Bedford military-front and civvy-front types

[gordon]

I have no definite information, but a GPA is small enough to crate. You could pull the wheels and the top, stow everything inside, and then preserve and crate pretty much like a jeep. No point in a twin unit pack or the like as the hull is one piece, and that piece would contain pretty much all the shipping volume, so if you stripped two GPAs you'd actually have more volume to ship than if you left them in one piece, plus a whole pile of work to do.

DUKW is pretty much the same, with a one-piece hull, plus the extra disadvantage that it is too big to crate in any meaningful sense. It would only make sense to remove, crate, protect, and stow the loose items (including the windscreen probably) drain the fuel and coolant, disconnect the battery, and maybe seal the air cleaner intake. That way you could roll and steer it. No point in draining the other fluids as they will tolerate a fair range of movement before anything spills, you would just top up as part of recommisioning.

It is my undertanding that jeeps, Dodges, GMCs were shipped in such quantities that it was worth shipping components and reassembling on site. Vehicles larger than the standard 2.5 ton 6 x 6 I think were normally shipped in one piece, with loose items protected and stowed.

I've seen all sorts of crazy stacking, piling and leaning on each other trials to minimise shipping volume - I think on the Library of Virginia Signal Corps archive, but above the size of a GMC 6 x 6 any gain in shipping volume would be offset by difficulty in handling and reassembly.

Do you know / have evidence to the contrary ? I'd be interested to see it.