Mechanical Mule - M274

[Local Chap]

Originally Posted by Alex Blair

..About 1/2 way down the page it shows two guys with a mule and a 106MM Recoiless rifle on it and the guy that is posing with the RC rifle would only take one shot like that...shit come out both ends of those baby's and the trigger man would be fried by the back blast..

I think it's the angle of the pic, but if you look at where his feet are, he is actually standing next to the firing position adjacent to the mount, not behind the breech.

[Col Tigwell]

Now I recall the Australian army having some of these, at least we got to the stage of doing trial loadings in a Boo and C130.

I wonder if it was a one off evaluation machine or did we actually use them.

Regards

Col

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

Col,
Pretty sure there is at least one Mule here, at the Bandiana Army Museum. Did a quick check on there website, but it is not shown.
Rich.

[Col Tigwell]

Could have been one we borrowed from Vietnam

Col

[Wpns 421]

Actually there were trials done on the Mule in Australia in the early 60's, I found an interesting article on these trials. Basically the Mule was well liked, but the trial authorities gave it a bad report because of the tip over problem. It was found that at high speeds the vehicle had a tendency to flip over while pulling a sharp turn especially to the left where the driver sat especially loaded with a high center of gravity. During the trials a driver was killed when the vehicle flipped over. If you receive the MVPA magazines there was an article on the Mule last year in the Military Vehicle magazine and it talked about the trials.
Also Mules were used by the Aussies in Vietnam.

[captw]

Hi Charlie...Brian Asbury has at least one...also, I bought a 1966 M274A2 last year and have since sold it to Greg Anderson in Bancroft...Wilf

[charlie fitton]

Thanks Guys,

I have not been able to get on MLU for a while - a site saying the domain name is for sale keeps popping up. I've re-bookmarked it so hopefully all is well.

I've talked to Bryan and may get to see one soon.

Who knows - maybe one is out there for me too.

f