Please ID data plates
 

These data plates are fitted to a Chevrolet C60L, but the data plates seems to be a hodge podge - who can help to ID them?


1) First plate:

8443 denotes C60L, but what does X2 stand for?
Attachment 77746


2) Second plate, it reads:

GL - MK-III CANADIAN
TRUCK no: 2
Assembly no.: ZC/C 1735
Serial no.: 164

Attachment 77781


3) Third plate, looks standard to me:

Attachment 77748

GL must be referring to the Gun Laying radar, Mark III? (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GL_Mk._I_radar)

Hanno,
This is one of the vehicles that made up a GL MkIII (C) radar convoy. We have one of the radar trailers in Australia, recently converted to the site office for the Corowa military vehicle event. There were two FWD trucks with two radar trailers, and a C60L to carry extra equipment and cables, these are what comprised a convoy. I think there has been one of these C60L trucks identified in Australia. There should be a Contract number on it somewhere, all equipment was issued under contract S/M2828.

Hanno,

My first thought when seeing the data plate in the first picture was that it's an early cab 11/12 type plate, which would be out of place in a cab13...however, I am not sure when the switch from the old style data plate to new style data plate occurred exactly...it has to be somewhere in 1942.....my assumption was "simultaneously" with the switch from cab12 to 13, but there might have been a bunch of very early cab13's fitted with the old style data plate (?)
.....same question with the switch from old to new type description (8443 to C60448-M)....same time as cab switch?

Some of David Haywards research is posted here : http://hotrod.gregwapling.com/chev-t...dian-chev.html.
the 1942 8443 is about halfway the page and David mentions both Cab12's and 13's.

sorry, this doesn't answer what "X2" stands for...

Alex

Added a better picture of the GL - MK-III CANADIAN plate, which clearly shows a REL-in-maple-leaf-logo (for Research Entreprises Limited), presumably as a sign of who converted the trucks.
The subject truck came from Norway, and is now in the Netherlands. I wonder if the plate came from another vehicle, like one of the FWD trucks which were used as tractors for the radar trailers?

Attachment 77784

Note that the C60L in the thread CMP C60L comes home does have modifications which are not present on the subject vehicle here. Plus it has a different plate attached to it:

Attachment 77785

PS: some related threads, but there are more on here:

• Radar Trailer
• Canadian radar tracking - Fort Bliss 1947 set 1/2
• REL Radar trailers

Hanno,
I notice the first 5 or 6 digits of the Chev chassis number are the same as the ones supplied to Australia in the Radar Trains, according to the copy of the page from AWM records in another thread.

Did some reading in my trusty set of Wheels & Tracks magazines, which is where I found the answer:

X2 stands for export to United Kingdom.

Would this tie in with manufacture of the Gun Laying radar, Mark IIIC? Where these manufactured specifically under British or under Canadian contract?

And if this C60L was indeed part of a Gun Laying Radar convoy, how would it have ended up in Norway? Were they supplied with the radar sets or was the truck issued as a generic GS version?

Loads of questions still to be answered....

Hanno,
All the equipment for the GLIII(c) radar convoys came under one Contract number, S/M2828 and I am sure this covered those that came to UK and those to Australia.

The Chev C60 census numbers for the UK were L4786091 - 4786491 and a handful with earlier numbers (same contract).

As Norway received a lot of surplus equipment from the UK after the war, it is quite likely that the C60 was part of it. The radar would have probably been obsolete by then with later types taking its place, and the truck only being a load carrier, nothing specific. Also it would appear that few Canadian vehicles were retained in British service for long, after the war.

Hello Richard,

You mentioned S/M 2828 before and indeed the late David Hayward posted the following info on that contract - see quote below. From this we learn that the column or "train" comprised a C60L with winch - which the subject vehicle has.

I'll ask the seller if there's a census number on the door.

Thanks,
Hanno

Rel
 

Hanno my friend,

I have no specific knowledge about the dataplates but : REL is a wartime Canadian Crown Corporation involved in technical research , development and fabrication of advanced optics, radio and radar gear.

It's main office was in a suburb of Toronto Canada.It was involved in very advanced radar ( for the time ) projects to aid the war effort.

We owe the engeneers and technicians at REL most of our modern target acquisition equipment either on land, sea or air. In the interwar years Canada had lagged behind in these fields and particularly in the 30's .

REL changed everything in the 40's and even in the post war period a lot of the research was continued by the Research Council of Canada and allowed us to be at par with the East block in modern target acquisition during the Cold War.

I am a REL land target acquisition equipment collector. Sniper rifle scopes, field artillery Range Finders, binoculars, field and observation telescopes were all developped and made by REL. I know less about REL research and development in the Naval and Air arms but they were quite involved and successfull. That kind of equipment is less easy to collect because it is the size of a house but nonetheless , REL produced it en masse.

I know we equiped Norway and Denmark with those kind of equipment »( radar vans ) in the early post war years because they were specificly part of our NATO task for over 30 years . Even Canada used the specialised CMP trucks well into the late 50's, early 60's . My Wire 5 truck is an example so are the machinery and engeneering lorries. My father was a REME officer and as late as 1969 they were still in use in the Reserves. Incidentaly, in the early 50's my father worked as an officer cadet in such a radar van in Sherbrooke Québec Canada . It was part of the early warning system around cities and towns during the early post war period.
,
REL was a success story for the Canadian war effort overseas and i am realy proud as should every Canadian should be of that contribution.

Good luck with your quest to identify these artefacts.

Robert,

Thanks for the background on REL - indeed one of Canada's succes stories, albeit very much unknown as the public-at-large thinks that most of the technological developments came from the USA.

Good to hear Canada supplied the radar systems to Norway.

I think that we can be pretty sure to conclude this C60L it is indeed one of the Gun Laying radar convoy vehicles.

Cheers,
Hanno

Attachment 78076

REL Canada
 

Very nice truck Hanno. Quite complete.

The gun laying radar was for air defense.

We have one of the associated guns here in Saint -Georges as a monument.

It was an artillery task. A fellow member of Branch 249 was an AAA artillery man and worked with that gun and that radar suite in Norway in the immediate post war period. He is in his 80's now and is a past president of our Branch.

I have located two of those guns and i intend to rapatriate them to show three in our remebrance park.

When similar REL radars were used to locate incoming ennemy aircraft or V1, V2 rockets for interception by the fighters , they were operated by the Air Force.

They became obsolete in the late 50's with the Jet age and supersonic flight.But remember that the Soviet bombers were slow even into the 60's and they relied on the ''swarm '' concept to overcome air defense. That is when the Bomarc missiles came into action replacing the Arrow interceptor concept in the late 50's ,early 60's .

Everything changed when the ICBM's could reach New-York and other large North American urban centers.

So, in short , late in the war the the Germans did not have any offensive air capabilities and AAA assets sat idle only to comme alive again in the early Cold War against a possible Soviet aggression. All motorised by CMP trucks.

Cheers.

There are two that I'm aware of Richard. Both have appeared on MLU previously. This one belongs to Ghost (Robert Williams) in NSW:

Attachment 78098 Attachment 78099 Attachment 78100

The other one sits in my backyard, after I paid $300 to save it from the scrappie. See next post...

Alex, based on these two vehicles you could pinpoint the change in data plates to April '42 and chassis serial 312XXX - 313XXX.

Attachment 78101 Attachment 78102 Attachment 78103 Attachment 78104 Attachment 78105

Thanks Tony, I did a search but could not find the post. Note on the data plate of Robert's C60, it has X2, so look like the contract S/M2828 was for the UK and assume part of it was sent to Australia.
I do wonder about the one in Norway, because if it was supplied after the war ended, my guess is it was equipment from the UK that they received. If the contract plate is present this will prove the point. UK did send a lot of surplus vehicles to Norway and this radar was probably being superseded by then as we had been developing our own.

Tony,

Thanks for posting that info! Are (were) they both equipped with a winch?

So we now have three known C60Ls which were delivered as part of the Gun Laying Radar convoy. Interestingly, the REL data plate only differs in the "Serial no.":

Could "TRUCK no: 2" denote this is the second truck in the convoy?

H.

Hanno,
There is one of the FWD HAR-01 trucks from a radar convoy in preservation in England and the REL plate shows it as Truck no.3, Assy no. ZC/2675. My guess is that the other FWD is Truck no.1

Another radar truck train surfaced in Australia:

Attachment 102705 Attachment 102706

Attachment 102707 Attachment 102708

Attachment 102709

More on these trucks and the combinations they towed, along with the supply contract details in the Radar Trailer thread.