A bit confused ....

[Mike C]

I've read James Taylor's article in CMV about the FC 101's purchased for the Rapier battery, and also checked the entries in REMLR re the chassis numbers, and so on. The general consensus is that 50 entered service in the Australian Army.

Both James' article and the REMLR site state that the two trials vehicles (ARNs 29170 & 29171) were returned to the UK.

The registrations listed are:
29170 to 29171: qty 2
29405 to 29426: qty 22
30238 to 30263: qty 26
Total is 50, but two were returned to the UK, leaving 48.

So here is my confusion: ARNs 29170 & 29171, are shown as having been purchased by the Aust Govt under CD 48610121, same as all the other 101s, yet these were  the two that were reportedly the trials vehs that were returned to the UK. They are also shown as having been delivered/taken on charge at 41 Supply Battalion, South Australia, on 14 November 1977, when the ARNs were allocated. The other two groups arrived at 41 Supply Battalion on 5/12/1977 and 20/2/1978, respectively. 14 November 1977 seems like a very late date to be starting trials, and anyway, I should think the trials would have been held in Victoria, at T&PW Monegeeta, anyway - so why were they delivered and taken on charge in South Australia, rather than at 31 Supply Battalion or 3BOD in Victoria??

Richard, help me here: how do we know that 29170 and 29171 were the trials vehicles? Do we have anything definitive as to when and where the trials were held?

Is it possible that the two 'missing' chassis numbers are actually 29170 and 29171, the ARNs re-assigned to Aust contract vehicles after the trials vehs were sent back to the UK??

I've not looked in any depth at the FC101 in the Aust Army (other than the very sorry one I have an image of after a head-on prang), but there were some statements in James' article that sparked my curiosity because they just didn't seem to fit the timeline.

Mike

[Mick_Marsh]

Mike,
I know one of those trials vehicles quite well. It is here in Victoria.

29-171


And 29-170


Oh, could you please send me the image of the one involved in the head on?
Mick.Marsh@hotmail.com

[fc101]

Missguided 1 and Missguided 11 were the trials vehicles and both reside in Australia.  I nearly bought Missguided 1 in 2007 when it was for sale in Boonie Doon.  I have pics as it existed at the time and I believe the pic Mick has posted above is how it looks now.

Missguided 11 was owned by the previous owner of my Haflinger and then sold to Steve who had it the Cooma 60th in 2008.  It was subsequently sold to Iain in Sydney and is well known in Landrover circles in Sydney and is now fitted with a 4.6 engine.  My 101 and Iain's have been on a few trips together so I know this vehicle well.  There are pics of this vehicle doing brake tests during the trials period.

These two vehicles are different to the rest of the Australian Army 101 fleet in a number of subtle ways which reflects their earlier build.  The most obvious is that these vehicles are not fitted with burst proof door locks and the same locks as LR series 2 vehicles.  All other Aust 101s have LR Series 3 anti-burst locks.  Certainly Missguided 11 still had its original locks when I last saw it.

These two vehicles may very well gone back to the UK - I don't know, but if they did, they certainly came back to form part of the Aussie Fleet.

On 101 attritions I don't have any real evidence - however I have to spoken to ex 101 operators who said one went into a hole and got written off and another had a head on smash.  I understand that another one got burnt.  My drivers door still has "Badly Charred" painted on it but another 101 has "Badly Charred" painted on the body on the passenger side just below the passenger door.  So whether the burned vehicle was mine or the other one or neither is unknown possibly undamaged panels were shared around so the name ended up on different vehicles.

Cheers

Garry 

[Mick_Marsh]

Sorry to disappoint, Garry, but Misguided 1 was not a trials vehicle.
It's ARN was 30-252 if it was the one for sale in Bonnie Doon


Note, 29-171 is in the background and, last time I looked, it (29-171) had the S2 door latches.

[Diana Alan]

It is hard to read but I'm pretty sure this is the chassis number for misguided II, Iain had the logbooks for the vehicle and it was one of the first two trials vehicles.



What is more interesting is that there is a record of it being Auctioned off in the UK while it was still here in Oz.

Misguided II is the one with the REMLR Tac



Re the later engine, when Iain got the vehicle it already had a discovery engine, so was not original at the time of upgrade,

[Mick_Marsh]

Well, a quick question, after a PM from Muppet, it got me thinking.

Army losses:
1 Burnt when a cigarette was thrown in to a vehicle with a fuel leak.
1 Written off in a head on bus crash
1 Lost in a sinkhole on the nullabour (can't recall the location). Left in the hole, unrecoverable?

Do we know the ARN's of these three?

[fc101]

Sorry to disappoint, Garry, but Misguided 1 was not a trials vehicle.

Not disappointed at all - really couldn't care less - just information I was told.

Unfortunately with respect to Aussie 101s we are are told information by various people in good faith that may or may not be correct.  i have been told by people that 101s were used by the Navy and were in Navy colours, even spoke to one person who swears he saw them - of course they did not exist.

Hopefully this thread will flush out evidence to support various stories floating around - eg I did not realise there images of the pranged 101 and would also like to see them.

Oh on the second trials vehicle - if it is the one that AJ has why is it painted British dark green rather than olive drab.  When the 101s were sold off I could understand the mew owners wanting to pint them other colours but the British Dark Green is not one of them - maybe this did go back to the UK.

[Diana Alan]

Because AJ liked the DBG/NATO Green and removed the Oz Camo Green to reveal the original paint beneath.

[Mick_Marsh]

Oh on the second trials vehicle - if it is the one that AJ has why is it painted British dark green rather than olive drab.  When the 101s were sold off I could understand the mew owners wanting to pint them other colours but the British Dark Green is not one of them - maybe this did go back to the UK.

It looks very olive drab to me.

29-171


I was around his place the day he painted it. That was way back in the early '90's
I would doubt it ever went back to the UK unless it was whilst it was still "in service".

[Diana Alan]

Oh on the second trials vehicle - if it is the one that AJ has why is it painted British dark green rather than olive drab.  When the 101s were sold off I could understand the mew owners wanting to pint them other colours but the British Dark Green is not one of them - maybe this did go back to the UK.

It looks very olive drab to me.

29-171


I was around his place the day he painted it. That was way back in the early '90's
I would doubt it ever went back to the UK unless it was whilst it was still "in service".

Looks very NATO green to me now (Corowa 2013)



We (Cookey and I) camped at the Showground Saturday night with AJ, lots of 101 stories (and red wine) that night. 

[Mick_Marsh]

Oh on the second trials vehicle - if it is the one that AJ has why is it painted British dark green rather than olive drab.  When the 101s were sold off I could understand the mew owners wanting to pint them other colours but the British Dark Green is not one of them - maybe this did go back to the UK.

It looks very olive drab to me.

29-171


I was around his place the day he painted it. That was way back in the early '90's
I would doubt it ever went back to the UK unless it was whilst it was still "in service".

Looks very NATO green to me now (Corowa 2013)



We (Cookey and I) camped at the Showground Saturday night with AJ, lots of 101 stories (and red wine) that night. 

Yep, it looks NATO green. As I said, I was there when he painted it.
I also drove it before then back when it was olive drab.

[Mike C]

OK, so there is positive ID in Aust for both vehs, but Taylor obviously has evidence that they were RTUK - he provides their Brit service registrations in the article. See why I'm having trouble making sense of this? 

Does anyone know the actual dates of the 101 trials, and where they were conducted, please? I don't have a copy of the trials report, but knowing the where and when might shed some light on the seemingly late arrival (11/1977) of these two - there doesn't seem to be enough time between then and the arrival of the first batch in 12/77 to conduct any sort of meaningful trials. Hell, the next 'batch' would have to have been on the water by that time anyway, in order to arrive in Dec 1977.

Mike

[fc101]

OK, so there is positive ID in Aust for both vehs, but Taylor obviously has evidence that they were RTUK - he provides their Brit service registrations in the article. See why I'm having trouble making sense of this? 

Again - I was told - maybe incorrectly - that the two trials vehicles were not new for the trials and were already in Brit service so would already have Brit service registrations before the Aussie trials and maybe the these are the numbers that Taylor is quoting.

I am with you - given that the Aussie 101s started to be were delivered in the second half of 1977 and knowing how slow the Defence system worked I would have thought the trials would have been conducted well in advance of this.

Garry

[THE BOOGER]

I have asked Richard if there is anything regards trails dates ETC in the offline info

[Mick_Marsh]

Mmmmm......
Very interesting.


29-170:
96100050  Army VRM 68FL57 delivered to Ashchurch
Built 22/03/1976
Entered Service 1/1/76
Factory colour Bronze Green BSC224
Winch fitted in Service
Became ARN 29-170 & Served in Australia As SAGW
Struck Off CMA Leeds 25/1/95
Ash 16/2/76
S/O BAC Stev 14/4/77
Veh Recovered W/A 13/5/79
Ash 14/5/79
16 AD Regt 30/6/80
12 AD Regt 1/5/81
16 AD Regt 7/1/85
22 AD Regt 25/11/92


22-171:
96100048  Army VRM 68FL55 delivered to Ashchurch
Built 22/03/1976
Entered Service 1/1/76
Factory colour Bronze Green BSC224
Winch fitted in Service 1/1/76
Became ARN 29-171 & Served in Australia As SAGW
Struck Off BRISTOL & WEST 11/6/85
Ash 29/3/76
S/O BAC Stev 14/4/77
Veh Recovered WA 18/5/79
Ash 14/5/79
16 AD Regt 30/6/80
12 AD Regt 1/5/8
Ash 14/11/83
16 AD Regt 7/1/85
Ash 14/11/85


I'm tipping the author of the article is mistaking the paper trail as shipping.