Picture of MG tripod on rear racks?

[47lincsled]

 I finally found a nice tripod to mount  one of my 1919's on but now I have to find a place to mount it on the M2A1, I have the rear luggage rack mounted so they can't go on the fender anymore,I was told years ago that the brackets on the drivers side rack were to mount the tripod, but in the hundreds of war time photos I have seen I have never seen a tripod mounted back there, part of this is because you don't see many rear shots of vehicles, but you would think in all those pictures someone would have caught it! Has anyone ever seen this. It's been raining all week so I haven't had a chance to take the tripod out and see how it fits, does anyone else mount their tripod there? If not where do you mount it?

[woodwalker]

I have seen several photos looks like they were strapped using fender doorman loops with tripod resting on running board.
They should still fit behind luggage rack just hard to get to.
I will look at books and let you know

[Tapper02]

Tom Gunther just bought one and mounted it....on his rear bumper under the luggage rack:

http://halftrackinfo.com/index.php?topic=562.msg6772#msg6772

[47lincsled]

 Thats the problem, it makes them really hard to remove, I mounted the tripod on my rack this afternoon, it doesn't fit too well, fits better with the head up,so what was this mount for?

[RocnTJ]

Just flip the luggage racks all the way up so they are sticking up above the rear armor and you have unlimited access to both steps and the mount for the 50 cal tripod on the back.   It is a tight fit but the 30 cal tripods will mount on the steps and the 50 cal tripod mounts on the rear armor.

Tom

[woodwalker]

Bob I am not sure what that is for
I have heard mortar base tripod etc
I have found no pictures showing it in use if someone has one please share!
In all actuality the tripods were strapped where ever the crew wanted
Very few pictures show anything mounted there usually it was a large storage box/rack off the back steps
Have been working Will find you some pic of tripod on fenders

[47lincsled]

 The problem with flipping the racks up to access the tripod was that in most combat situations those racks were loaded with a lot of stuff, many times they would connect the two racks to increase their capacity, I never did understand why they bothered to attach the racks with those big knobs,which was probably so they could lift the racks, it's funny how many things looked good on paper but wasn't that good in field use!

[KC]

Was the MG tripod mounting bracket only on the LH rack? If so, I have two LH racks on the back of our M2A1

[47lincsled]

As far as I know there was only a bracket on the drivers side rack, but if you display it with a bunch of boxes or duffle bags loaded on the racks no one will ever know! I've been digging through my books again with a big magnifying lens and from the pictures I've looked at it seems the most likely place to find a tripod on a combat vehicle would be on one of the front fenders! I'm going to use the tie downs on the drivers side which already holds a camp net!