One for Clive

[sirhc]

I saw this and thought of you.... :idea:

 

 

Chris

[AndyFowler]

Great picture Chris thanks for posting !:-D

[sirhc]

There's more, including more humbers, here:

 

http://www.rofnottingham.co.uk/00_welcome.htm

 

Chris

[Jack]

Come on Clive - where was it taken?????

[sirhc]

I'll answer that one, it was taken at ROF Nottingham, not too far from where I am sat right now.

 

Chris

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

Oh no here we go again.running out of favourites room,cheers chris.

[N.O.S.]

Can someone tell me what these attachments were for please?

[AndyFowler]

 

Can someone tell me what these attachments were for please?

Hello Tony ! If you mean the attachments on the Humbers they where for the Malkara anti tank missile system ! I believe Clive has one and also the tank museum ! Andy F Clives Hornet at GDSF Bovingtons Hornet

 

Edited July 10, 2008 by AndyFowler

[fv1609]

Chris, thank you & what a fantastic picture. My first thought was that this was at Wharton Enginering, Elstree who made the bodies. But the production run, if you can call it that, was only 24 vehicles made mainly from July 1962 - Jan 1963. To see 7 in a row is very impressive. It is surprising to see one with missiles. But there were various types of dummy rounds. I imagine these were the ones that were of the correct weight & contained wiring looms with resistances to test the installation of the correct firing & guidance circuits.

 

I don't doubt what you say that this is at ROF. But they must have soon gone back to Wharton for further upgrades. As yet there is no GPMG mount on the roof for air defence, after a lot of wrangling these were fitted by Whartons at a cost of £22,000 PER VEHICLE. I would have thought ROF could have undercut them on that.

 

These vehicles here were fitted a non transistorised power supply for guidance unit. When the transistorised power units were fitted, more room was available allowing a much needed extractor fan to be fitted on the off side. The upper jerrican holder had to be moved to above the locker on the near side & you can see that has not yet happened.

 

Neither have the smoke dischargers nor IR headlamps yet been fitted. This added about 3in to the length of the vehicle. This is why all official data & descriptions I have seen are wrong as nobody took account of this. Well meaning authors over the years have copied this data, but it is wrong as I have measured it on the one in my garage!

 

The only other Humber pictures I could see was a sort of montage, are there others I have missed?

[AndyFowler]

Chris, thank you & what a fantastic picture. My first thought was that this was at Wharton Enginering, Elstree who made the bodies. But the production run, if you can call it that, was only 24 vehicles made mainly from July 1962 - Jan 1963. To see 7 in a row is very impressive. It is surprising to see one with missiles. But there were various types of dummy rounds. I imagine these were the ones that were of the correct weight & contained wiring looms with resistances to test the installation of the correct firing & guidance circuits.

 

I don't doubt what you say that this is at ROF. But they must have soon gone back to Wharton for further upgrades. As yet there is no GPMG mount on the roof for air defence, after a lot of wrangling these were fitted by Whartons at a cost of £22,000 PER VEHICLE. I would have thought ROF could have undercut them on that.

 

These vehicles here were fitted a non transistorised power supply for guidance unit. When the transistorised power units were fitted, more room was available allowing a much needed extractor fan to be fitted on the off side. The upper jerrican holder had to be moved to above the locker on the near side & you can see that has not yet happened.

 

Neither have the smoke dischargers nor IR headlamps yet been fitted. This added about 3in to the length of the vehicle. This is why all official data & descriptions I have seen are wrong as nobody took account of this. Well meaning authors over the years have copied this data, but it is wrong as I have measured it on the one in my garage!

 

The only other Humber pictures I could see was a sort of montage, are there others I have missed?

 

There are a couple of Pigs under construction Clive !

[fv1609]

Can someone tell me what these attachments were for please?

 

This ATGW system designed for the Humber was designated FV1620 (my nom de plume). It was actually developped originally to fire Orange William after the cancellation of the FV426. But when Orange William was itself cancelled it became the Malkara launch vehicle.

 

With Orange William there was a launch vehicle, but the guidance was from a Ferret much nearer the target. In the Ferret there was an operator to track the target & another operator to track the missile, which may even have to fly over the Ferret.

 

The cost of the Hornet FV1620 project to produce 24 vehicles, neglecting the missile development costs, was £90million. It officially came into service 1 Feb 1965 & went out in late 1968.

 

A lot of money for just 3 years service. But a lot of knowledge & experience was passed onto Swingfire which replaced it. Still a lot of money, but the Para Sqn RAC represented a quick response unit that could go anywhere (Middle East really) and now had the power to destroy any known tank. This capability was to send a clear message to a potential aggressor, that things had progressed from the Paras landing in Jordan in 1958 with Champs & BAT guns. This potential heavy punch capability was intended to stop WW3 Maybe it did, who can say? So it might have been worth all that money after all?

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

Can someone tell me what these attachments were for please?

Well there not for a plough thats for sure:-D

[AndyFowler]

Well there not for a plough thats for sure:-D

or a drilling rig !:-D

[fv1609]

There are a couple of Pigs under construction Clive !

 

Wow, this is fantasy land, I'm exhausted with excitement! In one photo I can just identify a single feature that identifies ROF pigs from Sankey ones. But I have never been able to find out the production numbers for each of 1,700 total.

 

Going back to the Hornets. The two vehicles I can identify come from the early part of the production run, so that picture is mid 1962. In the foreground is 04 BK 11, behind it is 04 BK 81 - which still survives & is for sale!

 

It is located in Sussex & if anyone is interested I can put them in touch with the vendor, but it is incomplete. The main rear support arm is gone although there is launch assembly for one side. The missile guidance equipment & fittings are missing and so is the original charging system. This was 100A not the weedy 25A on FFW or 12A on APC Pigs. But a fairly unique project & some nice front wings have been fabricated.

[N.O.S.]

Thanks very much Andy and Clive for the info and pics - you can't assume that those of us who pretend to 'know it all' actually do!!

 

Still waiting for a photo of the FV 1 1/2T breakdown prototype mentioned last year.....?

[fv1609]

Still waiting for a photo of the FV 1 1/2T breakdown prototype mentioned last year.....?

 

You'll be lucky I'm not sure that the concept got very far at all. But you have a very good memory to have remembered mention of that.

 

I have over 100 FVDD/FVRDE design spec documents for various vehicles which doesn't include the breakdown truck. What I do have is a 1950 WO design spec for the FV1606 1 Ton Humber Breakdown Truck. This is an earlier & high authority spec, but I don't know that it got any further than that.

 

But who knows what little gems are hidden away somewhere or more to the point destroyed. Not quite the same but what about the designation of this thing, FV1601/1620?

 

[Snapper]

Men,

 

All I know is I like Pigs. All this extra info is just icing on a big green cake.

 

much obliged...

 

MB

[Adam Elsdon]

I'm looking at the pictures of the armoured shells sat on the trestles in the factory, and noticed something different from my Mk1 FV1611b, in that there is an extra strip of metal running along the bottom of what would constitute the sill of a normal vehicle, my vehicle just finishes off as a flat plate.

 

Is this a difference between factories, or do you think it may be put there during construction and removed at a later date?

[Adam Elsdon]

By the way forgot to mention......"Holy cow" excellent pictures, good find!!

[Adam Elkins]

Great pic's CHEERS.

[LeeEnfield]

Great link to an interesting site

 

Many Thanks

 

Andy

[Adam Elsdon]

Contacted the webmaster of the ROF Nottingham site about pictures of Pigs and Hornets, here is the reply:-

 

Adam

There are a couple more pictures of the Hornet on the site under Processes /

Fitting & Assembly - Photo Numbers P40201_025 & 026. Unfortunately the

original images we have were not particularly high quality. A lot of the

images we have rescued when the site was closed are taken from plate glass

negatives!

We've not come across any others of either the Pig or the Hornet so far, but

if we find any others we will endeavour to put them on the site.

 

regards

Website Manager

 

So there you go, a very nice man!

[Old_ROF]

I decided that the easier way for you to get the information was to sign up.

 

The work is taking place in what was known as the 'Heavy Erection' shop. This was also used for the manufacture of the other vehicle work done at Nottingham. As well as these Humber/Hornet vehicles this included the "Fork Lift Truck, 4000lb (Eager Beaver); the "Trenching machine, wheeled (Light Mobile Digger or LMD); the "Dummy Axle, Recovery 10-30 tonne(HDA)". We also did Rework on Centurions, the launcher units for the Chieftain Bridgelayer and the "Combat Engineering Tractor, FV180 (CET)". Pictures of all of these are on the site.

 

I have sorted out some better quality (.tif) images of the fabrication work which I have put on our website as they are too large to upload them here. They are located under Feedback / Information

 

regards

 

ROFN website manager

[Adam Elsdon]

Good to see you here Old_ROF! i was going to post the bigger picture of the Hornet line-up you sent me, but i wont steal your sites thunder!!