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Old 31-07-13, 04:18
Mike Cecil Mike Cecil is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Cody, Wyoming, USA
Posts: 2,365
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Hi Dan,

'LR' for 'Long Range' was a British designation, and I'm unsure if it was applied in Canada. It was not applied to Centurions so equipped in Australia.

The image of the 45-odd tanks at Fort B: the ones with a visible rear end are not fitted with the auxiliary armoured fuel tank. Neither is the tank in the colour image of the tank unloading.

Fitting took some work: welded on mounting pieces, new fuel lines, new four-pipe fuel tap for the 'three tank' configuration (an outlet and three selectable inlets). Unlike the mono-trailer, fuel was drawn directly from the auxiliary tank, and it could be selected from within the vehicle. The tank mod was available as a complete kit from the British Ministry of Supply.

The three tanks (a Mk.5 and two Mk5/2) visible on the train: the 'middle' Mk5/2 tank with the 105mm L7 gun is fitted with the auxiliary armoured fuel tank - you can see it protrudes behind the air louvres that normally are the 'back end' of the top of the tank. The infantry telephone, normally mounted vertically on the left side of the air louvre plate, can be seen mounted vertically on the left side of the auxiliary fuel tank. It is not possible to see if the other tanks are fitted with the 'LR tank'.

I've also noticed that they are all carrying an extra road wheel mounted on the rear left of the turret - the rim is visible above the top of the turret. This is the position where a set of three track links were normally mounted on tanks not fitted with IR and RMG, but it seems this unit at least changed that to a spare road wheel.

Mike C
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