Cfr 70-08889

[45jim]

I drove crazy eights while in the Lorne Scots and it never had a pedestal mount, or any gun mount for that matter. We being an Infantry unit had no need for a mount as we didn't have a single .50, just the old GPMG. None of the jeeps in the unit, or any other unit in HMD had one at the time. Friends in the Queens York Rangers lamented the fact of just having the side mounted Pig. Looking backward through rose tinted glasses me thinks.

The only pedestal mounts I ever saw were on cut up M38A1's in Cyprus. They were sitting on the bottom of the Med in a pile. We had the Iltis on my Cyprus tour but plenty of two-timers remembered firing .50 from the M38A1's from the pedestal and said it almost shook those old jeeps to pieces and was as stiff as a noodle, not a good mount for such an accurate gun.

Chris, I think you should forget the call sign thing, its just wishful thinking. Its really accurate to say that depending on who showed up and how many vehicles were available that weekend, would be the determining factor as to what callsign was given to a specific vehicle. And when talking command call signs, they were assigned to the person not the vehicle. If the vehicle broke down and he moved to another vehicle, he took his call sign with him.