Shorland armoured car

Shorland Internal Security Vehicle
Shorland Internal Security Vehicle
	A Mk1 Shorland Shorland Internal Security Vehicle
Type	Armoured car
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	Royal Ulster Constabulary; Ulster Defence Regiment
Production history
Manufacturer	Short Brothers and Harland
Specifications
Mass	3.36 m (11 ft 0 in)
Length	4.60 m (15 ft 1 in)
Width	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Height	2.29 m (7 ft 6 in)
Crew	3
Main; armament	7.62x51mm NATO machine gun
Engine	Rover petrol; 91 hp (68 kW)
Suspension	4 X 4
Operational; range	260–510 km (160–320 mi)
Maximum speed	88 km/h (55 mph)

The Shorland is an armoured car that was designed specifically for the Royal Ulster Constabulary by a police support officer Ernie Lusty during the sixties for patrolling the border to prevent organised smuggling. They were reallocated to the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1970. The Royal Ulster Constabulary soon replaced the Shorland with an armoured Land Rover with more conventional profiles and no machine gun turret.

This being the original Shorland Armoured Car, which quickly became known in Land Rover Circles as the boat tail Shorland.

The vehicles were built by Short Brothers and Harland of Belfast using a chassis from a Series two Land Rover, from which the name was derived.

By the nineties the Land Rover Tangi, designed and built by the Royal Ulster Constabulary's own vehicle engineering team, was by far the most common model.

Shorts and Harland continued to develop the original Boat tail Shorland from an armoured patrol car with a crew of 3 to armoured personnel vehicle, capable of carrying two up front and six in the rear and a small number of these were used on the streets in Northern Ireland as late as 1998.

In 1996 the Short Brothers sold the complete Shorland design to British Aerospace Australia.

Design[]

The Shorland is a long wheelbase Land Rover with the turret of a Mk 2 Ferret armoured car. The vehicle has upgraded suspension to deal with the extra weight of the armour.

Variants[]

Mk 1[]

67 bhp (50 kW) engine

Mk 2[]

Based on the Series 2
77 bhp (57 kW) engine

Mk 3[]

Introduced in 1972
91 bhp (68 kW) engine
Thicker armour than Mk 1, Mk 2

Mk 4[]

Production started 1980
3.5 litre Rover V8 petrol engine
Improved armour over Mk 3

Series 5[]

Based on the Defender 110 chassis
3.5 litre Rover V8 petrol engine or 2.5 litre Rover Tdi Turbo diesel engine
Welded armour fully enclosed body, no turret
Versions
- S52 - Armoured Patrol Car
- S53 - Air Defence Vehicle
- S54 - Anti-hijack Vehicle
- S55 - Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC)

Current and former Operators[]

Argentina
Bahrain
Botswana
Burundi
Cyprus
Guyana
Kenya
Lebanon - 30 in service with the Internal Security Forces
Lesotho
Libya
Malaysia
Mali
Netherlands
Pakistan - 24 in service with the Sindh Police.
Papua New Guinea
Portugal - 38 in service with the Portuguese Republican National Guard (currently replaced by the MAV 5 Armoured Personnel Carrier)
Rhodesia - 2 mock Shorlands equipped with Ferret turrets were deployed for a Selous Scouts' covert operation in 1979.^[1]
Syria
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Turkey - Gendarmerie
United Arab Emirates - Acquired by the Sharjah National Guard in 1972, transferred to the Federal Police in 1976.
United Kingdom
- Iraqi security forces

References[]

↑ Peter Gerard Locke & Peter David Farquharson Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80, P&P Publishing, Wellington 1995 ISSN 0-473-02413-6, p. 94.

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[1] Peter Gerard Locke & Peter David Farquharson Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80, P&P Publishing, Wellington 1995 ISSN 0-473-02413-6, p. 94.

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