Although built in moderate numbers (2,300), the Morris was always overshadowed by other British armored cars. Initially, it was a 4x2 vehicle, unusual in that the three-man crew sat side-by-side (with the driver in the middle with the Bren gunner on his right and Boys AT gunner on his left). The Bren gun fired from a manually rotating (8 degrees/sec) turret offset to the right while the Boys AT rifle was fired from a mount atop the roof hatches.
The Mark I and Mark II (4x4) entered service in 1942 with the Reconnaissance Corps. However, the Morris was considered to have insufficient armor and storage space and numbers were shuffled off the Royal Air Force and Royal Engineers.
The Morris had a crew of three, commander/driver, radio operator/Boys gunner and Bren gunner. The armored car used 2.4 gallons of fuel per hour at routine usage.
Morris Mark II
Subassemblies: Small Wheeled chassis +2, full rotation
Medium Weapon turret +1, four off-road wheels +1.
Powertrain: 53-kW gas engine with 53-kW all-wheeled transmission
and 14-gallon standard fuel tank; 4,000-kWs batteries
Occupancy: 2 CS Body, 1 CS both. Cargo:
9.5 Body.
| Armor | F | R/L | B | T | U |
| Body | 4/45 | 4/30 | 4/25 | 4/20 | 4/20 |
| Turret | 4/40 | 4/40 | 4/40 | 4/40 | 0/0 |
| Wheels | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 |
Weaponry
Ground LMG/Bren [Tur:F] (600).
Anti-Tank Rifle /Boys [Body:F] (100).
Equipment
Body: Medium radio receiver and transmitter.
Statistics
| Size: 13'x6'x6' | Payload: 0.44 tons | Lwt: 3.69 tons |
| Volume: 41 | Maint.: 148 hours | Price: $1800 |
HT: 9
HP: 125 [body], 23 [each wheel], 75 [turret]
| gSpeed: 50 | gAccel: 3 | gDecel: 10 | gMR: 0.75 | gSR: 4 | GP: high (1/4) |
Design Notes
The design gSpeed was 61 mph. 500 rounds of LMG ammo and 15 gallons
of fuel tanks were purchased. The historical values have been substituted.
Loaded weight was reduced by 15%.
As the chassis is slightly too large for the design, most of the cargo space should be ignored.