Hi Bob.
I suspect two factors are at play here.
In the Manitoba area, the ratio of these charging sets found with the grill guard setup vs the metal shroud, or none at all, is easily in the order of 4 to 1, or higher, but most, if not all would have been Canadian Pattern Models. Very few true British Pattern Charging Sets are ever found out here. That tells me the Canadian Army quickly discovered the grill guard setup offered better protection for the charging set and vastly improved handling ability for Signals personnel who had to hump them back and forth for remote operations. The latter point is probably one that was not fully appreciated at the start of the war when wartime use of wireless was still not fully thought out. But all this likely prompted a changeover to the grill guard format protection in all subsequent Canadian Pattern Models at some point in the second half of the war, if not sooner.
We do run across 24-Volt units out here (with grill guards) and as Charlie pointed out, most if not all of these, are probably postwar conversions of wartime charging sets to meet the 24-Volt upgrades to the newer generations of Military Vehicles and Signals Equipment.
David
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