15-CWT, 2K1, WIRE 5 Body Details

[Robert Bergeron]

Still in Mr Gibeau's marvelous truck in the War Museum we see the 12 VDC feed of the + and - poles with external feed to the table just outside the box.

The cable that feeds the power looks like it's coming from the front wall and thence the right side wall where all the current is regulated through the panel .

Mystery solved ?

[Robert Bergeron]

Gents,

- 1- Wartime picture in Canada of a C-15 A cab 13- round hatch Wireless 5 .

Snow on the ground , so winter of 44-45, H Huts , so a base in Canada , canadian civilian cars , so active base not a storage yard.

The best picture i have ever seen of the ''Gin Palace ''

-2- ( unrelated to the subject ) The Bomb from the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regt ( 27 th Armoured ) , the only Sherman to make it from D Day to VE Day.Also, from the unit that killed Wittman, the Nazi idol . Broadside , from a Firefly variant of the Sherman . Wittman tought he was rolling through wheat fields in Ukraine pushing back retreating reds. He met the Canadians in Normandy instead .

[rob love]

Here is what the design branch records have to say in the entry for this vehicle. Note there is no tow hitch on the truck. It was considered as self contained, and the weight already likely taxed that poor little stovebolt 6 to it's limit.

[rob love]

Below is the text from the entry for this vehicle.

[Robert Bergeron]

Rob, great pictures.

On the first picture i see a square hatch , so earlier model with all metal ( heavy ) box.

On the third picture we clearly see the blackout lights kill switch for the rear door and the 110 VAC outlet in the front of the inside of the box.

[Robert Bergeron]

Rob,

The text entry answers most if not all questions.

How come the max Gross weight of my version of the truck is only 8500 lbs ?

[rob love]

Robert:

I checked the GVW of the 15cwt vans where they were simply modified cargo boxes to see if the gross weight on those was lighter. They are in fact identical. A few collectors in the early days installed the house type bodies on cab and chassis that were actually built for the earlier cargo box with tarp and fitments.

Here is some more on the development of the 15cwt and 30cwt boxes as the two are closely related. You'll have to excuse the photographs as opposed to scanning the pages. These books are fairly rare and I do not wish to break their spines.

[rob love]

There is also a section on penthouses in these books, however they unfortunately do not show the 15cwt penthouse, but instead show the 3 ton and others.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Robert Bergeron

Rob, great pictures.

On the first picture i see a square hatch , so earlier model with all metal ( heavy ) box.

I wouldn't be too sure of it being an early model The wheel s have the lifting flanges, and the rear POL holders are the late type which held 5 gallon Jerry cans as opposed to the lighter and smaller POW cans.

[David Dunlop]

Interesting mod with the four large guards protecting the antennae chimneys. Must have been working that truck in heavy bush country. The mail slot in the side window shows up quite nicely as well, Robert.


Thanks for posting.


David

[David Dunlop]

Gosh Robert where do I start?

The Grant Storage Battery Company came into being in the late 1800's, possibly a little later than the Excide Company. Grant's claim to fame was development of a super rugged, what they called 'Deep Discharge' or 'Deep Cycle' Lead Acid Battery. They became very popular for use in submarines, electric street cars and other vehicles, as well as in the communication sector, back in the days when distributed electrical power was almost non existent. They also developed an excellent line of battery chargers. I think they were eventually bought out by Excide just before WW2 but the Grant Charger and Battery line survived well into the 1960's.

The sign image I posted shows the battery we are talking about here.

The two basic, critical features of a lead acid storage battery are it's capacity (how much power it can hold) and it's discharge cycle (how long the battery can deliver it's full capacity before reaching full discharge).

Your typical car battery can be considered at the low end of the performance spectrum. It will only give you it's full capacity for about 20% of it's discharge cycle. This is great for starting your car, even if you have to crank it a few times. From that point on, it capacity to deliver power drops off fairly quickly. If you work one of these batteries too hard ( deep discharge it) too often, you significantly shorten it's life expectancy.

By comparison, the Grant Battery was designed as a deep discharge battery. It could deliver full capacity for about 75% of it's discharge cycle, though I think it was recommended to recharge at around the 50% point to maximize the life of the battery. The huge advantage for the military with these batteries was you could run a wireless set off them for a hell of a long time without needing to recharge. But they were expensive in the day.

The standard 'Wireless' batteries the military used with their wireless equipment probably fell somewhere between a car battery and the Grant in terms of performance.

Which brings me back to wondering what the heck specialized purpose were some of these 2K1 equipped Wireless Trucks used for?

A purely wild thought, but if you have both penthouses deployed on a 2K1 Truck, there is a huge problem with the right side penthouse. The gen box muffler will exhaust directly into that penthouse. Could the Grant batteries have provided enough run time of the wireless equipment to be able to cycle the generators when the penthouse was not being used??? I'm really reaching here not aren't I…???!!!

[David Dunlop]

Rob.

Great info!

Thanks,


David

[Robert Bergeron]

Thank-you Both David and Rob.

A most fascinating variant of the CMP to say the least !

So now we know pretty much where the wires run and the batteries stand.

We know pretty much what equipment was carried , including masts, antennae rods .

Blackout switches and curtains , lights, ventilators , windows.

Q. Was there ever a Onan generator version during WW2 ?

Q. Was there another radio than the WS 19 used during WW2 ?

Basic and fundamental questions. Do we have references ?

[David Dunlop]

Robert.

Has the Wiring Diagram on the inside of the panel box door survived in your truck? On many of the boxes I have seen, this diagram was either badly torn, badly stained, painted over or missing completely.

David

[Robert Bergeron]

David,

The %?&*%$%? door is missing ... all the rest is there.

Why did someone feel the urge to tear off the darn generator compartment door and keep everything else ?