I have been in the recovery industry for more than fifty years, starting in the early sixties at the young age of fourteen. I have recovered everything from M-60 Tanks, loaded tractor trailers to compact cars down in a gully. To do this I have used everything from military tracked recovery vehicles to new 80 monster rotators. I must say that never have I had to use the brute strength / mechanical operations as I have seen used here. Particularly with the 30 Ton Scammell. The possible exception being the Tracked Recovery Vehicles that I used to recover the M-60 series family. In today's world of 80,000 pound hydraulically driven winches, hydraulic spades and air release fifth wheels, you lose sight of what it took to accomplish these recovery procedures before all of that was available. Kudos to all of the "old timers" that were older than even I.
A year ago, I don't think I had even heard of a "Scammel" let alone seen one. As a result of films like the ones you posted about recovery work, I have fallen in love with these massive brutes. Thanks so much.
These soldiers were real men! I have worked with steel cable but NEVER without gloves! I can't imagine what their hands must have looked like after one of these recoveries.
this is an excellent series of videos showing just how hard so many things were in WW-2. my father was a U.S. Marine in the Pacific and my uncle was U.S. Army in Europe. i did 21 years in the U.S. Marines and 2 in the U.S. Army. there are NO soldiers alive in any military in the world that can appreciate just how physically demanding and difficult WW-2 was on the soldiers. watching old movies of the war with winter conditions in Europe and difficult beach and surf conditions in the Pacific, i am constantly amazed at how strong and courageous ALL the allied solders were some 75 years ago. the "technology" of WW-2 was SO "primitive" as compared to what is now available in all military units today, it is impossible to appreciate how soldiers fought and survived way back when. they were all "just kids" but - MAN - what TUFF KIDS our grandfathers were!!! i cannot overstate my admiration for "the Greatest Generation."
The film is great for an old sad chap like me. Fascinating and the team work inspiring. Big fan of the Churchill. I read that the Germans thought that we (canadians actually) chose to waste them as obsolete at Dieppe. Big surprise in Tunisia for them though. Favourite story is of a Churchill being hit by several dozen big frontal hits and surviving. On inspection many hits at the rear too. Conclusion was our troops had fired these!
Oddly fascinating (all three parts) - I am of the Airfix kit generation so it brought back memories of trying to find out how tanks were loaded onto the Scamell - Fifty odd years later I finally found out !
I thought of the old Airfix tractor and trailer kit when I watched this. Many a stranded 1/76 scale tank was saved with that trusty little plastic work-horse. Never realized how complicated the process was; fascinating video.
Fascinating. I'm a former infantryman, with an interest in many things military. Its very informative to see how combat support operations were and are performed. Thanks for posting this series of videos on recovery operations.
My step brother did his National Service in REME and was posted to S Korea where he saw action. He completed his service back in UK and had an easier time being a keen cyclist he was put in an army team. His training did him well he owned several garages, did film work involving action cars and stunts, including 3 Bond Films. He even built new Elva Courier cars for export to the USA.
Cool :o) That was some nice rope work. If I remember right you loose 5 to 10% of line pull per block. So the actual bridal forcel would be about four times the winch line pull. We know from off-roading that the tank could need twice it’s own weight to recover it. It would take a lot less force to lift it :o)
Those were the days of real men and sanity...now a days its all about HSE....only last month we were going to replace a track on an old Manitowoc Crawler Crane 4100 s2 200+ ton ....we have done this job many times before when I was a young lad and without any incidents and very quickly....but now we were not allowed to start the job until a full Risk assessment was made and understood by all of us OLD TIMERS and lectured to by young HSE "Lady Boys"....Safety boots, proper overalls no lose sleeves etc, Safety Helmet with appropriate expiry date, Safety Gloves, Safety Glasses, Ear plugs or Ear muffs, 02 hands to be on all railings when entering or exiting the crane by its cat walks, more than 02 mts off the ground we must wear a safety harness with certificate, no running, shackles and slings to be colour coded and certified, a safety officer to be in attendance at all times etc etc. The normal 4 to 5 hour job now took us 14 hours with 3 extra men plus a safety officer, and one of our team of 35 years experience got a final written warning from the Safety depts 20 year old officer for not using both hands on the safety rails while walking on the cat walks.
Yes, having worked for a large industry I recognise a lot of what you say. An absolute pain. All these REME lads needed was, gloves, helmet, steel toe capped boots, some nous and a plan. Are we really that much more stupid these days or is the risk of litigation driving the HSE?
I saw these films when I was in training back in the early 1970's. I can recall our senior instructor asking us to list all of the mistakes and safety breeches that were committed by these crews. Looking at this film I question the calculation of the TPR - I worked out much less than 35 tons - and why a four plate anchor with a potential hold of 16 tons was used to hold only the two falls of the tackle or 14 tons, when a three plate anchor with a potential hold of 12 tons was used to hold three falls or potentially 21 tons. The theoretical pull of this layout would be 40 tons on a bare winch drum . . . I'm guessing a 300 foot cable would probably get close to the bottom layer of rope at the start of the pull and as the drum loaded up the winching power should have reduced. Their calculations of a 35 ton pull with an actual pull power of 36 tons ( calculated by 5 x winch cap of 8 tons less 10% efficiency loss due to tackle friction/weight etc. would have put them right on the borderline of success I would think. We were always taught to incorporate a 25% safety factor margin in all TPR's . . . looks like they have none here. Going by their numbers the whole thing should have spat a shear pin just after the tank lifted and started to skid . . . like I said earlier . . .I would have thought much less that their 35 ton total pull required initially. BTW notice how close to the tackle they are standing . . .within the reach of a fall or rope should it snap and whip around - one would pray to be at the short end of the break if it occurred . . .
Hi Ron, Your observations are right on the money . . . the bare drum rule still worked if the rope was anchored within the drum with a grubscrew and you had a minimum of 3 turns around it . . . I used that rule many times in desperation and never lost the rope from the drum, but admit that the pull would not have been at its peak at the time. The whole film is a training film with ideal situations and as you said those pins can be a bit stubborn . . . I saw them and other american films during my service in the 1970's. We had american M543, M816 and diamond t's . . . I drove the 40 ton tank transporter a few times - 26 mph . . .really ?? My service was in the Australian army over 10 years and I continued into civvy street with my own business . . . I had a Acco with a Holmes 750M wrecker for my first truck . . . only time I made any real money was when I sold it . . .!!
I'd like to see a little more on those "hold fasts" ground anchors. I imagine they would just pull out if the ground isn't pretty hard. It must take a while to hammer all the pins in and then pull them out somehow.
Hi, Anchor earth holdfast . . .They hold 4 tons each or 0.5 tons per spike. They are octagonal in shape along the shaft ( although I have seen them smooth as well) and to retrieve the spikes you would put one just through the eye on top and turn it to make the original hole bigger. After this you just slide it halfway through and two guys simply lift it out . . . with luck. I have used them and they work well . . .as you said , in firm ground. I have never see one fail and I would bet that they hold more than 4 tons per anchor. They are a pain to put down but when no convenient tree is available they are a godsend . . .
There are still a lot of those GA pins around- mostly used by Carnivals. I know my old show boss bought a heap of surplus gear after he came back from the war- I was still hammering those pegs in the '90s!
Mechanical engineering and its applications served military machinery and equipment significantly to the armies during World War II more than electrical and civilian structural applications. So I'm saying that the principle of technical technology was basically based Mechanics
My grandfather was in airborne reme but was in ta he drove scammells explorer and pioneer out in Cyprus in 1963 he had to recover a compressor that toppled over into riverine as sappers were building a road out there he also had to recover a series 2 Land Rover green jackets crashed into riverine and towed Land Rover back to compound in Dhekelia and left it there he also towed Fowler bulldozers on a dyson trailer and pioneer he drove had cloth doors but was a rotten old thing and they left it up in mountains by orders of a Captain as they told it was not worth fixing the thing.
I am glad I wasn't in WW2 because even with all of the modern advances made available to me when I came into the Army. We still had recovery jobs that plain ol sucked and were miserable to do. Watching these videos makes me forever grateful for the equipment I was blessed to operate during my time in service. The M88a1 and the HMMT wrecker being my top 2 vehicles on my list. The M88a1 being my top choice more often than not. The HMMT wrecker had its advantages and was great at what it does. But the M88a1 simply offered more choices with its boom and sheer power. The M88s only real weakness being extremely muddy conditions where the ground is very soft like places @ FT. Benning where the water table is pretty high. Or in Icy conditions where the ground is pretty much solid ice. Traction becomes a problem. But if you are a skilled driver like I was and understood your limitations you could still get the jobs done but with a more steady pace. If the Brittish and the US had the M88s back in WW2 I wonder how much more effective their war efforts would have been. I know for sure that the M88a1 and a2 are dearly loved by their operators. Units that have armor pretty much cant operate without them. From recovery to just pulling engines its a incredible piece of engineering. I miss driving them all the time. It was something that I truly loved about my job.
To add my 2 cents... Part of the issue is Union. Hire some tards that can't do a job and then overpay them. Ask the person who knows what they are doing to keep the tards safe at the same pay grade. 2 things happen. 1 the tards know it all and don't listen, and 2 the skilled labor goes elsewhere for better money. Now you have a functioning Union environment. A good example last night: I was trying to find camshaft sprocket torque. A Fixya post comes up for said car. I noticed the head torque was wrong. Under sequences it requires 35 + 90+90+90. Under the metric side it listed a number + 2 turns at 90 and SAE torque plus 4 turns @90. So I click on the box to tell the poster they published an error. First encounter was you now get an assistant. Then they asked if I had the proper torque specs for my car (which I do and is how I found their misprint). Then they asked what my problem was. Then the car got turned into a BMW X3 which it is not. Then they wanted me to pay $5 to a specialist TO FIX MY PROBLEM. Needless to say, prime example of a fucktard giving out advice that has no idea, nor the capacity to revise it or do anything but cut and paste. My advice is usually to Google at least 4 sources to confirm, it's off topic a bit cause you can't google how to change tracks on a Churchill.
Not sure what the routine was with the German's but i know they did indeed use steerable multi wheeled trailers with a separate rear cab for the second driver/pilot, and it was not uncommon for two 18 ton sdkfz 11 halftracks to hitch up together to pull heavier loads.
@@railtrolley Well... the Black Prince was to late... And never passed prototype stadium. The RR Meteor would be the right engine for that design. But well... better go for the Centurion than... and they did... The Centurion would be the best tank of WW2 when the war lasted 2 years longer.
@@CarLos-yi7ne Yes, a brand new "clean sheet" design, and with the powerful Meteor engine. If the Centurion had been produced in time, it could have gone up against the Tiger. That would have been an interesting match-up.
A block is a pulley in a frame that holds the pulley's pivot pin, with one or two eyes or hooks at one or both ends of the frame for attachment. [In case anyone isn't sure.] The frame or casing of an ordinary block is effectively all one piece, for strength, but this means that the rope's end must be threaded through. This is alright for many operations where the rope is kept always positioned in the block. However, in some situations, as here, either both ends of the rope are fixed elsewhere, or it would take too much time and effort to bring an end to thread the whole length of rope painstakingly through all the various blocks. The snatch block solves this by having one side of its casing able to open, on a hinge, to allow a bight or loop of the rope to be laid in place inside. The hinged part is then closed and some sort of locking pin holds it down, partly for security, but most importantly to allow that side of the block to take its full share of the loading.
That would be like sliding your car into a ditch and blowing a pair of tires and deciding to scrap it rather than to just pull it out of the ditch and replace the tires.
