton and 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton trucks, as GM / Chevy still needed to tool up for mass-producing 4WD 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-tonners.
Dodge had started developing designs for a 4x4 half-ton in 1939, and began production in earnest in 1940 — both 4x4 half-tons, as well as 1 ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2-ton 4x4 and 4x2 trucks. On all 1940 trucks, front sheetmetal was mostly identical to the commercial VC and VF models of that year, with the addition of a big brush guard mounted in front of the grille and headlights. Except for the addition of 4-wheel drive, and custom bodies on the ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;1⁄2‑ton command cars, the trucks followed the 1939 procurement doctrine, to "use commercial trucks with only a few modifications such as brush guards and towing pintles