Tom from Cornwall wrote:What I actually wrote back in October on t'other thread was:
Oh, you mean I'm supposed to read what you wrote? I thought I was supposed to give my kneejerk, chauvinistic, American-centric answer?
At the end of September it was discovered that 1,400 of the new lorries were defective. By a week later 80 had been repaired...so it was only another 17 weeks at tha rate before the problem would be cleared up.
But what it says in the REME SITREPs is:
"21 ARMY GROUP REME SITREP WEEK ENDING 28 SEP 44
6. 150 Austin 3-ton 4x4 lorries are now in Adv Base Wksps for fitting new pistons and rings."
"21 ARMY GROUP REME SITREP WEEK ENDING 5 OCT 44
3. 80 of the Austin 3-ton 4x4 lorries, suffering from excessive oil consumption, have now had new pistons and rings fitted."
Which, if you compare it with the 21 AG Administrative History is not the same thing:
"(c) vehicle maintenance
During this intense period of activity the maintenance of vehicles inevitably had to be reduced, but partly due to the majority of vehicles being new no serious ill effects ensued. A major fault occurred in the engines of K-5 4x4, three-ton Austins, 1,400 of which, as well as all the replacement engines, were found to be defective and to have piston trouble."
So, if you are right that "at the end of September it was discovered that 1,400 of the new lorries were defective", why were there only 150 in the Advanced Workshops durign the week ending 28 Sep; does defective mean unusable? Does excessive oil consumption mean unusable? Did the new pistons and rings fitted cure the problem? Is there anybody out there?
oops, got a bit carried away in philosophical questioning mode!
Um, it doesn't matter if I'm "right" since that is what the documentation says too. Where I think you are getting yourself twisted around the axle is resolving what you see as a discrepency, which I fail to see at all.
The 21st Army Group Admin History notes that the overall problem - 1,400 defective lorries and replacement engines - was discovered, although it might be questioned as to just when the
extent of the problem was discovered. Either way though, given that the weekly army group maintenance situation saw 8,000+ 'B' vehicles requiring servicing and something over half returned to service, the sudden influx of 1,400 vehicles for major repairs probably would have been a bit much for the system. The evidence though seems to indicate that the problem was ongoning - in the week ending 28 September 150 were found defective, put into the maintenance system and 80 repaired by the end of the next week. And then probably another 150 started showing the problem and so on until it was realized that all 1,400 were defective.
Ask yourself if you have ever had a vehicle that suffered from excess oil consumption? My son did, didn't bother to tell me about it, and "solved" it by adding oil regularly...until he forgot and the engine threw a rod through the block.
So yes, the answer is a defective engine doesn't mean an unusable vehicle, until the problem escalates. Otherwise you are splitting hairs for no good reason.
The way I see it at the moment is:
1. A total of 1,400 Austin K-5 3-ton lorries in 21 AG suffered from excessive oil consumption due to piston damage caused by the introduction of higher octane petrol - but we are still not sure what "defective" means for logistic capacity - off the road, burning lots of oil, having to be run at half speed...who knows? Not me...
But if you look at the overall logistical picture you find increased distances, increased road speeds, increased driver fatigue, and lowered maintenance. By mid September the backlog of repairs in 12th Army Group was about 2,500 vehicles...with another 40,000 tires alone needing replacement or repair. Two weeks later the backlog had increased to 5,750. Another measure of the wear and tear was that 55,059 replacement tires were issued during September, nearly twice the June-August monthly average.
BTW, the standard American QM Medium Truck Company consisted of 48 2.5-ton trucks of which 40 were expected to be on the road and 8 undergoing maintenance at any one time. Circa 15 August 55 were issued 10 extra trucks each and 1,400 temporary duty men as drivers to try to make up for the increased load. Also during August 21st Army Group loaned 300 to 360 3, 6 and 10 ton trucks (6 or 7 above average capacity truck companies) to 12th Army Group, mainly used for Third Army supply. The loan was trucks as well as 3 to 4 complete UK truck companies (i.e., including the personnel).
2. 150 of these were in REME Advanced Workshops during the week ending 28 Sep.
Were the REME Advanced Workshops the same as the "2nd, 3rd and 4th Line Wksps, RVPs, AODs & BPs" Or are they talking about one part of the maintenance system - 1st Line Workshops? Or was that the REME LAD?
3. During the next week, 80 had new pistons and rings fitted - note I don't say "repaired" - where does it say the fix worked, ie, are we really sure that the fix fixed it...
No, we don't know, but it's irrelevent anyway since it is the maintenance load that is important and that was already larger than that at 12th US Army Group, although I suspect the number of vehicles in each army group were similar.
4. That's about all I think we can say for certain until more details are unearthed in the records - anything more would be speculation.
Well then trot on over to Kew and collect the rest of the weekly REME states.
5. So, what we don't know is whether such and such a RASC coy operated during Sep 44 at only say 60% capacity because it's Austins were in the workshop, which would it is true lead me to believe that the Austin K-5 defect had affected the logistical capacity of 21 AG. Now I see where my next day in Kew will be spent!
Well, if all the K-5 were assigned to the Army transport pool the loss of 1,400 would be significant since the pool, if similar to that of the US forces, was probably on the order of 8,000 vehicles. In that case the 1,400 represent a potential drop in serviceability of 17% over the expected serviceabaility rate, which for the US was 17% (8/48)...i.e, potentially up to doubling the expected serviceability rate.
6. Re the difference between REME stock and reserves: I think I clued in on that when I wrote "8210 stock (being fixed/maintained?) vehicles" and that "there were at least 1700 'B' vehicles in 21 Army group's GHQ reserve on 1 Sep 44".
It would be nice if people read what you wrote wouldn't it.
Well, I did read it, but if you were certain of your conclusion you shouldn't have put in the "?"
BTW, in early September 12th Army Group drew 1,500 vehicles from its "reserve" and gave them to 26th, 94th, and 104th ID, which combined them with their own vehicles and personnel to field 40 provisional truck companies (1,920-2,420 trucks in total), while 18 field artillery battalions, 12 provided by the divisions and 6 from Army troops (sorry Cannonade, I had forgotten about that) provided 450 medium and 200 light trucks and AAA battalions another 340 light and medium trucks. So an increase of 3,100 vehicles, plus the 550 additional assigned to the QM companies, plus the trucks of the roughly 160 QM companies in France (7,680), made up the transport pool...call it 12,000 or so in total. Note that some of those were tractor-trailer companies and that does not include the gasoline supply companies (which were badly overstretched) or the tank transporter companies that had been pressed into service (affecting the operational state of the tanks), or the vehicles of the other combat and service units in theater. For the 21-odd divisions on the continent by the end of August (not including those in Sothern France) that's 30,000+ vehicles.
Lastly, and in the interest of open-minded discussion, I should mention that I have had second thoughts as to using the comparison of the number of 'B' vehicles in GHQ reserve/REME stock with the number of Austin K-5's off the road, as I would guess that 'B' vehicles includes a lot of stuff that is not a 3-ton lorry.
I wonder if any of these figures are broken down any more...
Back to the records, sigh...
Well, with a fairly complete OB you can recreate the requirement from the TO&E of the units. Another way would be to look at the total number of vehicles unloaded, but unfortunately that seems to have been recorded only spottily.
Cheers!
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