1952 M37 rebuild

[stratboy]

My friend and I have been working on his M37 latley and we want to know some history on it. before it was sand blasted we found a faint marking on the hood of a rectangle with an x in the middle, on the right side there is an x and 2 " I's" on top. i found that its infantry but i would like more on it.
Another thing we found is layers of call signs on the doors starting with 82A in the origanal paint than it went 82C, 82A,82C and finaly 82A


cheers

 

[Old Sweat]

The vehicle could have been issued to various units over the years. The only element of the army that I am aware of that used "X" alone or with a numeral such as "X2" was the artillery. The letter X identified a vehicle in a battery commander's party in the era up to the adoption of call signs as tactical identifers by the gunners in the mid to late sixties. It was superimposed on a blue rectangle that had a smaller red rectangle that took up a quarter of the space in one of the four quadrants. These identified the ranking of the battery in its parent regiment.

The alfanumeric designation of the doors probably are of a later period and could be indeed be infantry. Other arms like the sappers and the gunners used to preface their call signs on vehicles with "E" and "G" respectively.

I am not sure this helps a lot.

 

[Blackadder1916]

I assume that the "rectangle with an x in the middle" that you found looks like this:

If so, yes you are correct.  It does indicate infantry.

As for the call signs on the doors - I checked a couple of old aide memoires in my collection (they date from the 1970s - when I was a unit signaller among other jobs - and the 1980s).  The callsign "82" in an infantry battalion referred to the "Ration Section".  There was no further breakdown in my reference, i.e A, B, C etc.  The "8" would indicate as belonging to "Administration Company" (Adm Coy).  From my fading memory, the Ration Section vehicles were usually deuce and halves not 3/4 tons.

 

[George Wallace]

The "II" on the top is a size indicator.  It would indicate an Infantry Bn/Armour Regiment/Artillery Regiment.  The "2" off to the right side would indicate the 2nd Bn, if it was Infantry.

 

[stratboy]

thanks guys for the help all i need to dig up is the  "x" on the right side of the box

 

[George Wallace]

Here is a link that may help you decipher what the symbols are (click on the link to "Graphic modifiers"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Military_Symbols_for_Land_Based_Systems#Graphic_modifiers