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Michigan 175


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Oh, that takes me back. in the 1970's I saw two LeTourneau 666 Missile launchers parked up there when driving into Rhu.

 

Unmistakeable shapes ( the Dinky toy version made them famous ) though they didn't have the launch stand trailers with them. Apparently that was the land side dock for the landing craft to the Benbecula range, so they must have been going to or from there.

 

Gordon,

The Corporal Missile which was carried on these launchers was tested at the RA Ranges Hebrides. Rhu port was an old wartime seaplane base and was later used as the transport hub for the Range, utilising Mk 8 LCT's run by RAOC, later RCT. You could hardly send this sort of kit on a McBrayne's ferry! The information is no longer classified - extract from Wikipedia below.

 

Regards - David

 

Live-fire training for Germany- based US Forces took place at Fort Bliss but later the British Royal Artillery Guided Weapons Range on the Scottish island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Missiles were fired toward designated target coordinates in the Atlantic Ocean. Radar on St. Kilda scored successful (on-target) firings. Frequently, Soviet "fishing trawlers" would intrude into the target area.

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Gordon,

The Corporal Missile which was carried on these launchers was tested at the RA Ranges Hebrides. Rhu port was an old wartime seaplane base and was later used as the transport hub for the Range, utilising Mk 8 LCT's run by RAOC, later RCT. You could hardly send this sort of kit on a McBrayne's ferry! The information is no longer classified - extract from Wikipedia below.

 

Regards - David

 

Live-fire training for Germany- based US Forces took place at Fort Bliss but later the British Royal Artillery Guided Weapons Range on the Scottish island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Missiles were fired toward designated target coordinates in the Atlantic Ocean. Radar on St. Kilda scored successful (on-target) firings. Frequently, Soviet "fishing trawlers" would intrude into the target area.

 

Thanks for that. It would have been after 1970 when I saw them, but before 1980 - couldn't pin it down more than that. They were parked outside quite in the open, and since every Dinky toy owner of the day would know exactly what they were it was hardly very secretive. I expect they were freighted in ( and out again ? ) via the US facility at the Holy Loch just up the road.

 

On further digging the timing looks odd. Wiki says the UK didn't use them after 1966, but I wouldn't have been driving past there before the early 1970's at the earliest.

Edited by Gordon_M
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Thanks for that. It would have been after 1970 when I saw them, but before 1980 - couldn't pin it down more than that. They were parked outside quite in the open, and since every Dinky toy owner of the day would know exactly what they were it was hardly very secretive. I expect they were freighted in ( and out again ? ) via the US facility at the Holy Loch just up the road.

 

On further digging the timing looks odd. Wiki says the UK didn't use them after 1966, but I wouldn't have been driving past there before the early 1970's at the earliest.

 

Gordon,

Don't knock your memory - your recollection of dates may well have been correct. It was not uncommon for various pieces of kit to lie around for years prior to disposal, well after the system was declared to be obsolete. I drove this Honest John launcher which came down from the range for disposal years after the system had been replaced by Lance. It sticks in my mind since I couldn't figure out how to stop the engine - it turned out that you had to hook your foot under the accelerator pedal and pull it up which activated the strangler on the fuel pump!

 

Regards - David

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Two more pictures of 03 EU 77 on St. Kilda. Note the additional lower towing hook. The Michigan 175 was a good machine but it was generally agreed that the hook, as fitted at the factory, was far too high. At that time, unauthorised modifications were frowned upon, but most of the Michigans that I ever seen were fitted with some sort of lowered hook - usually bolted or clipped into place so that it could be removed during it's annual PRE (Periodic REME Inspection). The Michigan that I usually drove had a vertical box steel structure which was secured to the original hook

 

There seems to be an absolute absence of Military Michigan 175's on the web. The only thing I could find was a youtube clip titled "Army on Land, Sea and Air 1967"

 

Even here, there is only tantalising glimpses of the 175. At 1:57 a 175 is the last equipment to drive off the mexefloat (it was preceded by a smaller Michigan of a type I didn't recognise). The camera covers from the point where the nose drives by and cuts out when it reaches the fuel tank! At 2:38 you think that you are going to see it parked up, when a Wessex flies by, dangling a pallet and completely obscuring it - I've never seen a piece of kit that was so damned camera-shy!

 

Regards - David

I have to say the first time I reversed the 175 up to the low-loader trailer the first thing we all said was " we need to fit a lower towing hook! you could also stick the trailer tow bar straight through the radiator if you get it wrong, I wonder hoe many times that happened!

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I have to say the first time I reversed the 175 up to the low-loader trailer the first thing we all said was " we need to fit a lower towing hook! you could also stick the trailer tow bar straight through the radiator if you get it wrong, I wonder hoe many times that happened!

 

Richard,

Please see attached photograph of our particular solution to the problem - not a great picture for detail, but then the hook wasn't the subject of my photograph! To be honest, we didn't use the Michigan much for moving trailers - we had a reasonably flat expanse of concrete to work on and a Massey Ferguson MF40 with a front hook and a concrete block to hold the front wheels down. Using the MF40 I could hook on a trailer myself - using the Michigan we needed one guy to hold the drawbar and another to guide me in.

 

Regards - David

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Richard - you must have a good size collection!

I wasn't a great fan of these low loaders, though we used them extensively. It was a real ball-ache jacking them up with the tangye jacks, removing the wheel assemblies, lower the bed down, drive or winch on the vehicle to be carried, then jack it up again and refit the wheels and airlines. Photographs attached of the low loader in service.

The real farce was that the Michigan 175 on the open road would easily hit 40 MPH and would show the Scammell a clean pair of heels - one of our guys drove it through to Edinburgh for an HQ military review and he swore that he reached 50 MPH on a downhill stretch of dual carriageway.

 

Regards - David

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A few more pictures of our low loader work. First is a Hy-Mac being picked up from 343 Engineering Park in Livingstone (now relocated to Stirling). This was an easier job since I didn't have to take off the wheels - with a little care you could side-load the Hy-Mac using the bucket to lift up the front of the tracks, level with the load bed. Second picture shows the low loader that replaced the earlier type - a lot easier to use. It's carrying a couple of Muir Hill 171 shunting tractors - these were the vehicles that eventually replaced the Scammell Explorer for loading the landing craft (we had three of them, custom built with extended wheel bases, Perkins V8 engines and Boughton winches). Last picture is a Ransomes Rapier 6/12 crane.

 

Regards - David

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Yes Excellent pictures, I love old Plant and as it's not Glamorous its hard to find pictures of kit in service. thank you very much.

 

Richard - Back in the seventies when I took these pictures, pay was poor and Kodachrome was expensive. I used to shoot a roll of Kodachrome a month and in between times I shot Ilford FP4 black and white film which I bought in bulk in 75 ft lengths. It was cheap enough for me to shoot the attached sequence of our Michigan 175 working in the yard. Note the extension forks which were used for lifting wide loads such as this 5 ton Tasker trailer.

 

Regards - David

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Its a silly question but I have to ask, in some of the pictures of the Michigan move you are obviously wearing civvies and not uniform, why?

 

Hi Robin,

Not a silly question at all. The whole shipping operation was a mixture of military, civvy and embedded contractors - managed by Commander Transport & Movements, HQ Army Scotland at Craigiehall. The staff at Port Unit Rhu were all MOD civvies with the exception of a Sergeant who worked as ships liaison, The guys who manned the ship were all regular military (mostly RCT with embedded ACC and Signals), the guys at RA Ranges Hebrides were mainly Royal Artillery with REME, RCT, Pioneer Corps etc. and St. Kilda was just a weird mixture of military and civvy contractors who generally mucked in together, co-ordinated by the Battery Sergeant Major.

As well as working shore side, Rhu staff sailed with the Landing Craft and we were treated as members of the crew, working under the skipper. We worked well together as part of a team. Later in my career I regularly worked directly under military officers.

First picture is of me with an RCT Lance Corporal and an AEC/Coles crane with a busted tracta joint. Second picture is me posing with an International tractor (same size as a Cat D4) - it wasn't ours, we were just shipping it out to the Hebrides - I remember the throttle have a picture of a tortoise at the slow setting and a picture of a hare at full throttle! There is no way that I could have walked past an RSM with hair that length if I had been military!

I see from your post that you are a Ferret man - the last two pictures are of me sitting on a Saladin and my mate on a Ferret. These were target vehicles and we often got the job of moving them around on the range with our Scammell Explorer recovery vehicles. I had the opportunity to drive Saladin/Saracen and Fox but I always regretted the fact that I never got my hands on a running Ferret. The Saladin was too heavy for a suspended tow unless the centre two wheels were removed. On that particular day we moved a Ferret to a position ahead of the firing point. I had a root around it - as you do - and I noted that it had a brand new engine in it. When I got back to the firing point I happened to mention to the OC of the unit on exercise (who also had Ferrets) that it seemed to me to be crazy to use a Ferret with a brand new engine as a target - the paint on the exhaust wasn't even burnt off! I never seen guys move so quickly - they had that engine out in record time before anyone had the chance to shoot holes in it! My mate had a bad day - we moved a Saracen with a straight bar and he climbed in to steer it. Someone had cut the hydraulic pipes and as I pulled it forward, he got a faceful of hydraulic oil!

The whole operation has gone now - Rhu handed over to the Navy, LCT's all scrapped, the ranges contractorised and run by QinetiQ and the radar at St. Kilda upgraded and operated remotely

 

Regards - David

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Hi David,

The International was the 100B, the Engineers had quite a few of these and we also used to look after one on the local Ranges, along with Allis Chalmers 645 loader, then later a Terex 72-51 (I think that was the model). I was very familiar with the Mk5 Coles that you showed in the last post as well. What period is this? Guessing late 70's to 80's.

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I had a 100B for a couple of weeks on a footbridge construction job at Aberlour in the Spey valley back in 81 or 82.

We borrowed it from a TA unit in Aberdeen.

I severely annoyed the locals by driving it in the river fetching rocks.

Can't think why they were getting upset.:-D

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I had a 100B for a couple of weeks on a footbridge construction job at Aberlour in the Spey valley back in 81 or 82.

We borrowed it from a TA unit in Aberdeen.

I severely annoyed the locals by driving it in the river fetching rocks.

Can't think why they were getting upset.:-D

 

 

Yes I have had a couple of these in the past although only one with a backactor.......about 10 years ago Withams sold a very nice one on low hours.................I often wonder where that went.

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I had a 100B for a couple of weeks on a footbridge construction job at Aberlour in the Spey valley back in 81 or 82.

We borrowed it from a TA unit in Aberdeen.

I severely annoyed the locals by driving it in the river fetching rocks.

Can't think why they were getting upset.:-D

 

Can't be any worse than using a worm instead of a fly…….:-D

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