The record
A Tactical Air Control Party is the small forward team that talks to strike aircraft on behalf of a ground unit, and it needs a vehicle that can keep up with the troops it supports while carrying the radios that reach the aircraft. From around 1970 the Danish Army used the 109-inch Series IIA for the job. The documented vehicle, 40.405, is a truck-cab 109 with the rear body under a canvas tilt, a small rack on the cab roof for a stowage box and jerrycan, and the whip aerials of the EL/K-1004 radio set carried for aircraft communication — one on the front wing, one behind the cab. The picture is from a Danish Army publication, reproduced by the Danish Army Vehicles Homepage, which lists the type's figures: 4.44 m long, 1.68 m wide, 2.06 m high, 2,650 kg, the 2,286 cc petrol four of 70 hp, four-speed gearbox with two-speed transfer case, 12-volt electrics, 45 litres of petrol for 150 km, and a crew of two.
The long-wheelbase Land Rover reached the Danish Army through the same line as everywhere else: the 107 of 1954, the 109 from 1956, diesel from 1957, then Series II in 1958 and Series IIA in 1961. The photograph is black and white; the plain olive drab modelled here is the finish Danish vehicles wore before the three-colour camouflage of the 1980s, and is an inference from the period rather than a colour recorded in the source. How many TACP vehicles were fitted, and this one's fate, are not stated.
