fv1609

68 MS 22? Does nobody recognise their pig?

Come on Paul get into era "1 Ton" please.

Oh dear so that's a swan I bought for Boxing Day dinner.

Might be worth asking on here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HUMBER-FV1600/

Platoon?

Robin, I'm not sure quite how to get to post no 401. But I recall there is a picture of, as Richard says, a Hornet/Malkara disembarking on here somewhere. I think if it is a colour picture that it is painted sand/black so that would make it Para Sqn RAC rather than Cyclops 2 RTR. I suspect it was the start of Ex Smoke Ring based at Abu Kharban March 1966. But you might be asking about the large box. If it is on the wing then it is houses the seperation sight for remote firing. There is a book published showing the Hornet I used to have captioned with the comment that the box "may not be original". If you mean the box behind the drivers door then that is large pair of general stowage lockers one above the other. But if you mean the large unit above that then that is an armoured extractor fan. This was a retro fit once a transistorised power unit was available to supply the GCU (Ground Control Unit). Being a smaller unit allowed the rather bulky & much needed extractor fan assembly to be fitted.

Richard, MacGregor had it for export once but it stayed in the UK in the end. It has a number of interesting features that I expect you have spotted. In fact it ended up in the ownership of someone quite famous.

That's an interesting contrast with the goose (it's not a swan is it?). At one time we had 21 geese here, the problem was they had a fetish for biting tyre valve caps & any sort cable/wire. I was painting a vehicle once in DBG & a goose shoved its head in the paint pot. That rather scared it but for quite a few weeks it caused some interest when neighbours asked what bred the green speckled goose was. Anyway I'm sure ROFN security kept the geese moving along. Or perhaps they were the security? People seem unduly scared of geese! Anyway it's particularly nice to see the ERM, that went on to become a Mk 2. But I've not seen it in a picture before. Shame your site couldn't continue. But at least you were able to salvage something. There was a programme on R4 last week or so about the closing of companies & their archives being just dumped. There were suggestions of moves to try to legally require companies to preserve or deposit somewhere key records for posterity. In fact there was a collector of Woolworths archives who had managed to rescue much useful stuff from their skip & he sounded quite excited about his find.

For several reasons 68 MS 22 is a special Pig, anyone know why?

Wow that's super thank you for those. You have made an old man very happy tonight! Interestingly I see the headlight boxes were on before any of the headlight or sidelight assemblies were installed. By any chance do you have any figures for the numbers made at ROFN & ROFW?

Ian did you used to have a Humber 1 Ton? I'm sure I've seen a Humber photo attributed to you in Max Richards Humber Directory series?

Here's a nice example

Photobucket do send you are reminder when you are about to 'expire'. The other thing to watch out for is that they have now reorganised things so you can have albums. I have quite a lot pics there & rather jumbled up. In fact trying to reuse a pic is a pain as it takes ages trawling through 75 pages to find a picture. So I end up loading up a duplicate. I thought it was going to be helpful to tidy up & have albums. But once you do that the link is lost. You can edit the post with the new album link, but that shows up as an edit, so looks as if you might be cheating on the text you posted & of course this can't be done if the thread is locked. I had got it in my head that uploading directly to the forum used up bandwidth/storage & it was more public spirited to post a link. is that not the case then?

I found some notes I made on the allocation of FV numbers. I had assumed these were Humber but the extent of allocations suggest it must be for other vehicles. 16200-17699 Chassis 17700-18199 Body 174581-175080 Chassis 228251-228750 Body 275902-276007 Chassis What I would like to know is what goes in the gaps. I have a further list somewhere(!) but I think it is mainly for later numbers.

Yes I can see Eisemann in the photo, I thought perhaps there might have been some company amalgamation. I must have got the NSN wrong. It was the last 4 digits which were the problem. Has anyone got better eyesight?

If I have read the NSN correctly as 6230-12-124-8775, it comes up as LATERNE, ELEKTRISCH BUNDESANT FUER WEHRTECHNIK 6230-020-2 I assume that number is a design spec a bit like a FV number. The manufacturer looks to be Bosch with part numbers: KEB130-1G 7782103002

Robin I commend you on your ‘stores discipline’. I think that of military stores that are not available, traditionally 80% of the loss is because the label has come off & nobody knows what it is for, rather than fire, theft, sabotage etc. So taking pictures is a very good idea particularly if others are involved in your supply chain. I think I should have adopted this policy not because labels have come off but when salvaging components. Last year I dismantled a couple of Pig wheel stations, diff & transfer box. I put them through the cleaning bath but now they remain on the shelf & floor all jumbled up. Most do have FV numbers stamped on but it would have been so much better if I had taken pictures as I dismantled it all & beforehand when it was in situ. Things seem so obvious when you are dismantling something but not so obvious a year later looking at a pile of bits! An additional complexity is that sometimes things not envisaged to fit, sometimes do. I took a prop shaft off a Pig, it was not the proper item but someone had found that something else would do the job. Such innovations are of course down to the individual & will depend on their experience of other vehicles as to what might fit. At least with the Army you can get back to a common standard if there is a FV number. The Royal Navy catalogue a lot of their stores items on the identity of the equipment it is used in & in turn the system, rather than the identity of an individual item. I remember a submariner telling me, how they had to return to base because of a breakdown for which they carried no spares. When they docked they had no spares in the base, so the manufacturer was contacted who told them that the item was also used in another onboard system for which they carried the spares in the sub! Anyway I think the way you are going about it is excellent. I don’t have the problem of inadvertent pilfering & jumbling up of stock, all loses & chaos are solely my fault! The container seems an excellent idea not just in the security of it but having the spares all together stored with some logic. Here stuff is shoved on shelves, under benches in various sheds & more fragile items in the loft. My fetish for part numbers was born of necessity. Some years ago a dealer stitched me up with inappropriate components, which had I understood labels better, I could have avoided. So now I know what to buy & more importantly what not to buy! The trouble is that part numbers like EMERs & Army publications have become an obsession in their own right! Very wise to try to bring this down to Land Rover commonality if you can, some savings to be had there unless of course the seller can say it is fitted on a Wolf or was used by the SAS! Anyway if you have a list of any FVs you’re stuck on, PM me & I can send what info I can.

I don’t think you are going to find anything like that in the public domain Robin. A lot will depend on whether a particular component has been NATO codified. If you have access to a NSN database you can enter the FV number to get a NSN. With that you will get the manufacturer’s part number. That may be the actual manufacturer of the item itself, in addition you may get part numbers assigned to the item by the manufacturer of a complete assembly, vehicle etc. As you have noticed it can be in a Supacat or a Land Rover! If the item was used by the Navy or RAF, you will also get the vocabulary number that they used. In the case of the RAF the vocabulary section will indicate the manufacturer of the vehicle, but not I’m afraid the model or type. You will also get description of the item but this is limited to what can be displayed for instance this Ferret item FV 143029, “Pivot, assembly, generating mounting” comes up as “PIVOT ASSEMBLYXGENE”. You can generally guess the rest of it, but it’s nice to have the full description. Apart from the IPC or COSA if you are lucky enough to have microfiche records a fuller description is given there. Incidentally that item, apart from having a Rolls Royce RE number, it also has a 61BU vocabulary prefix showing that this item was used in RAF Rolls Royce ‘B’ Series engines. Furthermore it has a DMC (Domestic Management Code) LV10 indicating that it is a component for Standardised Engines & therefore could be common to many different types & makes of vehicle. One of the benefits of NATO codification is that commonality is encouraged between defence manufacturers so that items for a particular requirement can crop up in another product as you have seen. The FV number just means that an item, assembly or vehicle complies with the design specification laid down either in design document or simply a draughtsman’s drawing of a small item. We are all familiar with vehicles that are allocated FV numbers & can see the general logic to the structure of allocations. Although it is hard to see the structure that exists with FV codified parts. They are broadly chronologic, but many of us will notice from the index of an IPC how a particular vehicle has numbers that are closely related. Within the batch of numbers there are sections allocated for items made by certain manufacturers. Studying these for a Humber it is apparent that a manufacturer may have several batches of numbers allocated & not all numbers within a batch are used up. Before NATO codification it was not so easy to identify items used in one vehicle that may be used in another. Where these were identified the Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores (VAOS) contained items identified with the prefix LV1 – LV15. Gradually as the Catalogue of Ordnance Stores & Ammunition (COSA) displaced VAOS, the LV prefix assumed the role of Domestic Management Code (DMC) preceding the NSN. With time the LV was dropped & just the number was used. Sometimes items made to FVRDE specification might be made by several manufacturers & separate vocabulary numbers not used at all. Here is a Humber item that simply has the VAOS prefix & the FV number. As it happens this has several applications within the vehicle. Robin, going back to your Supacat & Land Rover observation, is that to do with a weapons mount? I note that there is a special DMC of 7WMK that identifies it as part of a weapons mount kit for either a Land Rover or Supacat. I suppose that gets around difficulties of “Sarge, they’ve sent the wrong bit! I don’t think I’m meant to fit this Supacat bit on a Land Rover”? If there are any particular numbers you are stuck on, let me know & I can see what I can find.

Yes Adam my fingers are almost needle gun itching just to look at it. That would be very satisfying to gun down, although I expect a lot would shift with just a pressure washer! I think I can even see a bit of DBG peeping out from under there. Yes there was that ambulance they had recently. Perhaps it was one of the last out of service & as far as 'scabby' goes probably one of the first Mk2s out of service in terms of being struck off census.

It unusual to still see the wing mirrors in that position. Unlike the Mk1 that had the mirrors on the door hinges on the Mk2 they were placed along the bonnet as we see here. But in May 1977 an EMER was issued to move the mirrors to the wings but this Pig escaped this modification presumably as it went out of service fairly early on. The first digit of the ERM is either 3 or 2. It can't be 3 as 35 BK 54 was a FV1604. I see 25 BK 54 was struck off to the Queens Division depot on 10/11/80. Given the acute shortage parts of various kinds at this time, it would suggest that this Pig has been seriouslly robbed of important bits or is seriously knackered. Yes the quality of the paint job is certainly lacking & attempts to make a disruptive pattern are inappropriate on a Mk2. Any suggestion that this is for disruptive IRR purposes is dispelled by the use of gloss black & its rather extraordinary distribution.

My posts seem to be attracting criticism on two counts. Firstly I am being criticised for not using everyday language as spoken by the general public. I was merely using the terminology of the manufacturer & the user of the weapon system, the British Army. If I had indicated that the GW launcher was a multiple rocket launcher I would, with some justification, be criticised by someone for being misleading & wrong. Those who do win through with near enough the correct answer, I imagine derive satisfaction from their achievement. Surely if we are to adopt the general public’s view of military terminology then we are all driving round in Jeeps? Secondly there is a general attack on the poor use of the English language, in terms of spelling, grammar & punctuation. I have sympathy to some degree with that & notice that perhaps not all of us are as gifted as others in terms of writing skills. I am only too aware of this myself as I am significantly dyslexic. It takes several attempts at draft posts before I can make something vaguely intelligible. So posts from ‘Borat’ are second nature & are almost ready created! But I don’t see why this thread is being used to raise this criticism about inaccurate English particularly when what I described was actually very accurate! Although the British Dyslexia Association regard dyslexia as a ‘gift’ rather than an affliction, I have to say it is a damn nuisance & writing anything for me takes about 3 times longer than a ‘normal’ person. So the writing of an article will often take in excess of 100 hours. I have seen so many posts that go & on & on consuming vast amounts of time, adrenaline & perspiration with arguments that assume disproportionate importance. So often I see someone stuck in the situation that if he rises to the bait he is criticised or if he does not he also criticised. Like many spectators I try to ‘keep my head down’ & avoid the flak when I see these threads surface. But now this one has landed on my plate, when I don’t feel I have done anything wrong. These mystery objects are meant to unearth unusual items & provide a bit of fun as well. There doesn’t seem to be much fun with this anymore. I can’t feel much enthusiasm for playing these games, if I worry that it’s going to give rise to all this sort of conflict. I have seen people on the receiving end of these endless posts who try to extricate themselves only to be drawn in again. I could go through the posts aimed at me criticising it line by line, but that will only provoke yet more posts. I am trying to extricate myself & hope I don’t get drawn in to further conflict. I’m going now I have had a long day driving over 300 miles to collect Humber & Champ archives which I hope will provide a more relaxing evening.

Or just what it says on the FVRDE/RARDE tin. FV4010 Heavy Tank Destroyer GW Carrier Notice it doesn't say Malkara, which makes me think it may have had an Orange William option if FV426 didn't progress. But in the end it was Orange William that didn't progress. Like so many UK developments we gave it up & bought a foreign thing!

There is a range of information on wiki put there by a range of people. I have the 'honour' of having pics of two of my vehicles on there illustrating two different types of vehicle. Sadly the associated text is largely incorrect, so I don't have a great deal of confidence in everything I see there. It is true that the motor of a guided weapon is sometimes referred to as a rocket motor, but that does not then make the guided weapon a rocket. We are in the UK & defining a type of weapon system that was used by the British Army. I am happy to accept the definition given by R.G.Lee O.B.E. who was the Military Director of Studies at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham.

No Malkara, was a guided weapon not a rocket. A rocket is projected at a target & therefter uncontrolled.

I was going to post the link to the article on HMVF where I have done a tarted up drawing, but the link is dead. Anyway this Cent was to weigh 46 tons & was the competitor to the FV426 Orange William Launcher. Neither were air-portable, which is where Hornet FV1620 came in being designed to launch OW but with the capability for Malkara, which won out in the end. Here is a design sketch of the FV4010.