Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade

The Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, also known as Brutinel's Brigade or the Brutinel Brigade, was the first fully mechanized unit of the Canadian Army.^[1] It was established on August 24, 1914 in Ottawa, Canada, as Automobile Machine Gun Brigade No. 1 by Canadian Brigadier-General Raymond Brutinel, who initiated the program and was the unit's first commander.^[2] The unit played a significant part in halting the major German offensive of March 1918.

The Brigade was originally equipped with 8 Armoured Autocars mounting 2 Colt Model 1914 machine guns (later replaced with the standard British Vickers MG) manufactured by Autocar in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Autocar also supplied 6 unarmoured support vehicles, 4 "roadsters" for the Brigade's officers, and an ambulance.

In 1918 Brutinel's force consisted of 1st and 2nd Canadian Motor MG Brigades (each of 5x8 gun batteries), Canadian Cyclist battalion, one section of medium trench-mortars mounted on lorries (plus an assumed wireless and medical support)^[3] This totalled 80 machine guns and about 300 cyclist infantry.

Destroyed English antiaircraft

Bibliography

Notes

1. "Formation of the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade No. 1: Sept. 1914". The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
2. Pulsifer 2001, p. 46
3. P. Griffith p 129 "Battle Tactics on the Western Front - The British Army's art of attack 1916-18 Yale university Press quoting the Official History 1918 vol.4, p42

References

• Cameron Pulsifer (2007). ' 'The Armoured Autocar in Canadian Service' ', Service Publications
• Dominique and Jacques Baylaucq (2014), '1882-1964 Brutinel, The extraordinary story of a French citizen, Brigadier-general in the Canadian Army'

Distributed by the 'Heritage Museum' St Albert Alberta, Canada. Available in English and French through on Amazon.ca

• Pulsifer, Cameron (2001). "Canada's First Armoured Unit: Raymond Brutinel and the Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigades of the First World War". Canadian Military History 10 (1): 44–57. ISSN 1195-8472. Retrieved December 5, 2014.

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