Wheel Flange or Sling Cap

[m606paz]

When did the sling caps begin to be applied?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Somewhere during 1944.

It would like to know when the late features were introduced on the CMP assembly lines. Month would be good, the week or even day would be better

[Grant Bowker]

I don't have proof, but it seems unlikely that there is a single point that all "late" features were introduced and all "early" features discontinued. There may have been a target date but I suspect that if there were"old" parts in the supply chain, they were used on production (as long as they were compatible) rather than being either scrapped or sent back into the supply system as spares.

I know that post-war maintenance and rebuilds (whether in service or after release) can complicate things but in my opinion there just seem to be too many trucks with early features like civilian instrument clusters and late (1944 and 1945) build dates (and no visible evidence of parts having been exchanged) to be easily explained.

[Jacques Reed]

Originally Posted by Grant Bowker

I don't have proof, but it seems unlikely that there is a single point that all "late" features were introduced and all "early" features discontinued. There may have been a target date but I suspect that if there were"old" parts in the supply chain, they were used on production (as long as they were compatible) rather than being either scrapped or sent back into the supply system as spares.

Makes a lot of sense. My original F-15A Spares Parts list issued May 1943 does not have any reference to sling or lifting caps. Only *C01Q 1131- Cap- front axle hub is listed. So sometime after that date for the sling caps?

Many parts in the list state "when stock depleted supply XX-xxxxx" so by my way of thinking old stock was used up for a long time after the introduction of a new version of an existing part.

Cheers,

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Agree, there would not have been a single day or week for the switchover. But it would be nice if we could pin down the (approximate) month when the new features were introduced. It may well have happened gradually. It must tie in with the contracts the governments placed for these vehicles, the manufacturers would establish the configuration for each contract and send out orders to their subcontractors - that is typically the moment for changeovers.

Mind you, they may well have kept a stock of “early” or “mid” production parts as spares for the trucks already out there, and started using the “late” parts. That is why we still find NOS early and mid production parts.

For Jeeps and other HMVs people have pinned down the introduction or changeover of every little detail. Why haven’t we done this for CMPs?

[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.

[edstorey]

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.