I have attached the document I was referring to in my previous post. I believe Don Dingwall found it sand has passed it on to a few other folks.
You can see that on 28 July 1945 there were 8 Ram I and 2 Ram II ARV's held in Canadian stocks.
The same document shows that 28 Ram I and 12 Ram II ARV's had been previously transferred to the British.
Totals are:
Ram I ARV: qty.36
Ram II ARV: qty.14
Grand total 50
This list shows a total of 40 Mark I tanks but only 36 of these configured as ARV's. 1 is listed as salvage and 3 remain as cruisers. This 1945 document agrees with the Clive's detailed list on RamTank which contains records for 36 Ram Mark I ARV's held in Canadian stocks in January 1944. It gets interesting when you look a the details of the Ram II ARV's in Clives List. There are 15 in total, 14 of these are in Canadian Stocks as of January 1944 but the 15th, which is very definetly a ARV Mark II with Winch, (CT-159854) has the following entry:
"Jan 1944, shown as Struck Off Strength to the British delivered to 13 AFV Depot, Kegworth
Oct 1944, shown as Struck off Strength to British
KT, date unknown, shown as a Cruiser held by C Sqdn, 12 CAR (TRR) and named "Canadian"
KT, date unknown, shown as an ARV held by 12 CAR (TRR) and named "Canadian" "
I re-calculated the British census number block for the ARV's and, if the numbers are inclusive, i missed one. The new quantity should be:
Ram ARVs (Mk II) - Qty. 48 (or 49)
72 ZR 20 - 72 ZR 56 (or 57) qty. 37 (or 38)
23 ZV 72 - 23 ZV 82 qty. 11
This shows as discrepancy of 1 or 2 ARV's of all marks (depending on the census numbers) between 1946 and 1947.
Hanno mentions on the Sherman Register that the Netherlands acquired 2 Ram I's in 1946. Could these be the unaccounted for ARV's? It would be odd that of all the "A" vehicles in the Netherlands the Dutch would request (or accept) two obsolete 2 pdr equipped gun tanks when they were obviously after 75mm or greater equipped AFV's. If this were the case it would account for all Ram ARV's on the 1945 list.
Brian Baxter's book " Breakdown - A History of Recovery Vehicles in the British Army" states that the ARV Mark I was developed by the Experimental Recovery Section of the Director of Mechanical Maintenance in early 1942 at Arborfield. The ARV Mark I was envisioned to be built on each major AFV platform in use at the time.The Churchill was the first in use but some designs were discarded as unsuitable. Eventually the Grant, Ram, Sherman, Cromwell, Centaur and Cavalier were accepted and manufactured As ARV Mark I's. The Ram ARV Mark I was slightly different from the other's in that it retained its turret and was developed at Arborfield in co-operation with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps.
On p. 49 Baxter states that the winch equipped ARV Mk. II was developed in 1943 by the Experimental Recovery Section in the UK for three AFV platforms only. These were the Sherman, Churchill and Ram. Apparently the Ram was intended for use by Canadian units but was built to a common design. He goes on to state that 500 ARV Mark II's were ordered but only pilot models and a very few REME conversions were actually built before wars end.
On p. 74 he states that the Ram ARV Mark I was considered for issue to SP regiments of the Royal Artillery in 1954. This was apparently due to a shortage of Mark II ARV's in the post-war years.
I had always thought that the ARV Mark I and Mark II nomenclature referred to the variant of Ram tank but it appears that the designation refers specifically to the variant of recovery equipment fitted to a number of different AFV platforms, e.g. The Churchill ARV Mark I was built using Mark I and II infantry tanks as platforms.
It is interesting that the Ram ARV stayed in Royal Army stores as late as the mid 1950's.
I guess the question is were the Canadian ARV numbers based on the platform used for the conversion or the model of ARV created? It appears that 36 Ram Mark I cruisers were converted to ARV Mark I configuration and 14 Ram Mark II cruisers were converted to ARV Mark I configuration.
The photographic evidence of CT-159854 confirms that it is a Ram Mark II cruiser that has been converted to a ARV Mark II (with winch) but this may be the pilot model for the Mark II conversion.
It looks as though we have 51 ARV conversions of the Ram recorded. Possibly 50 ARV Mark 1's and 1 confirmed ARV Mark II.
Hope this helps,
J
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