Afghanistan Tank Names
 

Question for those more well informed, do the Leopard tanks now in Service carry the same names as tanks from the regiments past? For example, would a LdSH(RC) C Squadron Leopard serving today bear the name Calgary or Calgary II as Sherman's from WW2 or are they named completely different or perhaps not named at all? Is this true for regiments across Canada or does it differ? Does anyone have list of names from Afghanistan theater tanks if there were any?

John

I can't wait for a rely. This is my favourite topic.

Tank Names
 

When we shipped the C2 MEXAS over in October 2006, all were named same as the WW2 Shermans. The first sqn deployed was B SQN, but as the tanks sent came from the best the Regiment had on hand, came from all of the tank squadrons, so not all of the tanks names started with "B". It wasn't until A SQN that took over in Feb 2007, that all the tanks received correct names.
I have a complete list of CFR of all of the C2 MEXAS that were deployed and a walkaround and short history of each. Each troop also painted a troop mascot on the turret sides of the add on armour, SHQ,1st,2nd, 3rd (None)
When the Leopard 2's arrived in August 2007, it became a crew initiative to "mark" their tanks , and it faded away.

Now today within the Regiment, yes names are carried on same as the WW2 names, just no Abdul II, Abdul etc....

Not 100% about other units.

Anthony

Thanks Anthony, that is great information, was the MEXAS armor kit installed by the CAF workshops? What happened to the armor once the tanks were returned?

Regards
John

Not sure if the armour being used was Mexas, but I can tell you that the Leos were stripped of their add on armour at the end of the mission, and sent back separately. I believe it was due to the extra weight in shipping.

Funny story about the belly plates, which were quite large and quite heavy. I had to go to the weekly production meeting in place of my boss as he was away. One of the military guys who was stripping and shipping the armour brought up that they had a problem with the belly plates.....the forklifts could not lift them from the ends to stack them into sea containers. The collective group then went off on a tangent about how they could use the crane from the ARV, but would have to stack the sea can on another sea can in order to get the crane boom somewhat level to get into the can. While all this discussion was going on, I had elbowed a friend (still in the military) who was sitting next to me and in amusement whispered two words: "sideloading seacan". Well he ratted me out by raising his hand and saying "ET: Rob Love had an idea about using a sideloading seacan". The military guys immediately realized that they had missed the obvious solution, (they even had several of these sea cans in their pile) and while the ET did not admonish me for not speaking up, I could tell the real meaning behind his words.

No good deed goes unpunished Rob!

PM Sent to you Anthony

Regards
John

I was part of the rebuild program here in Edmonton in the fall of 2006, we had Leopards all over the place, each one had to go through all of the Leo checks F1-F3, The ones that were the best were picked, quarantined, and then taken over to 1 Sve Bn , were the full MEXAS kit was added , then moved to storage in the white whale portable hanger , kit packed, then shipped....

All svc armour was reboxed and returned back to Depot. We bought only 26 complete kits, 17 kits used , with 3/4 kits sent as operational reserves. We went through a few kits as we needed spare parts to replace our damaged ones during my tour Feb-Sept 2007.

A C2 MEXAS CFR 85099 has arrived at the CWM , for display. This CFR was not deployed to Afghanistan , but is nice to see a kit survived and is fitted to a C2.

Anthony

I found a few photos of the B SQN tanks with the names on the barrel shrouds for you as reference .

Anthony

Anthony

thanks so much for sharing those, those are fantastic photos!

John