CF Kenworth PLS / Western Star HESV photo reference gallery

[Robin Craig]

The Kenworth Pallet Loading System (PLS) vehicle was a brute just to look at, in my mind a purposeful truck if ever I saw one. Im not saying it was any good, I am just saying it looked good.

Apparently it lacked some lift capability, there are tales of them lifting the front axle off the ground when loading sea containers filled with beer but I wasn't there.

The flat racks or pallets were capable of being cross decked to the trailer that was towed behind. There was a method of shortening the drawbar to get it within range.

The reason I group the Western Star truck in with the Kenworth is that one was responsible for the genesis of the other. Major Paul Fredonburg was the project officer and at the time a fellow IPMS member. He runs a model making company called Trackjam.

Paul was the one tasked with creating a better engineer support truck, and through the grafting of an HLVW dump box to a highly modified PLS truck the basic template was set down for what was sent out for tender to become the Western Star HESV.

The truck with the flatracks is 81716

[Robin Craig]

So here are the Kenworth with the HLVW dump box. It is 81670 and has had a spruce up of the cab and this was 1995. The location is the old heavy equipment shop at CFB Uplands at the corner on the old road through to the NRC site. Something that got leveled in the airport expansion.

I cant quite see the CFR on the HESV, his was taken at the Western Star dealer at Antrim, imaginatively called Antrim Western Star and this was 1998

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by Robin Craig

The Kenworth Pallet Loading System (PLS) vehicle was a brute just to look at, in my mind a purposeful truck if ever I saw one. Im not saying it was any good, I am just saying it looked good.

Apparently it lacked some lift capability, there are tales of them lifting the front axle off the ground when loading sea containers filled with beer but I wasn't there.

The flat racks or pallets were capable of being cross decked to the trailer that was towed behind. There was a method of shortening the drawbar to get it within range.

The reason I group the Western Star truck in with the Kenworth is that one was responsible for the genesis of the other. Major Paul Fredonburg was the project officer and at the time a fellow IPMS member. He runs a model making company called Trackjam.

Paul was the one tasked with creating a better engineer support truck, and through the grafting of an HLVW dump box to a highly modified PLS truck the basic template was set down for what was sent out for tender to become the Western Star HESV.

The truck with the flatracks is 81716

Ah, the Kenworth PLS. I'm intimately familiar with those beasts....

From what I understand, the Kenworth PLS were purchased at the tail end of a Marine Corp contract and served as a stop gap until the HLVW came on line. We used them as heavy bridgers for MGB, EWBB and later M700 ACROW into the early 2000's. They were also used for moving Shipping Containers, and up until the SHLVW came on line, was one of the few trucks equipped with the rollers for moving Sea Cans. Although incredibly powerful highway truck, these things were terrible in field conditions. Turning radius was measured in football fields, there were no real provisions for black-out operations, and the suspension was so stiff that crossing even small ruts nearly guaranteed banging your head off of the roof of the cab. Did I mention you couldn't fit a rucksack in the truck? Add to it the PLS trailer (Knight Industries) with the pivoting front axle which towed beautifully on the highway, was all but impossible to back up in field conditions without jack-knifing the front axle. Reloading the trailer was performed by dropping the tow-bar and backing up to the trailer and performing a crossroad. The system was pretty slick and we still use these trailers with the HLVW PLS, albeit the trailer has since been modified so that the trailer front axle can be locked in order to allow backing up in rough terrain. Thank god that dump version never came on line....

[rob love]

I ran the heavy maintenance section for one contract in KAF and became familiar with the HESV, which by then had armour kits applied. I saw that one or two were listed as dump variant, but never saw them. I think it was just an attachment to the PLS. We had a couple of hanger queens which we managed to get back on the road, thanks to the excellent support given by the LCMMs.

By that point in time, the Mercedes Actros AHSVS had come into play, and the HESV were relegated to in camp/FOB duties only, and were not driven in convoy, but rather flatbedded to the FOBs. No comparison with the ACTROS for safety.

Just looking at my spell check on the above paragraph, and I think the acronyms must really be confusing to a civilian.

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by rob love

I ran the heavy maintenance section for one contract in KAF and became familiar with the HESV, which by then had armour kits applied. I saw that one or two were listed as dump variant, but never saw them. I think it was just an attachment to the PLS. We had a couple of hanger queens which we managed to get back on the road, thanks to the excellent support given by the LCMMs.

IIRC, there are two variants of the HESV. The fixed 3 Way Dump and the PLS Dump, which as you mentioned is just a PLS attachment. Typically they deploy the PLS Dump as it is much more useful (Dump, Sea Cans and PLS Pallets etc) than the one trick pony 3 Way Dump. IIRC, the 3 Way Dump(s) in TFA were setup for SNIC (Sander and High-speed Plough) which although useless in KAF, saved NATO's bacon by opening the snowed in Jalalabad pass east of Kabul on my 2005 Roto. No one else in Kabul thought it was prudent to have a Snowplough in their TO&E except Canada

An interesting thing with the PLS is that its a 15.2 ton system which is fine in the case of the Kenworth, SHLVW and HESV, as they are all 16 ton trucks, whereas the regular HLVW PLS (which although is still equipped with the same 15.2 ton system) is limited to 10 tons due to the rear cross country suspension. Another little anomaly with the PLS systems were the pallets themselves. The SHLVW and HESV PLS were designed to move Sea Cans using a container handling unit and rear roller locking system, while the Kenworth, having a slightly longer wooden decked pallet with Sea Can locks on the corners, could carry an ISO 20 Sea Can right on the pallet.

There were also adaptor pallets available which would fit on the bottom of a Sea Can (requiring the use of a crane to install them) allowing a 10 ton HLVW without the rear roller locks like an HESV/SHLVW to carry a Sea Can using a before mentioned container handling system. I won't even get into my personal favourite, the Bridge Adaptor Pallet System for carrying and launching Medium Floating Bridge modules. The whole thing is rather boggling especially when the same truck was expected to move all of these things at one point or another during an exercise....

As a new Sapper in Resource Troop, I had the misfortune of discovering the hard way that the PLS pallet used with the HLVW was not backwards compatible (surprise) with the Kenworth. Apparently the jaw block locks on the HLVW PLS pallets were slightly shorter than the Kenworth, and on an unload cycle would bind causing the pallet to literally bend in the middle, and then release rather violently making a hell of a racket and likely damaging the pallet (or worst, emptied the contents off of your pallet for you). More than once I can remember having to grab a HET Troop guy with a Case W24 Loader and a chain to pull on the back of an HLVW pallet that a new guy to the Troop had inadvertently loaded on a Kenworth, IOT get the jaw block locks to release enough to allow an orderly non-destructive unload. Nevertheless, it was a mistake you only made once.

All this PLS talk really makes me miss the days of hauling bridging around in Res Troop before the war started and turned everything upside down....

[Robin Craig]

Scott you are getting way ahead of me!

I have so many pictures and only one pair of hands. I have all that sexy stuff like the CHU (said as if it was choo) but just have not gotten around to posting it up here.

Thank you for your comments, no matter how out of sync they are, you are doing what I intended which was to draw out personal recollections and add them to the images to leave a lasting idea of what this kit was like.

Just an "out there dumb question", how come with all your experience you never took any pictures yourself? Grenade!

Thanks

R

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Scott Bentley

IIRC, the 3 Way Dump(s) in TFA were setup for SNIC (Sander and High-speed Plough) which although useless in KAF, saved NATO's bacon by opening the snowed in Jalalabad pass east of Kabul on my 2005 Roto. No one else in Kabul thought it was prudent to have a Snowplough in their TO&E except Canada

I always wondered why we had a sanding attachment in KAF. That would be akin to sending ice making machines to the arctic. We had to inspect and service the thing every 6 months, and as far as I knew it remained in KAF until the end. It is possibly still there, as is several hundred sea containers of material still.

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by rob love

I always wondered why we had a sanding attachment in KAF. That would be akin to sending ice making machines to the arctic. We had to inspect and service the thing every 6 months, and as far as I knew it remained in KAF until the end. It is possibly still there, as is several hundred sea containers of material still.

Before Hesco Bastion became the flavour of the day in force protection, the sander was actually also very handy for filling sand bags. Not sure if some genious designed it that way or some enterprising field troopy realized it, but it sure saved your back when filling hundreds of bags. But yeah, in KAF, the 3 Way Dump would have been as useful as snowshoes