over the hood. Seven of these were built and tested, starting in May 1941, but were found awkward. So instead, eleven T2E1 GMC units aimed the 37mm gun rearwards for trials. Shooting rearwards had advantages, but this configuration also proved difficult to man and operate the gun. The units were all dismantled to regular jeeps. In 1942, the larger ton Dodge WC-52 was converted and standardized as the M6 Gun Motor Carriage, with a rear-aiming 37mm M3 gun, but these also worked poorly in the field, and most were rebuilt back to regular WC-52 trucks. Further designs were tried with stretched 6-wheel jeeps, but by 1943, the 37mm guns had become largely ineffective against German tanks. Late in the war, in 1945, the first large-caliber recoilless rifles became available, and the first jeep-mounted tests were performed, but they only came to fruition after World WarII. One rare exception was Operation Varsity, for which two 75-mm. recoilless rifles were issued to the 17th U.S. Airborne Division, that could be mounted on their jeeps, proving useful in anti-tank fights. Rocket jeeps The jeep being too light to mount substantial guns, it was more suited later in the war, as a platform for rocket artillery, that did not have the enormous recoil as conventional tube artillery. The California Institute of Technology developed two different 4.5-inch jeep-based rocket launcher systems for the U.S. Navy. Several other initiatives all used 4.5-inch rockets and tubes. Testing was also done by both U.S. Army and Marine Corps, but none of the jeep-mounted rocket launchers were built in any significant number because it was more efficient to use larger trucks that could carry more rockets. The Soviet Red Army deployed twelve units fitted with 12-rail M-8 82mm rocket launchers in the bed of a jeep, from December 1944 in the Carpathian Mountains. Stretched and uprated jeeps To extend the jeep's luggage space, the simplest, and most frequently used method was the addition of a rear baggage rack. In exceptional cases, units would actually stretch both body and frame of a jeep, to give it more passenger and luggage space, but for this usage, a Dodge WC model was available in many cases. Nevertheless, building stretched, 6x6 jeeps with ton cross-country payload, was explored with much interest. As early as July 1941, after the unsuccessful testing with the T2 and T2E1 37mm antitank guns mounted on Bantam jeeps, the