fv1609

Wally it was something you said in a message to me that reminded me it was time for another MO. Good to see you are waiting in the wings. Not to do with rocket power. The picture is part of the thing itself, its not a scale model or anything like that.

Mineral I suppose Richard but the important part of it has a strong link to life as we know it.

As we don't seem be allowed to have a Dad's Army this Saturday, here is some alternative entertainment. Any ideas?

No idea I'm afraid, but the background to the company it looks as if it is something that travels through the air. Could we see inside the box, are there any cut-outs to show the shape of what it once contained? It is very difficult to read the dimensions on the label, what is the size of the box? It's difficult to judge, is that fitted on a roof rack?

14 = France NSC 8145 = Specialised Shipping & Storage Containers Not surprisingly the manufacturer of this box specialises in making boxes for the aerospace industry. http://www.daher.com/en/our_history/

High Gloss DBG, there was no satin finish in service.

I'm not particularly bothered if a vehicle or any militaria I buy is going to be a profitable investment or not. I buy it because it interests me. If I buy up stuff to sell on sooner or later, it just drives up the price for people who have a genuine interest. I have a vehicle that I have owned for 32 years which is appreciating in value, which is fine when I or my estate come to sell it. But that is not the reason I bought it. I have a large collection of books & archives including subjects such as the development of guided weapons & WW2 night vision that may well turn a profit when the time comes. But I have a large collection of publications on sanitation & diseases in the British Army, these are not particularly popular subjects & probably won't turn a profit when the time comes. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. But they are none the less of great interest to me, particular when you consider that in the 100 years before WW1 more British troops died of problems connected with sanitation & disease than through enemy action. I avoid buying WW1 publications as they are ridiculously overpriced as the result of speculation. Instead I look for publications pre-WW1 & of the 1920s-30s, in some quarters these eras are looked on with disdain. Consequently are priced more reasonably but what happened or didn't happen in these eras had a direct bearing on the conflict that followed. So if prices are lowish for those eras that's fine, if they remain so when they come to be sold its not a problem for me. I didn't buy them as an investment, I enjoyed owning them & savouring some of the detail that often won't be found in a "author" written book because they tend to focus on an angle or particular point they want to make.

No doubt you have googled 6230-99-199-1239 & surprised to find there were no hits at all! The reason is that the item was incorrectly codified. NSC Group 62 covers Lighting Fixtures & Lamps, more specifically the NSC Class 30 covers Electric Portable & Hand Lighting Equipment. This sounds all perfectly reasonable but this Group is for lighting ie general illumination not signalling equipment. The correct allocation is Group 58 Communication, Detection & Coherent Radiation Equipment with it in Class 50 for Visible & Invisible Light Communication Equipment. Giving the correct NSN as 5850-99-199-1239 so you will get a few hits now. I suspect if the bulb was special to this lamp it might have been codified at the same time with a NSN fairly close to the parent equipment. But if, as is probable, the bulb was already an item of supply it would be codified somewhere but with the NSC 6230.

This came later. All NATO countries agreed to accept the NATO Standardization Agreement in 1956. But in the UK this was not implemented until the ratification of the agreement in STANAG 3151 in 1961. I can't speak for the RAF but in 1965 the Director of Ordnance Services instructed that all new items of supply would be NSN codified. It was decided that there would be retrospective codification of common user items & the plan extended the retrospective codification task to all domestically catalogued items in all three Services, with a target date of 1971. Incidentally I saw a lantern like yours at Malvern yesterday for £25 & it had no NSN. It had a red filter so I couldn't see the type of bulb, or indeed if there was one fitted. In the general melee I didn't think it was fair to the trader to start dismantling a thing that I had no intention of buying.

Know what you mean Ted, I have a 1955 edition of 16E & that is a very fat book. The only good thing about it is that it lists the vehicles to which the item was fitted, unlike VAOs that gives little away.

I have FAP 1086 for 1988 & 1992 that list none of those items, nor are they listed in the cross referencing lists into NSNs. So presumably obsolete or at least no longer demandable by 1988. In 5A there is no Lantern Electric, although there is a Lantern Electrical, which I think is rather different as the bulb it quotes is 6v with a MES fitting.

Kev yes that is a very high wattage, apart from it being unnecessarily powerful there would be too much delay in the filament warming up & cooling down & would blur the distinction between Morse Code characters. The Navy used high wattage signal lamps but the filaments remained on & the code sent by a series of parallel shutters that were keyed by the operator. If you posted a picture of the bulb socket it might trigger someone's recollections & also of the plug you are after. Depending when it went out of service I may have the signal lamp in some of my FAP 1086 collection, there is a chance that the bulb would have entered the RAF Stores Vocabulary at about the same time & the bulb you require would be something close to 5A/6230.

A rare opportunity to acquire a collection of 32 Jane's books. Many are consecutive & give a very good time line as when certain bits of kit became available. The difficult to see what it is one is Jane's All the Worlds Aircraft 1962-63 which is a collectors item in itself. Available for collection from S.Wales or I could take to Malvern Militaria this Sunday 18th. Looking for £150 the lot OVVNO, so has to be a bargain for less than £5 a book! PM me if interested or if you want a few representative pages on a particular topic so you can see the sort of coverage.

http://www.shorlandsite.com/ Will soon be closing down so download what you want whilst you can. Web hosting charges have risen dramatically which makes it no longer viable to run the site.

You said 1.5/8" although this is 1.5/16" it is Imperial, British & 1950s. I have a few lengths available.

I know that by 1909 it was the responsibility of a general staff officer at the approach to a bridge to give instructions to commanders of units about the suitability of the crossing. By 1911 the responsibility of giving the bridge a load classification passed to the engineers in the unit constructing the bridge. They were required to indicate at each end of the bridge the greatest permissible load but this was not yet numerical. By 1939 all bridges where classed according to the maximum weight of a vehicle in tons giving the following Classes 5, 9, 12, 18 or 24. Bridge classes applied not just to fixed bridges but to pontoon bridges as well. So if bridges were classed by 1939, presumably vehicles were marked up accordingly?

Mark unfortunately, H1/8010-99-910-6646 has been obsolete for a while. What we need is a Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores Section H 1 (a) Paints, dopes & varnishes from the late '50s. I know there was one in 1957, but I only have later incarnations that do not list it. If a VAOS was found, it very likely would indicate the standard to which it was formulated, this would pre-date DefStans so would most likely be a CS (Chemical Specification) laid down by the Director of Chemical Inspection (CI). This was a branch of the War Office Inspection Organization under the control of the Assistant Master-General of the Ordnance (Inspection) (AMGO (I)). I have catalogues of Government publications from 1894-1984, although if I eventually found it, there would be little detail other than the title. The chance of unearthing the right CS is remote, not helped by the added confusion that CS Specifications were also issued by the Air Ministry that first appeared in 1936 and relate to Civil Specifications. I used to use 50 micron aluminium oxide for micro-sandblasting. So that was pretty fine & probably as small a particle as you could easily get. I suppose you could mix some of that in & if it wasn’t giving a noticeable texturing, move onto larger particles.

I've just found my copy of Equipment Regulations 1959 Pamphlet No.9 Steel helmets: "Paint, finishing, textured, matt, brushing, olive drab. One coat will suffice if the existing paint is in fairly good condition, but if the metal is visible a priming coat of H1/8010-99-910-6646 should be applied first." To me that suggests the previous paint would have been similar but if it was DBG (which would mean high gloss) then a primer would have been required for good adhesion. Of course the OD would be not everyone else's OD but British OD as defined in BSC 381C No.298 introduced in 1949

I can't lay my hands on the appropriate Equipment Regulations 1955, but the definitive painting requirements for 1962 are in EMER WORKSHOPS N 251. Steel helmets:. Paint, priming, red oxide/iron/zinc chrome brushing. Paint, finishing, textured matt, olive drab Note textured matt, not just matt as in general stores & war equipment.

Don't know if any of this is relevant, can't find anything that ties in exactly with your sockets. Electrical services were not just fire control but intercom, loudspeakers, heater for hydraulic oil etc

I don't have a lot of EMER INSTRUMENTS but looking in the Index A 000 the only Bofos reference is B 540-549 Carrier, dial sight (Bofors) M 109. I'm not into armaments so have no idea if that is relevant, I do actually have the Technical Handbook that appeared in the earlier series EMER INSTRUMENTS & SEARCHLIGHTS B 540- 544. Could do a page or two from that if you think it would help. If that is not relevant, is the instrument given any other designation that might be used in other guns?

More likely it would be in EMER INSTRUMENTS, I'll have a look.

Thought there might be something there but nothing, so I need to dig out EMER ARMAMENT B 520-529 40/70 AA Equipment Ordnance, QF, 40/70 Mks 1 & 2 on Mounting & 40/70 AA, Mks 1 & 2.

There may be some coverage in EMER RADAR & FCE K 460-469 Control Gear for Equipment 40/70 AA L3. I'll take a look when I get a chance.

Kev there is a little bit of coverage on pages 1 & 2 in Tabby 03: I extracted the info for that & the Heliograph from the user handbooks.