Wheel Flange or Sling Cap

[David Dunlop]

Hanno.

Getting the level of data for CMP’s compared to US Military Vehicle counterparts will never happen. The Canadian Federal Government attitudes towards their Armed Forces are far too different from that of the US Government.

Both Countries have ’Official Secrets Acts’ to protect sensitive information, but far too often in Canada, that process is nothing more than a quick and easy means to dispose of documentation for far too many other reasons than ‘National Security’. When it comes to Military Documentation like equipment manuals, even the Canadian Forces Directorate of History in Ottawa has a difficult time getting material for their records.

By comparison, in the United States, the US Army for example maintains a Department of Publications responsible for printing, storing and distributing virtually every manual, Technical Bulletin, Service Bulletin and Lube Chart ever issued for any piece of equipment in their inventory, and as long as any of these publications do not fall under their Official Secrets Act (brand new innovative equipment for example) any of those publications can be requested by the general public anytime for a fee.

Back in the 1970’s when I was restoring an M-38CDN, M100 Trailer and M37 CDN, I wrote directly to the DOP for all my manuals rather than paying the prices asked by commercial venders. The US Army DOP printed catalogues for each category of publication they produced, TM-, TB-, SB- and LC- and I ordered a complete set and was on their mailing list for many years for all the annual supplements they issued. These listed all manuals that were new or declared obsolete each year.

You could request any publication from the US Army DOP. You would get a reply back stating if the publication was available (most were surprisingly) and the cost. Cost at that time was $0.01 USD per page plus postage. Their 1970’s and 1980’s catalogues still listed a surprising number of wartime equipment publications.

If a publication was no longer in stock with the DOP, they would provide you with detailed references for obtaining a photocopy from the National Library in Washington DC. I think the Library cost was about $0.05 cents a page plus postage.

The National Library in Washington always received copies of every US Army Publication as soon as it was declared obsolete, no matter how large or small, so today, for anyone interested in documenting any sort of data on wartime US Military Vehicles, it is easy enough to do if you put the time into it. The information is on file. Anything to do with the US Military takes pride of place in US History.

Sorry for the length of this reply, Hanno, but you asked an interesting question.

David

[Grant Bowker]

Another issue with Canada is that for the last couple of decades anyway the attitude of at least some administrators has been that they don't need historical records, for example they don't keep old software available to be able to read data created using the platform, and once they've changed software they say they can't read the data so delete it.

[Ed Storey]

Both David and Grant have hit on the problems with the collection, storage and dissemination of historical data, especially technical data, in Canada which includes: security classification, no central repository of information, a lack of interest in collecting and archiving the material and even less interest in making it available to the public. With respect to Canadian vehicle data, essentially little is saved and most of this material ends up in landfills. The move to digital manuals has exacerbated the problem with tighter controls on the data and the ease in which it can be erased.