Canadian NSN Catalog

[rob love]

By the late 1970s, microfiche replaced the older books. CFP137pt1 was the main index of NSNs, but there were others which cross-referred the manufacturer numbers to NSN, the LOCAT section which indexed LOCAT (locally assigned) numbers, and the recognised manufacturer part numbers.


In the 90s we went to CDs and eventually it was online. I still prefer the CGCM over the newer CGCS version today as it lets you cross refer over more fields.



I did have a few of the older stocked class catalogues which I would use in the tool crib back in Winnipeg. They were an alphabetical listing of everything within that stock class. One section I found amusing in the 5120 stock class catalogue was "tools, no known use".

[David Dunlop]

Geez, Rob, I hope there isn’t a CO Staff Guide with a corresponding classification.


David

[David Dunlop]

Hello Ed.

Thanks for taking the time to post that information. That is quite an evolution of documentation, and quite frankly, any of them would be a significant challenge to maintain in the pre-computer era.

I have a mid-1940’s copy of the British ZA VAOS Catalogue printed just before the explosion of new equipment coming on stream leading up to D-Day and I had heard stories a lot of that equipment was not fully documented for some time.

David

[Ed Storey]

Yes, there was a huge amount of new material introduced during the war that did not get catalogued until after the conflict was over. You have to look into the wartime Army and Routine Orders to keep up as new material and changes were at times recorded in those documents. Looking at wartime British vocubularies, even if an item is listed, without an image, the description can be vague or misleading.

[rob love]

I always wondered why the electronic versions of the CGCM and CGCS did not include a photo of each item. It would save millions in not ordering the wrong part. There is/was a way to search the part number thru the EIF catalogue and that would hopefully get you to the illustration in the part catalogue. They also use Equipment Reference numbers (ERN) which will tell you what equipment the part or bolt is used on, and you can then work backwards to figure it out. For instance, if the ERNs for a headlight was 30350, 30460 and 30105, you could search the MLVW, the 5 ton, and the M151A2 manual for a line drawing.