Use of 3-ton lorry with 3-ton lorry marquee in field command posts during WWII

[pamak]

Hello everybody,

I am asking the experts here about information regarding the use of 3-ton lorries GS and their 3-ton lorry marquees in setting up WW2 field command posts. I am interested in dimensions of the marquees and photos of their use with the 3-ton lorries. My objective is to estimate the available office space that was created by the use of the 3-ton lorries and their marquees in the field. Below is some background information:

I recently found documents describing the set-up of British and Canadian Army Headquarters. One of the thing they mention is the use of a 3-ton lorry with an attached 3-ton lorry marquee for setting up office space for the staff. Up until now, with respect to WW2 field installations, I have seen lorries with penthouses attached on their sides but the marquees I see in the diagrams (see attachments) are different. They seem to cover the whole lorry (except the very front) and extend at a considerable distance to the left, right and back of the vehicle. The diagrams do show the outlines of 3-ton lorries and their marquees but do not clarify whether they are to scale, so I do not want to quantify dimensions based on the drawings.  

Any help will be appreciated

Thank you in advance!

Edited December 3, 2023 by pamak
addition of info

[10FM68]

Blimey!  This would be some considerable task as the HQ of WWII higher formations in the field were huge.  First off, though, I think you'd have to be clear what the author meant by a marquee and, from looking at those diagrams I'm not. 

In those days marquees as I understand them to be, ie large, stand-alone tents (plenty of photos of them in scenes of Monty's HQ - particularly those where he is shown taking the German surrender on Luneburg Heath), which were used a great deal for a variety of tasks and, because they were built out of sections, they could vary in size considerably.  At an Army HQ, it is more than likely that the staff also had some purpose-built, and therefore, probably unique, tentage made to fit according to the wishes of the senior officer asking for it.  And, as there were people at rear HQ who had access to canvas and the easy means of tailoring it, knocking up suitable tentage would be a relatively easy matter.  

I suspect that what are being referred to as marquees are either bespoke lean-to arrangements or a combination of those and standard tentage.  @fv1609 wrote an impressive summary of standard WWII tentage - that might help.

The diagram you have is but a very small part of the HQ and shows very little.  If it is to scale, even approximately, you might be able to extrapolate from the size of the 160 pounder (about 14'x14').  Somewhere a chap did quite a bit of work on the orbat of 21st Army Group's HQ - Tac, Main & Rear and there were pages of it, Have a look here: https://ww2talk.com/index.php?categories/trux-21st-army-group.163/.

[fv1609]

In VAOS Section J1 1946 there was quite a range of Shelters, portable. Those associated with trucks were No.6, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 24, 28. Discounting those that were side only, these are the larger ones which might be the marquees referred to in the report. No.11 looks the most marquee like.

[pamak]

Thank you for the reply!

 

@fv1609

Does VAOS (I assume it is the Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores) give dimensions for that No.11 Portable Shelter and does it talk about any extensions? It does look similar to the one in my file but it does not extend left and right from the lorry. On the other hand, it is possible that the shelter comes with extensions similar to the ones you can see in my latest attachment. With such extensions that portable shelter will look very similar to the marquee in my diagram of the Army Operations Room.

 

@10FM68

 I found in an unrelated publication a medical tent (operating room) which was used in the Western Desert during 1942 (see attachment). That tent is called a "penthouse" but it also looks similar to the marquee in the diagrams I found. So, I am not sure how the terms, "marquee," "tent," and "penthouse" differ from each other. Up until now, I thought that a "penthouse" is just an extension from the sides of the lorries and that a marquee is basically a big tent but the penthouse in my last attachment is quite big (looks to be about 30 ft x 30 ft.

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by pamak

[10FM68]

Once again Clive has been able to provide fascinating information - stuff I didn't know but am glad I do now!  I think that the HQ you are thinking about would have used several differnt types of the penthouses Clive has illustrated.  I'm sure that there would have been bespoke ones as well, because, at that level, particularly in those days, senior officers held quite a sway on what they wanted - one only has to look at some of the modifications of their Jeeps and caravans (though Patton's trucks do seem to go that one stage further)! 

I can remember working at a divisional HQ when the GOC and his chief of staff were re-designing the layout of Main HQ and it involved a great deal of work on the part of the supporting signal regiment to get the pattern of BBVs and tentage/penthouses right and to ensure that all the 'wiggly amps' could be provided and installed speedily.  But, this was much later and in peacetime where there wasn't the same degree of urgency - not least because it was felt that such measures were for peacetime exercises only because, in war, the HQ would operate from buildings.  Whether that expectation was realistic, though, we never found out (fortunately)!

[fv1609]

The VAOS gives no dimensions, the only information is the caption.

I have a RAOS Handbook of Tentage  also of 1946 & oddly gives no mention of the shelters in the VAOS. But it does give dimensions & I note that many of the larger structures are broken down into discrete "bundles", which could be presumably used to configure various structures that were to the operational requirements of a particular situation?

[pamak]

I would like to thank both @10FM68 and @fv1609 for the responses.

[10FM68]

You are most welcome, but I suspect the best help I gave was waking Clive from his slumber deep under a Welsh mountain!