Diana, the gingerbeers would have driven the M113s on mine clearing ops on a "drive only" licence, which was a rather common licence code.
Drive only licences were issued where the vehicle mentioned on the code had to be moved for some other reason rather than for its operational purpose, recovery, delivery; that sort of thing, and as a result, other corps members often held these licences.
Licensing problems could be simply overcome in about 1 minutes time with a signature from a testing officer (and in my position I had access to a few of these!)
As for the availability of M113s in country, these things were pretty new to us in the mid 60's and spare parts were a rarity at the time. The first carriers to go over were a section of the 'Prince of Wales Light Horse' who were posted to Bien Hoa as support for 1RAR in 65, and by the time these carriers got down to Nui Dat in 1966, spare parts were so hard to come by that they were being driven by a driver with two pieces of string attached to his overall epaulettes so that the crewie could transmit his desire to turn the vehicle by pulling the appropriate rein, so to speak. (In 1966 I conned a "mickey mouse" headset and mike combination from the yanks to operate my section radio hands free from a truck, whilst the tankies were still using string!) Spare parts did become more readily available later on when the POW Light Horse were replaced by the newly formed and renamed Cav units equipped with shiny new equipment. Remember, these new APC's still weren't the real answer to our requisites, they still had to be modified over the years by fitting turrets from older previously operated vehicle types to make them effective.
The carriers caused enough headaches as far as fuel supplies were concerned (also mentioned in detail in 1 Coy Commanders diaries) being diesel when the rest of the Aust Army was still archaically running on petrol, and as a result all RAASC units were geared for the one POL system.
The logistics involved in changing that alone would counter any thought of using carriers over Ferrets/Landrovers.
In hindsight the gunbuggies did an admirable job, did earn their keep once or twice, and could be used for lots of other little jobs as well. A couple of mods occurred over the years, the buggies we seconded from the grunts were simply fitted with an upright pipe mount welded to the 106 front wheel guide and clamped to the front tub wall, and this offered a very limited arc of fire to the front quadrants and also fed hot expended shell casings straight down the drivers shirt collar.
Later a cranked swivel was fitted to the top of the pip bringing the gun forward about 12" or so and this allowed a greater arc of fire but still limited to the front quadrants, and also shifted the disposal points of hot expended shell casings to laps and elsewhere!
5 Coy RAASC who came into country in 1967 and stayed for the duration later on changed their escort vehicles to long wheel base L/R/s with the gun mounted on the "cranked mount" mid tub to allow a 360 degree arc of fire.
In the early days mines were a bit of a problem and as a result all convoy vehicle floors were covered with sandbags.
Hindsight can be a great asset but unfortunately in a lot of cases it is not used in the right context compared to when the event actually occurred and often glosses over other contributing facts.
In those same diaries you may note that in 1966 (or perhaps 1967 I can't remember when) a statement was made about the start of the amalgamation of RAE (tpt) with RAASC (in the form of the RAE unloading section at the Hard stand) being a fore-runner to a new Corps. That new Corps came into place in 1973 or thereabouts when RAASC ceased to be and was replaced by the RACT.
Also early on in the diaries it was mentioned on more than one occasion about the need for an extra Transport Platoon in country to facilitate the needs of 1ATF. This took nearly two years to bear fruit, with the additional involvement of 26 Tpt Coy and 86 Tpt Platoon who operated Diamond Reo semi trailers on the resupply convoys.
You also have to read between the lines and understand that these diaries were written by a representative of Her Majesty, under Her employ, and therefore had to be rather guarded about how they suggested things that were in fact basic requisites in the field that were overlooked by "pen pushing" logisticians in Canberra and also guided (misguided) by politics.
The more you read, the more you will probably understand, but don't fall into the trap of putting yesterday's events into today's context!
Regards
Glen
