BATUS vehicles on the move in Canada

[Robin Craig]

These two are a King trailer and an MAN wrecker, very impressive both of them.

R

[Robin Craig]

More of the wrecker

R

[Neil Ashley]

Did I read somewhere that BATUS was closing or did I imagine it?

With the size of the British Army now and other training areas in europe becoming available it must be hard to justify the cost.

[Dano McLaren]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Robin Craig]

Neil,

I know nothing of the dollar figured charged as rent by Canada, but I can tell you that the size of BATUS is huge and the ability to do live fire battle runs with armoured infantry and support weapons is a huge value.

Considering the money sunk into infrastructure and vehicle hangars I would say it is unlikely but to be honest things change and who knows some former eastern european country might just offer the same facilities at a fraction of the cost and only a cross channel ferry ride away.

I do know the opportunity to snap these vehicles is thanks to the bean counters. All this stuff used to travel in one train but now is trucked in onesies and twosies.

R

[rob love]

I think we Canadians traded the Suffield wasteland for some gently used submarines. We thought we were making like bandits, but in the end it may have been the Brits who got the better of the deal.

All kidding aside though, when the time comes that a better deal is had by a military, they do not throw good money after bad. The Germans here in Shilo (GATES) had some terrific workshops, with huge overhead cranes. There was a lot of good shop equipment, PMQ furnishings, etc etc, that all went onto the chopping block. We used to line up at 7 in the morning in November waiting for the sales to open. Workbenches were $5 each....$10 if they had a vice on them. Work platforms were also $5 each, and mess hall stacking chairs were $1 each, with hundreds to be had.

As to the buildings themselves, if the Canadian Forces wanted to use any of them, then we had to pay book value for them. As a result, most were demolished while some were sold off to be moved. I picked up a few good buildings very cheap back in those days.

Of course, all the military pattern vehicles went back The only things we bought from them vehicle wise were the German Commanders staff car (an old full size LTD which I think we paid $1 for and sent off to CADC a few months later), a couple of the unimog range control trucks (also sent to CADC within 6 months...we made money on those) and their fairly new MCI scenic cruiser bus, which I think may still be kicking around the base. A number of German military bicycles were sold off through CADC as well, I think Gordon Falk got one.

End of the day, when it's time to go, it's time to go.

[BCA]

Rob,
What about all the auto union Mungas that showed up in Manitoba in the very early 1980's. Weren't they sold by German army. Perhaps you heard about how they were sold. Through Crown Assets? I have one of these ex-German Mungas and it still runs well.
.... Brian