Canadian T16

[Gunner]

Thanks John:

Comparing para 37 to the table in Appx D indicates a shortage of 18; I wonder which units received the 57mm? I'll get into the war diaries of the ATk units in Italy to see if there is anything there. I helped reprint the unit history for 1 ATk and there is no mention in it.

An excuse for another trip to Shilo!

Cheers! Mike

[Gunner]

Hola Juan:

As you are discovering, one of the hardest parts of doing a restoration is the decision as to which unit to represent. Many factors come into play such as family history (Uncle Fred served in the XXX Fusiliers), geographical (my home town unit is the XX and YY Rifles), personal preference, what vehicle, model and modifications it has, heck, even "look cool" factor counts to some degree. You seem to have some ability in French so you may even decide to do a French Canadian unit as you hinted in your email.

T16's saw less use in comparison to other carrier types. In the Normandy campaign there were approx 1700 carriers in Canadian service. 1017 were Universal carriers, 300 were T16, 216 were Medium Machine Gun carriers, 281 were Mortar carriers and there would have been some armoured OP's but they were liklely included in the total for UC. I don't have a breakdown of how many of the Mortar carriers were T16.

The T16 was used for reconnaisance, as an artillery tractor (the 6 pounder), a limber (support and ammunition vehicle) to the 6 pounder, as a mortar portee (the 4.2 inch) and as a mortar limber for the 4.2 inch.

As it stands right now you have a T16 but no 6 pounder or 4.2 inch mortar so perhaps the easiest version would be the recce role. There are many photos on this site and on the carrier forum showing recce T16's in all their glory. Many had extemporaneous gun mountings for the .50 caliber machine gun which you seem to be able to get as opposed to the Bren. Should you eventually acquire a mortar or anti-tank gun you can always change the markings.

You could model your T16 after one of these photos and Mike Dorosh's excellent site "Canuck" will give you the order of battle for the Normandy campaign so you can figure out where that unit fit in the order of battle. Mike's site also offers excellent material on vehicle markings as does Barry Beldam's "Armoured Acorn" site.

As a Gunner, I think that the colourful artillery markings are most interesting but all the Canadian markings for WW II were colourful and fun to explain to 'tourists' when you are exhibiting your vehicle. As to your question about uniforms, all Canadian troops wore pretty much the same battle dress and it was the shoulder markings and hatbadges which identified the unit and formation to which a soldier belonged. Mike's site has excellent information on that topic as well.

There are other members of this forum much more knowledgeable about this topic so I'll stick to my area of expertise and point out that artillery soldiers, called "Gunners" in our traditions, wore the normal formation badges as per infantry soldiers. The shoulder titles were worn around the epaulette and were red letters on a dark blue background. Anti-Tank examples would be; 1 A/T RCA or 5 A/T RCA. Examples can be found on Mike's site. The beret was the standard issue khaki beret with a large artillery hatbadge identical to that worn by the Royal Artillery. During that period the badges featured a "King's" crown and examples can be found quite cheaply at militaria shows and shops in Canada and the UK.

Once you decide on a unit, you will have many Canadian friends to help you purchase or acquire the badges you need.

Thank you for your compliments about our little museum. Good luck in your project and keep the questions coming. My Spanish is terrible but I can access translation so, if you are stuck for the correct English, use the Spanish expression and we'll figure out what you need.

Salut, y force au canut!

Mike

[JUAN PRIEN]

Mike: thanks for your help. If i can buy an 6 AT, i be happy if an expertisse gunner like you can aimed to the most glorius unit in Normandy campaign( for you at least). I don´t know any Recce pic, i try see anythink. I belive i can buy in argentine an 0.50, but thats is the "c" plan ( first 6 AT, second 4,2" mortar).
Can you trastale to english or spanish your french "force au canut"? whats is a canut?.
The election of french lenguage units have explication in the understandig war beteewn my country an english in 82´, so , altough i don´t have anythink against english men, in my country, is not good idea show a vehicle and uniform whit english insignias. The canadian people are very estimated here, so a combination of canadian flags, canadian vehicle insignias an uniforms whit french words is the best option. Un abrazo grande. Juan

[JUAN PRIEN]

Mike: realy my english is very bad. i can speak ununderstandig war , or the word what descript an ilogical thing. Regards

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by JUAN PRIEN
Mike: realy my english is very bad. i can speak ununderstandig war , or the word what descript an ilogical thing. Regards

Don't worry about your English, Juan. We understand your words, and perhaps being here will help you develop your skills even more!

[sapper740]

Originally posted by JUAN PRIEN
Maybe another ( and better) option is the 3º canadian AT Regiment, attached to 3º Cdn Inf.Div.In this case, how is the tactical insignia?. Another ask: how many crews, and which ranks had a tripulation of one AT T16? The 3º cnd AT Reg. have any name ( like " regiment de la chaudiere", for example)?. Had an special beret badge like a Inf. Reg?. Have an distintive arm legend? The unifor is the infantry standard?. I have great interest of remake an original canadian vehicle, and i don´t whant to make any history mistake. Thank you very much!Juan

Ola Senor Prien. Cómo está usted hoy. Tengo una colección grande de uniformes y del engranaje canadienses del campo. Si usted necesita cualesquiera pedazos del kit, o tiene cualesquiera preguntas, puedo ayudar quizá. Hay un libro excelente llamado "equipo del WW II Tommy" por David B. Gordon. ¡Lo recomiendo altamente!

[JUAN PRIEN]

Hola derek!. Tu español es excelente!. te escribo en mi idioma, si tienes dudas te vuelvo a escribir en ingles
Recibiste mi ultimo mail?, efectivamente, el Chevrolet de mi amigo tiene el volante a la derecha, y el parabrisas es vertical. Cuando lo vaya a visitar, voy a tomar más fotos y te las envio.
Estoy averiguando por tu camión.
Mi idea es recrear los uniformes canadienses. Tengo un sastre que los puede imitar. Las boinas pienso comprarlas en IMA-USA, a u$s 20,00 c/u + gastos envio. Lo que necesito también es el
equipo de Tommy: pala, cinturon, corrajes, porta municiones. También las ofrece IMA. ¿Tienes otro proveedor para recomendar?.¿ Vendes tu algún elemento?.
En cuanto a equipo, por ahora necesito un PIAT.
Te mando un abrazo. Juan

[servicepub (RIP)]

Reminds me of a shirt worn by a waiter at a 'Carlos and Charlie's' restaurant in Mexico - "I can't understand your English but I promise not to laugh at your Spanish". I liked it so much I bought a shirt to bring home.

[sapper740]

Originally posted by servicepub
Reminds me of a shirt worn by a waiter at a 'Carlos and Charlie's' restaurant in Mexico - "I can't understand your English but I promise not to laugh at your Spanish". I liked it so much I bought a shirt to bring home.

That would be a great shirt to wear around here! Reminds me of many painful conversations between Manuel and Basil Fawlty!


Note to Mr. Spinning-Bull: Geoff, Juan and I will continue our dialogue "en Espanol" off-thread so as to not tie up your server. However I will share with M.L.U. any items of interest that come up. I'm no "forros!" Private joke between Juan and I LOL!

[Gunner]

Para Juan y Derek:

I can read Spanish to a degree (left overs from service in the Western Sahara and the Canary Islands) so I have followed most of the last few posts.

The S&P Museum will do what it can to help Juan out as we can access militaria up here fairly easily. Original WWII battle dress will be expensive but we can help with modified 52 pattern stuff. There is a chap in Thunderbay who custom tailors replica WWII Battle Dress but I don't know his costs.

"Force au Canut" was a toast I learned in Catalunya and literally translates to "strength to the wallet", wallet be a local slang for the object cojones are stored in!

Cheers! Mike

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by Stewart Loy
In post-war paint, the 1st digit denotes the gloss factor of the paint. 2 = Flat. 3 = Lusterless. 4 = Gloss
#23070 is a post 1945 to mid-1950's Flat Olive Drab. It is a camouflage Green
#33070 is a post 1945 Semi gloss Olive Drab, and it is not the same as WW II Lusterless Olive Drab.
#33070 is somewhat close to WWII, but it is too gray to be a match for WW II Lusterless Olive Drab.
#33070 - 1941-43 (Early WW11 Darker OD) - FALSE!
#319 - 1944-45 (Late WW11 Lighter OD) - FALSE!
#24087 is Mid 1950's to Post Vietnam Flat Olive Drab
#34087 is Mid 1950's to Post Vietnam lusterless Olive Drab

Olive Drab paint is still available on the web and from dealers; however, there is currently no commercially available paint that is 100% the correct color for WWII Lusterless Olive Drab.
Some paint vendors will also tell you that Olive Drab #34087 is the same as WWII Lusterless Olive Drab, but this too is incorrect.

#34087 is a post-war color paint and although close, it is not the same color as the WWII #319 paint. Even so, 99% of WWII Jeep restorers paint their jeeps a #34087 Lusterless Olive Drab (Semi Gloss), because; it is pretty close to WWII #319; and because it is more water & stain repellent than #24087 Flat OD.
Stewart

Excellent to see all the arguments finally put to rest! 319 is the correct description of the WW2 US paint color as the colour 34087 was not even thought of then as it is a reference from US Federal Standards (FS 595, FS595a, and FS595b) that were introduced in the late 40's.

However, I do have one point of contention on your color codes. The system used for codes in FS595 uses 1xxxx for GLOSS, 2xxxx for SEMI-GLOSS, and 3xxxx for LUSTERLESS. 24087 and 34087 are the same colour with 24087 being semi-gloss and 34087 being a lusterless finish.

Originally posted by JUAN PRIEN
This is the 6 pdr which i whant to buy, if the argentine army acept sell it out!!( very dificult). I have a doubt, is it a 6 pdr or an american 57 mm?. The wheel rubbers are the original?

Originally posted by GUNNER
Hola Juan:

The gun in your photo is the American made copy of the British/Canadian 6 pounder and was called the 57mm M1.

Juan/Mike, I think this gun is actually a Commonwealth 6pdr with the 8.25-10 tyres. The US 57mm AT had rims with a negatively dished rim. See this 6pdr. A side pic of Juan's gun would help to ID it.

[JUAN PRIEN]

This is another pic. And this?

[Gunner]

Hi Tony:

I'm still sure its an M1. Commonwealth 6 pounders didn't have the shield flap clamps and didn't have the "firing segments" which was an American idea to reduce bounce on recoil. The segments (really visible on the US 37mm ATk gun) were steel arcs that rotated on the axle. When in action, the segments were rotated down and the gun pulled onto them so the tyres just barely touched the ground... no rubber, no bounce.

A couple of other features to look for:

The device for pulling the gun onto a portee is a clevis as opposed to the Commonwealth lunette (towing eye located in the centre of the lower round shield part);

The hole for the sight is square whereas the Commonwealth version is shaped like an upside down teardrop;

One of the US style segments is very visible in Juan's second photo and both show in the third photo; and

The US style trail clamping mechanism to hold the two trails together for towing was copied from the 105mm M101 (photo 3); and

The towing arrangement uses the much more efficient US style drop down lunette, again copied from the 105mm M101 (photo 3, again). The US drop down lunette raised the spades higher off the ground so that they didn't catch on small crests and it allowed for towing by a wide range of vehicles as it allowed for more swing between the gun and the tractor.

If there's one thing that our 'Mercan brothers are good at its taking a good idea and making it better. The M1 had more ground clearance and used a common truck tyre and rim as opposed to the Commonwealth orphan size (not used on anything else), it had a more efficient trail clamp, better towing mechanism and was simplified for production to remove alot of steps to save both time and strategic materials. The only drawback to the M1 (in my opinion) is that they never adopted the longer barrel with the muzzle brake. I'm not totally convinced about the usefulness of the segments, either.

I agree that it would help to see a side on photo... Juan, do you have any side shots?

Cheers! Mike

[JUAN PRIEN]

MIKE: i need go to ciudadela museum the next week. If i can, i buy the gun, if i didn´t, just i have taked a lateral photo

[claude_GILLONO]

57mm M1 antitank gun (firing segments and castor wheel).

HTH