That article has some interesting photos, but the basic premise of the article is wrong. White did not design and build those armored cars. The Armored Motor Cars Nos. 2 and 3 were based on White chassis, but the construction of the armored car was undertaken at Rock Island Arsenal. That is why the Armored Car. No. 1 on the Jeffery chassis and AMC No. 2 share a common turret. The turret was also developed at RIA. The armored plates for AMC No. 3 were sub-contracted to Van Dorn Iron Works, but the construction was at RIA. There are files on these programs at NARA with photos that show the armored cars under construction at RIA. The reports on these armored cars at NARA clearly state that they were built at RIA.
The armored cars for the New York National Guard were the brainchild of Capt. Henry G. Morgan, and financed by local steel magnates in New York City. The idea was to design a common armored body that could be fitted to various commercial truck chassis. That is why B-1 was on a Mack Model AB 2-ton chassis, B-2 on a Locomobile chassis and B-3 on a White chassis. This was a local New York initiative, not a White initiative. The plans were to build a large number of these armored cars for the 1st New York Armored Battery, but the plans were eventually curtailed.
There were commercial ventures by various companies to develop armored cars for export, or for US Army/ National Guard use, but not these. I covered these armored cars along with a number of other early US armored cars in my Osprey New Vanguard "Early US Armor: Armored Cars 1915-40" (2018) that was based on a lot of new archival work at NARA (and a visit to RIA).
Thank you SO much for the input, Steve! Thankfully, I have access to "update" the article. That is one of the beauties of web publishing versus our shared print media...Corrections can easily be made.
Thank you AGAIN for sharing your knowledge...several minds working together can get the history recorded properly.
