Wanted: Looking for Sherman plate steel in British Columbia

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Most Off Road Crawlers and Carriers for the Logging & Mining Industries only use the final drive assembly, bogies and tracks off Shermans, Sextons, High Speed Tractors etc. The hull, engine and superstructure are all non-tank parts....

I've learned to never say never when it comes to adaptive uses of military surplus. From the 1940 through the 1960s, the American military tended to produce families of tracked vehicles. There was the M6 High Speed Tractor that sort of resembled the M4, but not. The M8 High Speed Tractor had M24 Chaffee lineage. There was another carrier with M48 or M60 parts, but I can't find the name. I've seen pictures of spar yarders built on all these undercarriages.

Southeast Equipment (SECO) had no shame stripping wartime chassis' and half-tracks to make log skidders. There wasn't just one company.

Finning shortened M4's to lug pneumatic drills and compressors up steel rock faces.

Madill had a source for M4 and M32 lower hulls. The company wanted their simple and rugged designs, so I'm reasonably confident the lower hulls were kept as the foundations. The track geometry lined up and the plant didn't need to plan and drill a lot of holes in virgin steel plate. Not to mention Vancouver Island is a long way for Canada's steel producing regions.