Old Git

Found this picture on the IWM and wondered if anyone could give me a bit of background on the welding plant shown here. Looking for it's proper name, titles of manuals for this, any other drawings or pictures of it? THE BRITISH ARMY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 1939-45. © IWM (H 37820)IWM Non Commercial Licence

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know! But bear with me a moment!! Just taken delivery of a Czech language book on the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group, it's called "Cromwelly československé brigády" and the authors are Vilém Fencl & Petr Lošek. On page 94 there are a couple of large size pics that have me intrigued so I thought I'd ask the experts for an opinion. So, were looking at all those lovely tan Pixie suits and then the two chaps on the left side, at the end of the first and middle rows. Definitely Pixie suits but not so tan looking are they. Thinking they might just be dirty and want a close-up, look at this picture below, these two pictures appear next to each other in the book And here's a picture of a camo pixie suit in use by 8KRIH in Korea, (chap on right) again in black and white so you can see how difficult it is to distinguish it! It's a bit clearer in this pic because they are in direct, strong sunlight which helps pick out the various shades. As I say, definitely intriguing! I'm still trying to translate the text that goes with these pictures as Google translate doesn't really do a very good job of translating Czech! Very interested to hear what you've all got to say on these!

Interesting to note that the original cut-away drawings for the Cromwell I which are in the Service Instruction Manual (and are in colour) show them to have a silver interior with a black control panel. Just wondering what the Service Instruction Manual for the Centaur shows?

Yeah that's what I have too! By my reckoning there ought to be 52 teeth on the spur gear and 14 on the Pinion, but I'd still like to see a nice clear pic of those two gear wheels! It's interesting that there's not a picture anyway on the Inet of a disassembled final drive for a Centaur or Cromwell!

Lovely mate, absolutely lovely! Keep em coming Kevin. Have you rebuilt those final drives yet?

Found this and thought it might be of interest (apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong section). This blog claims to be sourcing doco's from old Soviet tank archives and translating them to English. Might be worth a look for those of you interested in the Soviets.. http://tankarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013_04_01_archive.html

Found it in some scans from the manual... 3.71:1 (40mph) on the Type D's and moved to 4.5:1 (32mph) on the Type E and F.

Superb, thanks for those! ....and still a good looking gal!

Cracking job, can't wait to see them!

Does anyone know what the gear ratio was on the Cromwell? Also, any indication of number of teeth on the gear wheel and the pinion? I think, IIRC, there was about 50 teeth on the gear wheel?

Looking fantastic Kevin You must taken more pics than this mate? Please post them up, I'm in need of a Cromwell fix mate!

Oh Yes, great set of pictures. Lot of lovely detail and big enough to zoom in on all those little interesting bits! Fantastic, Carlsberg-esque Piccies!!!

Now that would be a picture worth hanging on the wall!!! Re the final drive, if the IoW guys have already stripped and rebuilt it I don't see that you'll need to do it again, sigh! There's goes my hope for some 'up-the-skirt' shots!

Looks like we'll have to start calling you Resto-Rick from now on mate! Another cracking resto mate, looking forward to the progress pics!!! Don't forget, if you're dismantling the final drive...nice big, clear pictures!

JC!!!, good to see you here Geoff, you'll enjoy it here. This is one of my favourite sites on the Internet, I just sit here and soak it all up...but it does make it difficult to resist the urge to rush out and splurge on an Austin Tilly! Lovely, lovely little vehicle that. It breaks my heart every time I watch the Eagle has Landed! Pete

Well Clive, thanks to your input I managed to track down a full list of those items in the National Archives Yesterday, (WO 279/434, Catalogue of Army Publications, Part 5: Index of Equipment Schedules, 1964). I was almost correct in my assumptions about the WO code's being in a logical order, see below. I assume that these sets did not receive NATO Stock numbers because by the late 60's they were considered obsolete equipment within the NATO framework, whilst the other items, such as the model set for the Heavy Girder Bridge, kept their WO Code No. of 55011 but change their 1964 Cat. number of EP1494 for a Nato number of NF/6910-99-436-8870 at some later date: and as you say, the 8870 number appears to be totally random. I now need to track down the CES for each of these sets but if the National Archives has a full complement of CES pamphlet's then I'm damned if I can find them. I've tracked down the 'war diary' for the CES secretariat (some riveting stuff in their, NOT!) and other files covering the setting up of the CES system but nothing that gives an indication of where the original CES data would be located. The inside cover of the Catalogue of Army Publications, Part 5 that I consulted at Kew yesterday, indicated that "C.E.Ss. for R.E. Equipment are held by - 2 ESD and Workshops" but I've been unable to track down records for these chaps either. I presume if the original CES data still exists it is held on microfiche somewhere, but where is something of a mystery. It looks like I'm going to have to break the sacred man-code and ask one of the surly staff at Kew for help! PS Clive, I did take my camera with me but found that my battery was depleted and the memory stick was full (lots of pics of my son and his mates shooting Nerf guns in the back gardens...the joys of parenthood, nothing is sacred anymore). I'm up there again next week but it is a rather thick book so it may take a few visits before I get it all copied, is there anything in particular you're interested in? The vehicle section seems slim enough to do in a couple of hours.

in the upper right corner it says AFG 8461 (Rev. 75). Re the relook code I don't think it's a year for rechecking as it's stencilled on the outside of the crate and appears to be part of the description of the content. I've been trying to search down the relevant RE stores records at Kew but it would appear that the ones I want covering the last years of the war and up to the early 50's are missing, presumed lost!

Hi Clive, I've just been looking over the crates for some of these sets and have found a code stamped on the outside of two of them and wondered if you knew what it was.. Relook/6895/63 Relook/6843/63 Any idea what these refer to? Also, on the 'Combined Demand and Voucher for Stores' that I have there is an entry for 'Price per U O A'. I assume that U O A stands for 'unit of allocation' but can you confirm this?

Clive, you are an absolute star mate and a true gent. I've learned so much from this little exchange and now have a much better idea of what I'm looking for and where to look for it. If I can get a good digital copies of any of these publications at the National Archives I shall happily email a copy to you. Don't envy me too much in the National Archives, if you've ever tried to search through their catalogue you'll know just how unintuitive the whole thing can be...headache inducing is how someone once described it. That said, if you find anything up there you want copying let me know and I'll put my trusty digital Camera to work on your behalf! Rgds Pete

Wow Clive, thanks for that mate! As you've no doubt noticed there's a listing on the bottom of that page for a Model Set G (which I didn't even know existed and which implies a set F as well that I now have to track down). As you can see the G set has a CES code No. of 55073 and a NF/Cat no. of EP 1580, but no longer 13 digit NATO code. Very Strange indeed. This also implies a 55072 CES no. for Set F and is in line with the ones I gave above for sets A - E. Is there another page following this one? I find it odd that under Model Sets it lists the EWBB crib set but none of the other components to the model, or even the basic model set itself. By logic, (there's that word again) if they're listing the crib set there ought to be a listing for the 'Basic Model Set A' and the 'EWBB Conversion E Set' as well. (Now I need to find out what the F set was!) I'll see if there's anything in this document in the National Archives but I'm not turning up anything in the National Archives on VAOS. I'd really like to see a VAOS, Section N dated for the 1960's as that should still contain the various components to this model and it various add-on sets! I don't suppose you know anyone who might have a mid-60's VAOS that can be consulted? Maybe the RE Museum Library will have one!

Hi Clive, thanks for the feedback mate, what you've posted has been extremely useful and has given me more info on what to search for. I can see from the National Archives web site that they have a "Catalogue of army publications, part 5: index of equipment schedules" dated 1964. I shall be up at the National Archives on Tuesday so I'll consult, and hopefully photograph, this document and perhaps this will give me more info on the CES for these items. Hopefully! In the meantime I've added, below, a couple of pics I snapped of the CES I have here: first two images are front cover and amendment giving details of name change This last one is a serial number that appears on the footer of one of the internal pages, not sure if it's a number for the actual CES booklet or something to do with the set itself...it does look typed, as opposed to printed, but I'm not 100% sure it is typed.

Hi Clive, thanks for the replies mate, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you but I've been away for the last week and had very patchy Internet access where I was so was unable to check in all week! I had a feeling that these may not be on the Intranet as they're probably all very early CES which were probably laid down not long after the CES system came into use. I'm pretty sure about the serial's as I have CES 55009 in hand and I have CES deficiency notes giving me the serials for 55005 and 55071. I have used 'logic' to then fill in the gaps which of course may fly in the face of the Army's system but my reasoning for this is that the first five sets of this model were all in existence when the CES system was first introduced in the late 1940' and were most likely all catalogued together, and therefore in series. The final serial of 55071 was a 1954/55 addition to the CES system as this model set covers the EWBB conversion set and was obviously added to the catalogue after EWBB came into operational use in 1953/54. I know they must have still been in the system in 1980 as I have a 'Combined Demand and Voucher for Stores' dated for November 1980 and this lists the description by its CES number, 55005; it also gives a Nato stock number of NF 1301. Whilst I also know that CES 55009 has a Nato stock number of NF 1451. (Again though, those must be very early Nato numbers as I do know that modern Nato Stock numbers have 13 characters). Although, I think it was around the early 80's timeframe that the Army started to get rid of these models (I have talked to one ex-sapper who told me he was kicking his heels somewhere waiting to finish out his time when he was given the job of burning a load of these models, and that was sometimes in the 80's) although once again I have CES Deficiency State sheet for one of these model bridges and it is date 22.3.95. Maybe it would be worth going through the 'UK National Codification Bureau' in Glasgow to see if they can provide any meaningful reference to these early serials! Rgds Pete

Anyone still got access to the Intranet? I'm looking for a few CES for some fairly old kit, which may or may not, be on the intranet. These are the CES for the old RE model Bailey bridges and their numbers, from what I can ascertain are... 55005 55006 55007 55008 55009 55071 ...these should correspond to model Bailey bridge, Sets A, B, C1, C2, D and E. I've actually got 55009 and have CES deficiency notes indicating what A and E are so I've 'filled in the blanks' on B & C. As I say any help at all would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance lads

I was doing a bit of research at the National Archives on Tuesday and trying like buggery to get through the list I had in a reasonable time so I could get off home before the rush hour and the tube strike! Anyways, last few minutes and I have a quick search for a couple items that I may want to look at next time and I turn up two files with interesting titles. The first one was the dumping of surplus equipment, at the end of WWII, in coal mines, with locations; and the second file was about some gold that was dumped in a canal in Belgium in 1940, presumably when the BEF was making for Dunkirk! As I say it was dying minutes of the day and I had to get a wriggle on so didn't have time to order them up for a looksee but I've been wondering about them ever since? I'm off skiing tomorrow for a week so it'll be after the 24th before I can get back but I'm gagging to know what's in both of them. Anyone here ever come across them, know if they're worth a butchers? Pete

I've actually got the first volume but haven't gotten around to reading it just yet. However, here are a couple of reviews of the first volume cribbed from Amazon.co.uk... And this one