The Royal Ulster Constabulary soon replaced the Shorland with an armoured Land Rover with more conventional profile and no machine gun turret.

The Shorland is a long wheelbase Land Rover with the turret similar in appearance to that of a Mk 2 Ferret scout car.

[2] On 14 August an IRA unit[3] opened fire on RUC officers and loyalist militants gathered at the intersection of Dover and Divis Street, at the edge of the predominantly Catholic district.

[6] At this point, the RUC, misinterpreting the unrest as an IRA uprising, deployed the Shorlands in a live-fire role,[7] and their .30 calibre bullets reportedly "tore through walls as if they were cardboard".

[9] The Republican Labour Party MP for Belfast Central, Paddy Kennedy, who was in the vicinity, phoned RUC headquarters and pleaded with Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs, Robert Porter, for the Shorlands to be withdrawn and the shooting to cease.

Porter told Kennedy that Donegall Street police station was under heavy machine-gun fire when in fact it was undisturbed during the entirety of the unrest.