Centurion Arrives in BC

[Ed Storey]

I have been looking over my list of Canadian CFRs and there was a Centurion Mk 5 53-81190 but I do not have its' particular WD No. The joy with CFRs is that even though the system is set up with the first two digits being the year and the last five being unique to a particular vehicle, I have not yet in over a decade of study seen the last five numbers being used twice at the same time. So for example I have not encountered say 52-81190 and a 53-81190 being used at the same time. Generally what happens is once a CFR is discontinued then the last five can then be reissued to another vehicle with a different year and I have seen this occur with quite a few of the older CFRs, such as those to the M37CDNs, which were reissued to newer model vehicles. Unfortunately once the number is reissued the data for the older vehicle is not retained which makes study and recording very difficult.

In the case of British manufactured AFVs, like the Ferret and the Centurion, Canada recorded the War Department Number as a form of serial number. The WD number consisted of two numbers/two letters/two numbers and I must admit am not sure how the British allocation worked for particular vehicle types although I do know that WD No. is used on the licence plates of British military vehicles. As I stated in an earlier post, the WD No. along with the CFR was stamped into a brass plaque which was mounted inside the hull of the AFV. Perhaps like the Ferret the CFR was also stamped somewhere on the hull.

My records correlating Centurion CFRs to WD Nos is very much a patchwork with more holes then patches but I can report that the nearest Centurion to 53-81190 in which I have most of the data; Centurion Mk 5 53-81185 was listed with a WD No. as 16 BA 14. Of course just to make the whole process more challenging, where I do have a consecutive series of CFRs with corresponding WD Nos., the WD Nos. are out of sequence.

[Aide Memoire]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

I have been looking over my list of Canadian CFRs and there was a Centurion Mk 5 53-81190 but I do not have its' particular WD No. (...) In the case of British manufactured AFVs, like the Ferret and the Centurion, Canada recorded the War Department Number as a form of serial number. The WD number consisted of two numbers/two letters/two numbers and I must admit am not sure how the British allocation worked for particular vehicle types although I do know that WD No. is used on the licence plates of British military vehicles.

http://armedforcesmuseum.ca/british-army-veh-numbering/

Found this years ago when I was trying to work out something regarding a Saladin and put it up on the museum page, as the original source I can't even pull up through archive.org anymore. It gives the various ranges/ years/ vehicle types etc. and does list a bunch of Cents in the "16 BA XX" range but by no means all of them.

[Robin Craig]

I followed your link to the museum gallery, any way to enable them to enlarge please?

[Ed Storey]

The VRN list answers a number of questions I had with respect to the way in which they were allotted. Thank you for posting it.

[Aide Memoire]

Originally Posted by Robin Craig

I followed your link to the museum gallery, any way to enable them to enlarge please?

Yes, I thought they would post as thumbnails which a click would allow you to see in full resolution but something went haywire. I'll be fixing that.

[Ed Storey]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

I have been looking over my list of Canadian CFRs and there was a Centurion Mk 5 53-81190 but I do not have its' particular WD No. The joy with CFRs is that even though the system is set up with the first two digits being the year and the last five being unique to a particular vehicle, I have not yet in over a decade of study seen the last five numbers being used twice at the same time. So for example I have not encountered say 52-81190 and a 53-81190 being used at the same time. Generally what happens is once a CFR is discontinued then the last five can then be reissued to another vehicle with a different year and I have seen this occur with quite a few of the older CFRs, such as those to the M37CDNs, which were reissued to newer model vehicles. Unfortunately once the number is reissued the data for the older vehicle is not retained which makes study and recording very difficult.

In the case of British manufactured AFVs, like the Ferret and the Centurion, Canada recorded the War Department Number as a form of serial number. The WD number consisted of two numbers/two letters/two numbers and I must admit am not sure how the British allocation worked for particular vehicle types although I do know that WD No. is used on the licence plates of British military vehicles. As I stated in an earlier post, the WD No. along with the CFR was stamped into a brass plaque which was mounted inside the hull of the AFV. Perhaps like the Ferret the CFR was also stamped somewhere on the hull.

My records correlating Centurion CFRs to WD Nos is very much a patchwork with more holes then patches but I can report that the nearest Centurion to 53-81190 in which I have most of the data; Centurion Mk 5 53-81185 was listed with a WD No. as 16 BA 14. Of course just to make the whole process more challenging, where I do have a consecutive series of CFRs with corresponding WD Nos., the WD Nos. are out of sequence.

Thank you for posting those two cards although I often wonder if posts get read and understood completely. The quote is from Post 14. Apparently I was not clear enough and you just found out that you require the WD number to trace British vehicles.....

[Mike Cecil]

Andy,

Interesting list and quite useful, thanks for posting it. Someone put in a lot of work to compile it.

One aspect to note regarding the Australian vehicles listed: the first 60 (169000 to 169059) were not built as Mk.5, but Mk.3, and such items as the dozer equipped and driver training vehicles were originally built as MBTs.

The cards also throw up the ZR series, which I didn't see on that list. These were the tanks that had originally been allocated T numbers but were swung over to the new system when it came into existence circa 1950.

I didn't see the MS series on there, either, which I understand were vehicles for foreign sales in the late 50s and early 60s. The Australian bridgelayers were in that series.

Perhaps the Brits on the forum could provide more comment?

Regards

Mike

[Aide Memoire]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

Thank you for posting those two cards although I often wonder if posts get read and understood completely. The quote is from Post 14. Apparently I was not clear enough and you just found out that you require the WD number to trace British vehicles.....

Thanks, Ed, but no - no reading comprehension issues here. I was hoping against hope that Bovington may have had some maint. or production record or other which might match Hull No. to VRN in the case of the Cents even if that was a bit like believing in Santa Claus. I've tried to track Ferrets and Saladins in the past with nothing but hull nos. to go on but as you say...it doesn't work like that.

[Dan Martel]

From another forum I've learned that Centurions were produced (not including early test vehicles and Mk 2's) from 1948 (Mk 3) to 1960 (Mk 10). The overwhelming majority of production vehicles were Mk 3's with 2833 built from 1948 to 1956.

As I recall reading elsewhere there were five different turret styles as well during the production run, and just to make it more confusing the turret styles did not necessarily co-relate to the hull style.

The last WD number assigned to a new build Mk 10 was 03DA03 on March 30, 1962.

Cheers,
Dan.

[David Herbert]

Remember that the army registration number stayed with the hull regardless of how many times it was rebuilt. So it is possible to find photos of very different vehicles with the same registration because it is the same hull rebuilt several times.
David

[Ed Storey]

So we have a Centurion with no identifiable WD number and a questionable CFR, how would anyone come to conclusion that this particular AFV which sat outside at Cornwallis for several decades actually served in Korea?

[Aide Memoire]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

So we have a Centurion with no identifiable WD number and a questionable CFR, how would anyone come to conclusion that this particular AFV which sat outside at Cornwallis for several decades actually served in Korea?

Still waiting for the 'anyone' to get back to me from Borden. Because otherwise I'm at sea myself on that one.

[Robin Craig]

Thank you for this, its helps another current project I am involved with. Again with similar transfer issues

[Jason Ginn]

Ed do you know if by chance the cents CAR's used the last 3 of the hull number? Just noticed in the pic the CAR matches the ROF hull number 190.

IiRC the CAR prefixes werent gospel. They seem to be used for date of delivery instead of contract depending in the order sizes and delivery dates for some vehicles.

Just a thought.

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

I have been looking over my list of Canadian CFRs and there was a Centurion Mk 5 53-81190 but I do not have its' particular WD No. The joy with CFRs is that even though the system is set up with the first two digits being the year and the last five being unique to a particular vehicle, I have not yet in over a decade of study seen the last five numbers being used twice at the same time. So for example I have not encountered say 52-81190 and a 53-81190 being used at the same time. Generally what happens is once a CFR is discontinued then the last five can then be reissued to another vehicle with a different year and I have seen this occur with quite a few of the older CFRs, such as those to the M37CDNs, which were reissued to newer model vehicles. Unfortunately once the number is reissued the data for the older vehicle is not retained which makes study and recording very difficult.

In the case of British manufactured AFVs, like the Ferret and the Centurion, Canada recorded the War Department Number as a form of serial number. The WD number consisted of two numbers/two letters/two numbers and I must admit am not sure how the British allocation worked for particular vehicle types although I do know that WD No. is used on the licence plates of British military vehicles. As I stated in an earlier post, the WD No. along with the CFR was stamped into a brass plaque which was mounted inside the hull of the AFV. Perhaps like the Ferret the CFR was also stamped somewhere on the hull.

My records correlating Centurion CFRs to WD Nos is very much a patchwork with more holes then patches but I can report that the nearest Centurion to 53-81190 in which I have most of the data; Centurion Mk 5 53-81185 was listed with a WD No. as 16 BA 14. Of course just to make the whole process more challenging, where I do have a consecutive series of CFRs with corresponding WD Nos., the WD Nos. are out of sequence.