So 15th Recce is going to have a Daimler AC (Brigand) and a Humber AC (Vandal) fitting out in the US some time this spring/summer. The Daimler should be in country now and on it's way to VMMV in Virginia. The Humber some time this fall or so.

What did British AFV crews use for commands from the Commander for sighting German Armor and engaging?

I'd think that Gunner, Sabot, German Tank in the Open, Fire! isn't going to be correct.

Bear in mind, in this case we've got 3 man vehicles, with no loader, so the gunner or the commander will be feeding the 2 pounder or 37mm depending on where rounds are stowed in the turret. We'll have ready brackets close at hand for the gunner to reach but sometimes the Car Commander will have to grab the round and slap it into the breech with his left hand.

Driver, walk on, driver advance, section advance, etc are already pretty clear from carrier crew drills.

What's correct for larger gunnery aside from MGs?

The place to start seems to be Tank Training, Volume 2, Pamphlet 3 Crew Control and fire Orders, 1938. Don't know if there was a later edition in WW2, I'd guess yes but don't know if it changed anything of substance.

Needless to say it was all commendably simple and straight forward.

The comd gave orders to the Driver or specific armament, eg "Vickers", "Point 5", "Two Pounder" etc, and could give orders to two or more weapons if necessary. The orders could be given in a continous sequence to each in turn, they were not acknowledged, the action was acknowledgement.

Orders to the Driver were to get the vehicle pointing in the right direction (eg for hull mounted weapons), and at a specific speed (in Mph). Eg "Driver", "Right", then "Steady" when in the right direction and "Ten" for speed.

To weapons target indication was a basic sequence - Direction, Range, Description.

Direction was ordered by 'clock code traversing', giving, first eg "Traverse Right" then eg "Four O'clock". he could also order "Traverse right . . . On".

Range was ordered in yards eg "Six hundred"

Description - to quote 'The target will be described by the use of the military vocabulary'

The gunner could make his own estimation of aim-off, but the comd could order it, eg "Aim right - Ten"

The exective order to Fire was normally given as part of this sequence at the end.

In the AVGP, which had the Scorpion two man turret we would give orders like this

CC -HESH, 600, tank on left side of brown building,,,traverse right.....stead..ON....

Gunner - Repeats the command... Hesh 600, tank on left side of brown building...traverse right....(when he see's the tank he reports) ON!!

CC - Loaded (CC makes the loader safety switch) Fire

Gunner - Firing Now - on the Now he presses the fireing button...


According to the vets we spoke to... these commands were similar to the ones they used

Sounds appropriate. Now, to find that manual set.

Thanks!

British commands and no mention about boiling vessel?

Yes that was the best part of the AVGP... hot coffee on the march

The boiling vessel is never mentioned in the same sentence as the Hun, Boche, Jerry etc. That would be sacrilegious.

Did they have tea bags back in WWII I wonder?

Simon

Just so, speaking of...I have some scottish breakfast brewing right now.




Yes, but not the kind you're thinking of. They weren't spoken of in polite company.

Not on the World War II vehicles there weren't. You had to stop, get out of the car, brew up with your kettle and No2 Cooker. I have taken to adding an ammo can to the inside of the engine compartment so we can toss a can of M&V, Pudding and Beans into it so when we do halts in the field at the cold WWII events, we have something warm and hot ready to go. All it takes is one of the drivers breaking out a cooker and we're good to go for hot tea too (unless we brew some up ahead of time and store it in a marmite can (of which we have three).

Interestingly the Humber has stowage for a pair of the black thermoses which will be nice to have. We're also thinking about having the water tank fitted for a heating element so in the winter, we can flip a switch and have hot water right there on the crew door. ;-) (Then I guess we will need a command) Farby, but still useful for staving off frostbite on folks stuck inside a large metal box when it's just below freezing outside. (the big event we usually go to every year at Fort Indian Town Gap is usually in the snow and cold).

The next time you go out and put on a show, would you take video of the cooking and setting-up process? I for one would find it fascinating.

No, sadly; I'm not kidding.


Shot

Usually its one of the crew members from each car that does the cooking. Sometimes we have them pool resources, sometimes it's each car crew. We have compo ration boxes that get stowed on the cars and our support truck (a CMP C15) and we have a cooker on each car. On my dingo, I stow them contrary to kings regulations with the cooking kit in an additional metal ammo box stowed on a fender and tied down. If you look at photos of the armoured cars, you'll see a lot of extra metal ammo boxes bolted or tied or otherwise fixed to armoured cars as additional stowage. I've seen some photo's of dingos that are piled up with kit on the back like the Ferrets were going into Iraq.

What's nifty is that, aside from rocket shipping crates, the metal 'crates' used by the US/British military are the same style/type as what was used in WWII.

I'm usually 'NCOIC' so it makes for not a lot of time for filming, but when we get more cars online, we're going to have to start documenting this stuff because over the weekend, two members cinched deals on 2 more Daimler ACs. We have a member who's an amateur film maker. Perhaps he'll do some work on that front.

A No.2 Cooker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good god man, where's the Benghazi Burner?



They do work quite well actually, admittedly I made mine out of a 5l paint can rather than a 4gal flimsy, but they do make a good brew in short order and are a lot more convenient than messing about with gas or worse a Primus... horrible things, you just need to rake over the sand regularly.

shane

We have two of those too. The Cooker just fits better into the kit on the armoured cars as it's square shaped. I can fit it, the cooking tins, a tea kettle and a bunch of tins of food (M&V and Pudding and such) into an ammo can. It's hard to make spam fritters on a Benghzai Burner. Not many tin bashers laying around in Northwest europe either. Lots of em in Egypt.



Oh, you're talking about the other kind. Tin, sand and fuel. The ones two guys picked up are the kind which is a kettle with a hole through the middle (long stretched doughnut). You drop bits of wood and leaves down the middle, light it and it burns up through the 'kettle' neatly and tidily and heats the water. The sand type cookers I'd rather not set up on the front bin and light there. Also, I can't turn it off and stow it like I can a cooker.

I don't blame you in not wanting to set it up on the car to cook, this is something you want to put on the ground a few safe yards away. But you can 'turn them off' damn easily, as long as you haven't punched big holes in the sides and the top rim is reasonably well finished. All you have to do is cover the top to cut off the air supply and the fire she go out. By the time you've packed everything else up it will be cool enough not to re-ignite

Since the cooking vessel/s are/were usually made from the same sort of can as the burner, its flanged bottom should fit over the top of the burner neatly, actually with the original 4 gal ones you have to set it diagonally if you want to cook so the air can get in.

cheers

shane

But now I have fuel soaked sand floating around in my Front 'junk bin' next to my whitworth spanners and tool bag.



Perhaps, though, with the No2 Cookers and plenty of practice running them, I like how I can turn things down to simmer without a lot of other gyrations. I've torn them down and re-built them to fix problems and I've had good luck polishing valve seats and needles, so they're more or less de-mystified for me. One of the Humber Owners has a set of 5 of the 2 burner cookers which I've managed to make 3 functional units out of. The other two had valves that were too far gone and were only good for parts unless we can find new valve seats and needles. So between the 2 burner units and single burner units on all of our cars, PLUS the Benghazi burner (the boiler type) we're quite set for cookers with out having to cut apart a shell can we paid $30 for and had shipped from Holland.

Heathen !

Tea Bags did not become worthwhile drinking until the 70s (and even then only a few). Even nowadays there are some abominations around. That Liptons (?) Yellow Label which is so popular in foreign climes is atrocious and, as far as I know is not sold in the UK.

Of course real tea snobs won't even touch tea bags, but to be honest I can't tell the difference except for the rather delicate types of tea.

.

Which is why I used a pain can, just tap the lid home and its all nice and neat - but not very pukka I know. $30 for a flimsey? jaysus whept, I can see why you don't want to cut one up.

For actually working on stuff rather than display/historical accuracy, Metrinch stuff is brilliant, or it was 10 years ago when I bought mine (and so it it should be for the money <grumble>), the real joy is it doesn't matter that much if you have AF or Whitworth hexes, you just ignore the markings and use whatever spanner/socket fits best without worrying about rounding off the corners.

By my family camping rules, handed down from ex-AIF grandparents, and so clearly applicable vis Cw common doctrine to your re-enactment activities. The 'stove mechanic' should be excused all other camp duties provided heat/light appears as and when required.

Teabags - Compo Tea gentlemen Compo Tea! Tea leaves, sugar and milk powder compressed into a bullion cube.

shane

They're a vintage accessory for old cars AND old MVs. They're not made any more. And flimsies weren't seen on the NW front, Shell cans were. I've seenem for about 30Euros in the Low countries. I think Diirk Leegwater has em for sale. I'm sure I could find them at yard sales in Blighty, its' just not a trivial thing to go do given I'm on the OTHER side of the pond from the UK.



I've got a set of King Dick Whitworth spanners which are actually QUITE nice. . A ferret tool kit which is an odd mix of AF and BSW tools (odd given ferrets are all UNC/UNF. I'l eventually be getting a good set of King Dick sockets as well. So far I've been able to do most of my task in the field with the spanners.

King Dick have always had a good rep down here, as did Sidchrome (one upon a time), and of course Stahl Willie, but buying German would be sacrilegious for this wouldn't it

Shane

Yep. They may make good tools. But I don't see the point of having some German kit in my tool bag at a WWII event. It just doesn't work. Daimler may be a German name, but, "THAT" one isn't German in anything but name.

Oh, BTW, some of our guys took some photo's of the erstaz camp at the VMMV event. Not quite what you're looking for yet, but sort of there....
There's also a few photos of Brigand, the Daimler AC that's just arrived in the US.