question CES Favour, Army's Intranet

[Old Git]

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

[fv1609]

OG I don't think it is going to be on the intranet.

 

I have 3 editions of Catalogue of Army Publications AC No.12123 Part V Index of CES for 1984, 1999 & 2000

 

None of those you want are in there, in fact none in 5500x sequence I'm afraid.

[fv1609]

There's either a typo or you have fallen into the trap of applying logic to the structure of Army Coded Publications

 

I'm looking in a Catalogue of RE Materiel Army Code No. 13570 1997 & note that there are some Bailey CES that are amended up to 1985

 

56007

56008

56009

56010

56011

56012

56013

56088

56166

56196

[Old Git]

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

[fv1609]

Pete I can't see that NF 1301 & NF 1451 is any form of NSN. In the general structure of the Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores Section N was reserved for Stores & Bridging in the Catalogue of Royal Engineers Materiel. NF relates to Bridging Ancillaries (the code prior to that was EP). NF then became the Domestic Management code to prefix a NSN.

 

The only CREM I have is dated 1997. It shows the items covered by the DMC of NF.

 

I'm only allowed limited access to the intranet, but documents that are not current very quickly get booted out. But I'm frustrated that I can't find any references to tie in with the 55005 series that you in front of you.:-D

 

[Old Git]

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.

 

[fv1609]

Very envious of your visit to Kew. :-D

 

Thanks for the scans. Interesting that it uses the earlier prefix "EP".

 

The 1984 edition is unhelpful as there is no index & it's not missing as the whole document is stapled. Interesting that in your section we have the old EP with a simple catalogue number, but when codified the DMC changes to NF. This would explain you seeing it in the list for NSN although it includes Cat No. for the old stuff. Odd that it didn't get codified! I can't recall seeing anything in use so late on that has not been codified.

 

 

Other than the front cover, I don't think I have ever seen a CES that has not been typed. The last entry is the printer's imprint. So 220 copies for delivery Nov 1958. The preceding bit is the warrant & demand. SP may well be Staples Press although I would have suspected this might have been the printing services of the RAOC.

 

There is a bit here on the allocation of WO/Army Coded sequence & a bit on imprints.

 

http://hmvf.co.uk/pdf/CRACKING%20THE%20CODES%20v2.00.pdf

[Old Git]

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!

Edited February 23, 2014 by Old Git

[fv1609]

I'm afraid I'm a bit lost as I know nothing of the equipment itself, I'm just approaching things from a document angle.

 

There is no more on that page other than construction equipment.

 

VAOS of course is a RAOC system & had no N Section for itself although it meshes in with CREM items that occupy N & S Sections in the overall cataloguing of stores (Ordnance & RE). Rather like "the River Kwai March" & "Colonel Bogey" - two separate tunes but can be played at the same time!

 

Before the clean up of CREM being in N or S there was a real mess of CREM Sections scattered in between VAOS Sections but independent of them:

 

EN

EO

EP

ES

ET

FN

FR

FS

FU

HN

HO

HP

HQ

HR

HS

JO

KN

KS

WN

WO

XP

XR

 

Many of those Sections share a first letter with a first letter of a VAOS Section that would only have added to confusion with such non-related items being catalogued in proximity eg

 

J1 Camping Equipment (VAOS)

JO Construction materiel testing equipment (CREM)

J0 Ship repairs & base repairs (and not forgetting the Navy)

[Old Git]

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

[fv1609]

You're welcome Pete. It's a delight to find someone interested in documents & putting what I have here to some use. Thank you, I'll have a think about what Kew might offer in addition to anything you can retrieve.

 

Just received 11 booklets in the Regulations for Army Ordnance Services series so that will make good night time reading. A couple of unusual imprints to add to the excitement :-D

[Old Git]

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?

[fv1609]

The problem is all my stores accounting publications are RAOC based, whereas it seems RE do their own thing. So no idea what "relook" means but assume the year when the item must be checked over again. UOA doesn't appear in any glossary that I have, not even the list of abbreviations in the CREM. I have a pretty recent tri-service list of abbreviations & acronyms but nothing in there. Sorry.

[fv1609]

The Army Form I assume is G 982E?

[Old Git]

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!

[fv1609]

AFG 8461, I don't have that one listed. For "Combined Demand & Issue Voucher for Stores" I have AFG 928E. But maybe this the RAOC world rather than RE.

 

Looks like AC No. 13555 is a detailed stores catalogue for NF.

 

[Old Git]

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.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Old Git