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Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering
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Hendrik, David, I agree.....even though I have no official documents to back it up. I don't think there was a luxury position to replace ALL cab11/12's with cab13's. Maybe the general rule, yes...but there was a shortage of everything, so I would not be surprised if someone turns up with a document stating that (cab 11/12) trucks are to be properly serviced and maintained.....and are only to be replaced by newer trucks if they are completely worn....frontline units coming first if new trucks are available.(?)
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I doubt such a document will surface. Field armies never have enough of what they need and too many of the burdens of well-meaning staff officers. A RCEME veteran acquaintance told how one of the first things they threw out after landing in Normandy was an engine block for some very big truck. Some farmer near Bernier-sur-mer has a lump of cast iron in a filled-in slit trench.
After Desert Storm, I watched US trucks dragging around the most amazing collection of flatbeds, containers and trailers. When the units mobilized, everything old and new in the compounds got loaded.
The war moved fast, the logistics train was struggling to keep up, and the convoys didn't stop coming and shake out until the surrender. (If the staff asked for 30 sheets of plywood and 50 sheets show up, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.) Or if someone behind the fighting echelon found something abandoned or broken down in desert, so be it. Better to have something and not need it, than to leave it behind for the locals or stragglers to steal or use against your own troops. Besides, extras are always useful for trading and reconciling the books.
Contrast that to the retreating Iraqis. Everything they owned was dropped and abandoned. Every cab over engine 6-cylinder truck; every cam' net; every crate of ammunition; every fibreglass copy of the Kevlar helmet.
All of this is to say, if the soldiers can get their hands on working equipment, they will keep it.