fv1609

Yes please that would be interesting as I'm intrigued by the AESP octad, perhaps they share a common burner? You did well to get the manuals as I saw your FOI drew a blank. I'll PM my email

Just wondering what is a "British Army Mk 12 Stove"? That AESP seems to relate to Heater Portable Field Accommodation Dantherm VA-M 15 and 40 https://www.dantherm.com/uk/mobile-heating-cooling/product-range/va-m15mkii-tent-heating/

Could you post a picture of the label? Are you sure it is DML not DMC? When you say MOD is there any indication which Service it is packaged for?

David I've gone through everything they hold at Bovington & Chris Gibson has done the PRO. That's assuming everything is filed correctly, most museum libraries I find stuff wrongly attributed & mighty difficult it is to get it corrected. But things drift into archives from time to time so we may get lucky one day & I always hope something might turn up from Lizzie.

David it wasn't upwards as the FVRDE Spec required: "A pair of missile exit doors shall be provided on each side of the vehicle. They shall be of the sliding type and shall be operated manually by rack and pinion. Provision shall be made for rendering the doors watertight for wading and flotation in the minimum time possible. They shall be designed to be proof against bullet 'splash'." I'm not sure of the context of how the ultimate drawing will be used. But the Report No.38 to which I referred indicates that three vehicles were built. I don't have that previous page but notes indicate that as the result of a meeting in Dec 1958 the vehicle was accepted on hot weather trials in the Middle East subject to some modification. Three vehicles were modified & flown to the Middle East in May 1959.

Derek I can't envisage that vertically opening doors would have enough room unless they jut out above the vehicle profile & down to the track area. It would be a lot of work for one man to wind up the lower door to close up or to raise the upper door when opening up. A better division of labour & time, would be the rear loader winding his horizontally mounted door back & forth with the front loader winding his door in a similar manner. The effort for opening & closing doors would be the same & for each operator & presumably faster than just one man doing the work. This Spec was Jan 1959, what would be interesting is to get hold of MoS Fighting Vehicles Division, Development Liaison Report 38 Sept 1959. I have some pages that cover OW in relation to FV1620 being the launch vehicle (with possibility of Malkara use as well) & LWB Land Rover. Doubt was expressed that Ferret for the control vehicle to due weight & volume of the control equipment. This is on page 35, I suspect FV426 may have had some coverage on page 34. It should not be assumed FV426 would have been abandoned by now because alternative launchers were being planned. This is because FV426 was required for a Global War Role, whereas airportable launchers like FV1620 & Land Rovers were needed for limited local warfare.

That's an interesting link but what I have is Air Publication 1086 which is the main Vocabulary for RAF stores. I have a lot of FAP 1086 but being fiche is going to be too modern. Had a brief look but not come across it yet.

10D is RAF Vocabulary Section for Radio & radar, modulators, panels, receivers, transmitters etc. Not very specific I know but tells you it was RAF. Somewhere I have AP 1086 vocab that may list it, I'll try to find it.

Derek yes that's coming on, but I think there should be two sliding doors on each side. That then allows a wider exit hole for the length of the missile, because at present the door can't go too far forward as it would encroach on the driver's door. A split door that is operated by a rack & pinion would obviously less burdensome to open. Presumably the rear loader would open the rear sliding door & the front loader the front sliding door. Of course there is quite a barrier, in the form of the launcher arms/cradles, between the front & rear loaders, which is why the rear loader has his own rear door. As I understand it Eric was the Sales Manager during most of the time of the manufacture of Shorlands. The export drive was down to him mainly & he was on a sales mission abroad when the take over happened & sadly the records seemed to have been cleared out & presumably discarded/destroyed. Eric died about 4 years ago, but it is him in many of the sales brochures featuring a man in a DPM jacket firing a gun or missile from a Shorland.

Derek I think the best you can do is to depict it with all the naiveties of design, rather than help them out with improvements. There seems to have been minimal consideration as to the human tasks & risks required. At one meeting the matter was raised about the stress involved for the controller in the forward vehicle (Ferret) who was required to launch OW via the dedicated radio link then guide the missile at himself & then onto the target. The concern was dismissed that he would get used to it. How a group of controllers could cope with a rate of fire of 3 missiles a minute seems to have been poorly considered. But of course FV426 was only one several candidates for launching OW that were under consideration at various times. Regarding Shorts did you come across Eric Tuckey? He was a great source of info for me.

Yes these launching cradles must have been an extraordinary design, manually operated & also to be elevated, a lot to do in 20 secs! I do wonder if some of this strange thinking was tied up with the aspirations of Quickfire that later lost out to Swingfire. Many years ago before I got into ATGWs properly, speaking to someone who worked for MoA described how he loaded Malkaras into a butterfly arm with cradles, whilst one cradle with a missile was above the vehicle. He said you had to avoid being decapitated as this double cradle swung round for a reload. A few years later I realised he would have been in the Malkara test trailer during trials. These missiles are quite heavy, I remember two of us struggled getting them onto the Hornet I used to have. There is an archive picture of three servicemen struggle with one, although they didn't use the platforms provided that would permit two people to do it. So imagine how the two loaders of OW would have coped trying to just load one missile, wind the cradle out & elevate it & stand clear of the blast. Did they have to close the shuttered doors, then wind them open again? All highly impractical. I saw your posts on ARRSE, did you look at my Shorland missile article as there is a bit of OW coverage there?

Derek I can't read labels, but I don't think that is quite right. The armour was to extend the full width & length of the vehicle. The missiles were to be fitted to launcher rails that would swing out from a pair of sliding doors on each side of the vehicle. These sliding doors were to be waterproof when closed to allow wading. So we have a missile on each launcher rail & 5 spare missiles. Yet the rate of fire was to be 3 rounds a minute which if greater accuracy was needed could reduce to 2 rounds a minute. Quite an extraordinary rate of fire, particularly as each missile would require a controller.

Yes it was an excellent show with a good range of vehicles & exhibitors including an amateur radio station (I am GW4MBS). Much as I would like to support a local event, with it now on the Bank Holiday weekend I won't be going again as it is just a one day show whereas Portsmouth is three days with a lot more vehicles & friends I have been meeting there for 35 years. Anyway not your fault, you didn't come on here to be moaned at! The museum at the control tower has an excellent range of interesting stuff & well worth a visit.

I took the Shorland to the milfest last year & was looking forward to taking the Pig this year. As this seems to be the only MV show in S.Wales other than Caldicot Castle. But I won't be going this year as sadly the event has been moved to a week later, to the Bank Holiday weekend, I am committed to going to Overlord as I always have done.

Welcome Dean. Is that the Carew control tower you are with?

Yes of course.

Derek I am not sure whether I still have the Chris drawings. But I'm afraid I wouldn't pass them on as they are his copyright, besides he may well want to use them if he gets a chance to publish anything on OW. OW was expected to be fired at an extraordinary rate & seemed not to take account of number of controllers needed who were required to acquire control bring OW towards themselves & then onto a target. There is a very brief outline of OW here:

In 30+ years of searching I have never found a drawing, plan, sketch, model or photo of FV426. Others have also tried particularly Chris Gibson with whom I discussed how the vehicle might look knowing what a FV421 looked like & the OW launch requirements. He did a very sympathetic set of drawings of how it was likely to have been, it was for an inclusion in a book, but the publishers dropped the chapter because they wanted to focus more on aircraft engines. The best collection of OW stuff is at the PRO filed under WO 291/2214 this includes memos from the Army Operational Research Group & other correspondence. They have FVRDE Spec 9243 that covers the FV426, but no drawings. As you may have noticed my avatar is OW (& not Malkara as commonly supposed)

I forgot I have a series of 11 RAOS pamphlets that cover BOD/ABOD between 1949-51. As might be expected it is full of requirements for paperwork but nothing that would tie in with these vehicle markings.

Richard I am sure you are right that they are vehicle depot markings of some sort, but I don''t think they can be Receipt Voucher Numbers. I have records of 3,700 Humbers & none of RV Nos resemble these bonnet markings. What we need are Regulations/Manuals of Army Ordnance Services - Vehicle Depots of the 1950s, I have quite a number of these but they are 60s-70s which shed no light on these particular markings.

This is a recurring query with no definitive conclusions yet.

The modifications should be listed on the paper in the series S 527 relating to EMER POWER S 527. If you show us what they are then we can tell you.

I have the full Technical Handbook for the MRA/1 chassis & Supplement 1 for the 3 variants trouble is that is 223 pages & Mods 24 pages. Welding 19 pages Air charging 19 pages Trouble is not just time/effort (I get quite a lot of requests for things) but getting it to you as I have no broadband. Upload can be very slow down to 10kbs at times. I imagine diagrams & photos are a must for the variants. Then perhaps also the Data Summaries, then anything specific you want me to look up in the way of technical details. Odd pages are doable depending on the propagation from my 4G yagi aimed at a hill that has a cell mast beyond, just a bit unpredictable. PS Also have FVRDE Spec. 9501 Body, 1 Ton, GS, Cargo, (Morris). 1951

The answer is yes I have & yes you can.

Lizzie there is a detailed description with photos & diagrams of the welding truck in EMER WHEELED VEHICLES P 440/1, 441/1, 442/1. Up until May 1960 this was issued as EMER VEHICLES GENERAL R 210/6, 211/6, 212/6 There are also similarly detailed sections on the dry air charging variant in EMER WV P 440/2 etc from EMER VG R 290/5 etc