CMP tools photo thread

[Gunner]

Hi Guys:

My 43 Ford LAAT has a pair of holdfasts with picquets in its' toolkit. The Picquets are nearly 30" long and have a handle of smaller bar stock welded on as opposed to holes built in "a la" Canadian modular tent style. They look sort of like a sword with a hilt.

We used the same things on my artillery driver wheel course 27 years ago when we were taught winching and rigging. The grouchy old RCEME Sgt always referred to them as "engineer picquet holdfasts" or just "holdfasts". We also trained with "deadheads" long before I learned about the Grateful Dead slang. Our deadheads were usually the spare tyre from a gun tractor buried in a four foot deep hole with a chain sticking out to which we hooked the winch cable. Pulled you slick as goose grease out on the prairies when trees were scarce! Alternately we chained the holdfast or deadhead to the tractor's arse end to anchor it when pulling out a heavily bogged gun.

If all that didn't work, then we called the twins: Arte and Marte; more commonly known as Bluebells! Cheers, Bill!

Of course when they weren't listening we called them blue b*lls! More Cheers, Bill!

All kidding aside, like Bill says, the hardest part was getting the damn things out of the ground after the recovery job was done!

Mike