[horsa]

Hey Michael,

I hadn’t seen that report but it helps to confirm that at least the heavy mortar companies of the Independent Support Battalions for each Canadian Division likely had the T-16s at the time of the invasion. Another report which would seem to corroborate that information is the 18 July 45 Report No 141 on the Situation of the Canadian Military Forces Overseas. Appendix B was compiled by 21st Army Group from monthly vehicle position reports in May 1944 and states the equipment used by the Canadian Forces at the start of operations in Normandy for June 1944. The T-16 is listed as 155 vehicles with the intended establishment being 300. The same report covers Equipment in northwest Europe effective December 1944 and 266 T-16s were held with the intended establishment being increased to 348 vehicles. So even if you factor attrition, the number of T-16s in action still increased by more than 100 during the fall of 1944 following the invasion.

Section 82 of the report covers the T-16 and it says the vehicle was first adopted by the Canadian Army in October 1943 for towing the 6-pounder guns and towing 4.2” mortars. But then says Universal Carriers were used for 6-pounders during the assault landing and continued to be equipped mainly with these. But 100 T-16s modified for carriage of the 4.2” mortar were available for issue by the end of April 1944.

Might be that they earmarked T-16s as being a priority for the Support Battalions since they knew there would be an initial shortage at the time of the invasion. So anti-tank units stayed with what they had while the heavy mortar units received new vehicles which had the modifications for mortar gear and ammunition storage.

Section 81 covers universal carriers and mentions them being adopted for the Medium Machine Gun as a new requirement in 1944. It also states these were obtained from British sources. This likely included the three machine gun companies in each of the Division’s Support Battalions even though no units are named. And that would fall in place with what Geoff mentioned. I guess if they couldn’t meet demand of T-16s for the A/T units, they sure couldn’t supply the demands needed for the carrier borne MMG units.