10FM68

I was writing this as RIchard posted - so you can add the relevant bits and ignore the rest! For the entire time this vehicle was with 38 Engr Regt (pronounced "three eight" for RE numbers) it would have been based in Claro Barracks, Ripon. Throughout those years various squadrons of the regiment deployed individually and quite widely: Aden, as you say, Borneo, Anguilla, Belize, Oman, Northern Ireland... But, generally, RHQ seems to have remained at Ripon with the remainder of the regiment (the support squadron and the other three field squadrons, plus the REME workshop). The regimental REME workshop would have remained with the bulk of the regiment - so probably in Ripon throughout, but squadrons would have received a share of REME support for their deployments a Light Aid Detachment - whether some, none or all of these included a Leyland recovery vehicle, I cannot say - but there is a reasonable likelihood particularly for the more demanding overseas deployments. As a previous poster has said, for the majority of this time the colour scheme would have been DBG with REME arm of service (AOS) signs front and rear (horizontally divided blue/yellow/red square with a white line at top and a white number on the background - possibly 168 or 169) and the formation sign of which the regiment was part. 39, at Waterbeach was part of 12 Engr Bde, (so was 38, it seems from the description supplied by Richard) but I am not sure what 38 was part of for most of that time. From the middle seventies DBG was being replaced with "NATO" green and black and it is likely that this would have resulted in the Leyland also being outshopped in this livery at that time. Formation and AOS signs were then removed and replaced with simple 2" high white letters, such as "2/16" (16 was the number used for engr vehicles and this would be preceded by the number allocated to the formation whatever that was for 38 Engr Regt.) These were on the offside front of the vehicle and the rear. Union Jacks were not used on UK-based vehicles unless they had a direct NATO deployment role such as with AMF(L). The bridging circle was no longer yellow but a light grey. Certainly 38 Engineer Regiment's squadrons had large squadron markings on the doors (48 Sqn, for example was a large blue shield with a gold edge and a gold beaver in the middle). These remained until the DBG scheme went (for 48 this was early-mid 77 on return from NI). So, it is possible that the wksp also followed suit, most likely this would have been large REME badges on the cab doors. But, you now need someone who served at Ripon during that period. 1068

Sad to see it go, Clive, but glad the Shorland is staying in the county!

That would be standard Land Rover bronze green, exactly the same as the civilian land Rover green used during the same period. 10 68

Well, according to the MERLIN archive, which is a register of British military equipment of that period, 56KK22 wasn't taken into service until 8 May 1992, a while after OP GRANBY (Aug 90 - Feb 91) ended. It was, though, on the strength of 1 RHA, but from December 1992, until September 1994. It then passed to the RLC stores section of 78 Engineer Regiment (V) who retained it until May 1999 when it went to 7 Rifles.also a volunteer unit. It was struck off strength and sold through Withams in 2012. 10 68

Sorry you weren't able to stay for it, but, yes, they got the 50! Have a look at the thread on Militarylightweight.co.uk forum for a few pictures. 10 68

Certainly they used to be fitted from new with gauze soldered to the pipe, but, the gauze is very frail and degrades over time, so it is quite usual to find it missing nowadays - but there is usually a trace of solder left in a ring about 2" up from the bottom of the pipe. I see current Land Rover fuel lift pipes are fitted with the same style of plastic filter as you buy for paint spray guns. But, while you could fit those, they have a solid base unlike the gauze ones and, unless you were confident that they weren't either going to be sucked upwards so blocking the pipe with the solid base, or at risk of touching the bottom of the tank and then being pushed up to close the pipe, I would be nervous about fitting them. Here's an example from eBay: https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ebayimg.com%2Fimages%2Fg%2FlD4AAOSwh1hZ7HZm%2Fs-l300.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fitm%2FAnest-Iwata-2Spray-Paint-Spray-Gun-Nylon-Suction-Pot-Filter-4-Pack-220-Micron-Si-%2F282661198777&docid=GgAUCnmoBGVyxM&tbnid=wb5x9eFouxfrNM%3A&vet=12ahUKEwjiw9yL8q_bAhUsCMAKHfoFCOw4ZBAzKAswC3oECAEQDA..i&w=300&h=251&itg=1&bih=615&biw=1280&q=paint spray filters&ved=2ahUKEwjiw9yL8q_bAhUsCMAKHfoFCOw4ZBAzKAswC3oECAEQDA&iact=mrc&uact=8 10 68

The first LWB SAS "Pink Panthers" were earlier than 1967. A number of EL registered Rover 9s, from the 1963 contracts were converted "in-house" and it was these which were the direct predecessors of the 72 FG-registered Marshalls-built Rover 11s. There are a number of good photos of them on the internet, including a good overhead of a couple of them being evacuated from Aden along with other Land Rovers, in sand, aboard an RFA in 1967. Here is one - courtesy of the internet. Apart from the registration, not always visible, the obvious identifying feature is the rifle bucket on the front wing - which is round, rather than square in profile. . 10 68

The contract number will be on the vehicle's B Card and also on the vehicle data plate. Otherwise, the information is out there is specialist books - for Land Rovers, for example, there is the book by Geoff Fletcher and James Taylor, for Lightweights, the one by Mark Cook. As for the two letters in the registration number, mostly they indicate the financial year in which the contract was placed (the MoD would order, say, 200 Bedford lorries and, at the same time allocate a set of 200 registrations to the contract. These would be passed to the manufacturer who would then fit number plates prior to delivery.) But there are many exceptions - the XA, XB etc" series did indicate location - as they were allocated to vehicles based in Berlin and paid for by the "Berlin budget" with money from the Senaet. But there are other examples. A pretty good list is available in Volume 1 of "Warpaint Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles 1903 - 2003" by Dick Taylor. He served many years in RTR from trooper to regimental quartermaster and is also a trained historian, so he writes with authority and experience.

Where the whole contract is in one run, as above, then it is simple: ignore the letters in the middle then subtract the lower number from the higher and add one - so you get 0844-0189=655+1 =656 then 0863-0844=19+1=20. So, in this case, there is an error of one! So there were either 676 or one in the sequence wasn't delivered. You have to add one because, unlike straightforward subtraction both ends are counted - eg if there is a sequence of, say, four 01AB23, 01AB24, 01AB25 and 01AB26 subtracting 23 from 26 would give you just three, but there are four vehicles! I hope that's clear! 10 68

According to Geoff Fletcher and James Taylor's "British Military Land Rovers", the Series 1 4x2s were Mk5s. A single Mk3, 39BP30 was trialled and, thereafter, the Ministry of Supply contract 6/Veh/26222 was placed in Nov 1957 for 655 Mk5 4x2s. All were RHD with canvas tilts. This was followed, in December 1957 for an order for 20 station wagon variants, making 675 in all. They were built between Jan and March 1958 with chassis numbers in the range 1118-00962 and 1118 - 01911. The ERMs were: 01CE89 - 08CE43 for the soft tops and 08CE44 to 08CE63 for the station wagons. The CL ERMs were Series 2 Land Rovers. 10 68

The trouble is that not all drivers can be trusted. I am keen on elderly Land Rovers and, quite often, if I see one about, or for sale, I pop its details into the DVLA website and look at its MOT history. More often than not, even enthusiasts' vehicles' MOT records are appalling - with fails in most years. It seems its sent in for an MOT, it fails on several points, the garage puts them right and issues an MOT within a day or two, often with several advisories which then appear the following year, and off it goes for another year of indifferent maintenance from the owner . And, all too often the failures are chassis rot, brakes or steering related. If I were insuring a vehicle exempt from an MOT I would demand proof of roadworthiness in any case, whether it be a formal MoT or a qualified engineer's report. And no matter how diligent we are in our own maintenance, it never hurts to get someone else to give our vehicles the once over, it is easy to miss something. There was an "immaculate" Volvo 245 for sale on the Classic car website recently. It looked superb and had a write-up to match. It had failed its first attempt at an MOT every year since 2008. 10 68.

I had a quick trawl through the Merlin archive which is dated about 2012, I suppose. Searching against contract WV12074 - the contract of Dec 76 for the 1 tonnes including the chassis cabs on one of the 7 pages brought up 72CC33, 72CC42, 72CC53, 75CC90 and 77CC12. No details of which vehicles they were, but all described as being green gloss and, of course, no longer in service. Chassis numbers were given and DISs of 1982 and SoSs of 1998. 10 68

Apparently the March 1976 contract with Rover was for around 500 chassis cabs for ambulances, because it was always intended to have an ambulance based on the 1 tonne. New orders for Solihull were necessary to keep the 1 tonne production line going, once the initial 1971 contracts had been fulfilled, although the body for the ambulance version wasn’t ready. In fact the actual contract for the ambulance bodies wasn’t let to Marshall’s until December 1979 so the chassis cabs themselves remained in storage (receiving the CC registrations while they were there). Marshalls then took delivery of the first batch of these chassis cabs in 1980 and first deliveries to units followed in 1981. I don’t think these were re-bodied former GS vehicles (FL reg) so there shouldn’t have been any need for rebuilding them at Solihull. 10 68

Looking at what has been written on the subject it seems that the early contracts for the Land Rover 1 tonnes were placed in financial year 1971-72 (hence FL) and that covered the majority of the straightforward ones – the GSs, FFRs and w/winch models, some of which were later given signals bodies. The next large contracts were awarded in 1975-76 and these were, therefore, allocated GJ and it was this batch which contained the majority of the ambulances, so they were, correctly, GJs from the start. But you are correct in that a large number of these spent a long time in store and, while there, many, all?, carried different registrations. For some odd reason, they were allocated CC plates – for chassis cab (CC previously had been allocated to “A” vehicles in the 50s). Some of these can be found in the Merlin archive. Once in service, however, they wore GJ registrations. Perhaps the FL change you’re thinking of was the 40 odd FLs which were transferred to the RAF and given AM plates. There were no FM plates on 1 tonnes, but AM ones did appear again in Army service after 1982 when the registration system had gone tri-Service and the vehicles found themselves back with the Army having replaced previous withdrawals. Some very late 1 tonnes carried KB and KJ registrations which had been rebuilt from chassis cabs while one or two were in service with BT plates (a Vampire currently for sale on Milweb is probably one of these). 10 68

Have a look at the list of asset codes for Rover 9s and Rover 11s in the Fletcher/Taylor book. There are a total of seven vans mentioned. Looking at them at least four of them clearly have a SIGINT connection – one being DF and three being EW/Y and six of the seven being FFR. I suspect these were the forerunners of the 1 tonne Vampire and Intercept Complex wagons. The use of the word van may, therefore, imply both a non-removable hard top and a rear door, (rather than, say, a catflap) probably no side windows and with suitable security for the highly classified material they would have held. Other asset codes do show hard tops for both Rover 9 and 11, eg 1711-1762 Truck, Utility, CL ¾ ton 4x4, Plain Hard Top, Rover 9, while 1711-1766 is similar but Rover 11. All together there appear to be eight CL asset codes for the Rover 9 and Rover 11, if you include the RAF ones. 10 68

To answer your question, as far as army vehicles in the period 1950 - 1982 are concerned, yes. It is possible to get a good idea about the age of a particular vehicle from its equipment registration mark (ERM). It is also possible to get an idea about the type of equipment it is. As others have said, this doesn’t apply to RN vehicles as they re-used numbers, nor so clearly to RAF vehicles as the numbers involved were a lot smaller than was the case for the Army, though they did divide up their allocated series into different vehicle types (--AB-- were staff cars, for example, while --AL--included recovery vehicles). But, looking at the Army system which was in use between 1950 and 1982 the pattern is fairly clear and easily followed. Then, between 1982 and 1993 the system saw vehicle ERMs from all three services merged and, at the same time, no distinction was made for the type of vehicle - they were all registed --KA-- to --KL--. And, since 1993 a new system has been in place which is tri-Service, as before but has pairs of letters bracketing a pair of numbers, eg AG23AA. Looking at the Army from 1950 to 1982. The vehicle serial number was split with a double letter, eg 01CC34. This pair of letters, which began with BA, (all the As having been allocated to the RAF), gave a clue both to the accounting year, (or years for slow-filling numbers), when the contract was placed for the vehicle and, broadly, the type of vehicle (so individual vehicles may be a few months to a couple of years younger than the ERM implies). The letters were issued more or less sequentially, though there were gaps and exceptions. Generally, letter pairs lasted longer in the early years than later – so BA, for example was used on “A” (armoured) vehicles between 1950 and 1955, BB on “A” vehicles between 1955 and 1957. BC, on the other hand, lasted only for 1950 and 1951. But it was allocated to “B” (soft-skinned) vehicles and, clearly, they were bought in considerably greater numbers than “A” vehicles. But, looking into the late 1960s, for example, the sequence had reached F, with FA being applied to “A” vehicle contracts from 1967-68, FB, 1968-69 and FC 1969-70. FC, FD, FE and FF were also allocated to “A” for succeeding years up to 1972-73 while "B" vehicles, over the same period were FG for 1967-68, FH, 1968-69 and FK 1969-70, FL and FM were also allocated to “B” vehicles (for 1970-71 and 1972-73). There was then an unused gap between FM and FU with FU to FZ being used for “C” (engineer plant) vehicles for the years 1967-68 up to 1972-73. And so it went on until 1982 when KA was introduced across the whole MoD fleet, irrespective of Service or type of vehicle. Examples? Well, 02FF60 was a Spartan APC (an “A” vehicle) from contract year 1972-73, 10FM68 was a Series 3 FFR Land Rover (a “B” vehicle) from 1972-73, 01FX35 was an Aveling Barford dump truck (a “C” vehicle) from 1970-71. The actual serial numbers of the vehicles then ran from 0001 to 9999 with each letter pair, though not all would necessarily be used. Exceptions? Lots! And there were lots of gaps and unfinished runs as well. But, examples of divergences from the “A”, “B” and “C” vehicle route included: CP which was issued to construction plant used by the Royal Engineers, CV captured vehicles from the Falklands campaign, BT was used for vehicles transferred from RAF or RN to the Army, as well as a number of other applications such as the M2 rigs of 28 Amphibious Engineer Regiment, civilian cars carrying civilian numberplates etc, SP for special projects, TC – box bodies or transportable containers TG – towed guns. The majority of letter pairs from the end of the alphabet were used for applying to vehicles already in service when the new system came in, thus any remaining WWII vehicles would be RA-RH and YA to ZY, with pairs again split into certain types. Parts of the series XA-XZ were used for vehicles based in the Berlin Brigade and paid for by the German government. PB and MW were used for vehicles based abroad (eg on Cyprus) but owned by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, (later the Property Services Agency, PSA). And so it went on. There is a lot more to it than this, but this is an outline sketch of the basic system. The whole issue is expanded in Dick Taylor's "Warpaint, Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles 1903 - 2003 Volume 1 which is the most easily accessed source, though there may be one or two discrepancies, particularly with dates as applying to some exceptions. Hope this helps 10 68

The red commando dagger on the black shield is the formation sign of 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines. The other sign red and blue split vertically is the arm of service sign with the white line being a figure 1. What the 1 stands for is the key to identifying the unit the vehicle was actually owned by but, unfortunately, I can't help there as I don't know which numbers 3 Cdo Bde used for its units.at that time. But, there must be a Royal on here somewhere who can tell you. 10 68

This is an outstanding project. It has been fascinating from the very start and worthy of a book of its own. I have been really enjoying following your skills and talent across the whole restoration spectrum. Fantastic - let's hope you make Brighton - you deserve to. 10 68

Your B Card tells you that it was in HQ Sqn of 32 Sig Regt, but, doesn't elaborate for 38 Sig Regt. You can look up both units on line as they still exist today and still in their original locations. The red ink is used when a vehicle is cast - hence the last entry when it went to MVS. The annotations in red on the other lines are simply highlighting of particular aspects of the transaction accounting - they are all the same on all B Cards, so, no, no particular significance. The UIN of A3402A is in pencil as this changed as the vehicle moved between units and is correct for 38 Sig Regt. The suffix is an A for a major unit ie battalion-sized. Sometimes, there can be other suffixes, B and C, for example where sub units (company-sized) have taken something on charge directly and independently of the major unit. But, not in this case, so you can't tell from the B Card which sub unit held it. The chances are it moved between sub units anyway. But, it was well looked after wherever it was! 10 68

1st Guards Brigade were part of 3rd Division between 1956 and 1960 when they were the strategic reserve. As such they were heavily involved in operations and exercises in the Mediterranean and North Africa during that period. This picture could have been taken on exercise in Cyprus (work-up training for the Kuwait crisis), or Libya, (1960 Ex STARLIGHT) for example. The date on the windscreen is an ordnance storage marking which should have been removed once the vehicle entered unit service, but, quite often they stayed in place until they wore off naturally through cleaning. The arm of service marking here is the Guards' Blue/Red/Blue with a standard infantry figure 8 for the seniority of the battalion in the brigade. It is unusual, for there to be both brigade and divisional signs on the vehicle, but, the Guards often do things just a little bit differently from infantry of the line. And, yes, I agree the cap badge does seem to be the GSC. It could be that the individual is a former warrant officer commissioned into the GSC. 10 68

Have a trawl through Google maps. There are various combinations, but the closest is 925 Price Street DICKSON PA. But there is also Pierce Street Philadelphia and a place called Dickinson Narrows. 10 68

I mentioned that in my post above, but that sequence runs out at 26104027 which is prior to the PO's 26104345, so if the book details are accurate, it shouldn't fall into that sequence. 10 68

Well, if your chassis number falls in the sequence 26101191 to 26104942 then, according to the same source it could be one of 1,900 Mark 2s with a contract date of 13 June 1951, but in the registration range 00BH01 to 19BH00 BH was for vehicles registered in 1953-1954 - I only gave you details of the 1952 batch. But, according to the registrations, there were only 1,900, but the chassis batch includes 3,751 numbers - so 1,851 of them aren't accounted for. Whether yours is one of the 1,900 or the remaining 1,851, I couldn't say. Or, of course, there may be a mistake in the book. So, don't give up yet! 10 68

If you look in James Taylor and Geoff Fletcher's book on Leaf-sprung British military Land Rovers you will find that army chassis numbers for 2 litre 1952 models were in the series:26100001 to 26100200. There were, of course, further RAF ones in the series 26100520 to 26104027 and 3610019 to 36103109. There were also a few in RN service. So, have a look and see whether yours is among that pretty large batch of, what, 1100 vehicles. Not all of those RAF chassis numbers are from 1952, though, and even the army ones, which have BD registrations, will overlap from 1951. 10 68

Quote: "Looking at the photo I posted it seems there is a row of small windows along the side of the body, very much like the photo in this link, so I am inclined to think it is an impressed civi horsebox similar to this!" I think you are on the right lines. I spent an hour or so yesterday trawling through books of 1930s lorries and buses and the closest I could come up with were horseboxes. It seems to me that, whatever it is, it is pantechnicon-sized - too big to be a caravan and I am sure both visible wheels are from the same vehicle, so it does have quite a high body above the cab. This matches horseboxes, buses and furniture vans. But, for a furniture van the back should really be vertical and this one isn't, suggesting coachbuilding - which goes towards buses, but the wheelbase looks too short unless it's a single-decker, in which case the body is then too high. Horseboxes were often owned by the wealthy (or railway companies) who would be most likely to have coachbuilt bodies and, as your picture shows, bodywork over the cab. So that's where my money goes. 10 68