Production
Steel was a valuable wartime resource so concrete was favoured for armouring these pillboxes. Any available lorry chassis was used, although the weight of the concrete meant that only the heaviest of chassis were suitable.
Lorries arrived at Concrete Limited's Stourton Works in Leeds, where the original metal bodywork was removed and wooden shuttering formers constructed. Within the formers, three sheets of expanded metal were placed as reinforcement and then fast setting, high strength concrete made with high alumina cement was poured in. Characteristic ridges at the gaps between the boards are a noticeable feature.
When a roof was provided, this was constructed from pre-cast concrete. The walls were about 6 inches (150 mm) thick and were found to stand up well to Bren gun and armour-piercing bullets.
It is not clear how many Bisons were produced; estimates vary between two and three hundred. Due to the resilience of concrete some traces of the Bison remain today whereas nothing at all is left of the more readily recycled Armadillo.
The existence of these mobile pillboxes received significant publicity at the time. They were briefly detailed in The Times and at greater length in The Commercial Motor magazine.
Read more about this topic: Bison Concrete Armoured Lorry
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