Hi all,

i found this in spares box, i think it is a British Army Ammo box of some type the question is, what era is it, can it be used today in modern times such as afghanistan.

i have a picture of one of these stuck on the front of a british tank during the first gulf war but haven't seen them much since.

all help welcomed.

I guess a picture would be welcome as well

H.P.

Frenchy, you are a genius at finding things on the internet so I thought I'd make this a bit more challenging for you

I will post a picture tomorrow morning when I get home from work

You mean something like this David ?



H.P.

Well that’s half of the side bin from a Chieftain. They are fairly common on vehicles from armed regts (MBTs, ARVs etc) but if they are fitted to vehicles in theatres where there are no Chieftain variants from which they might come, then they would have been fitted before departure.

Of course, no guarantee that the OP’s image showed that type at all😉

nope it's not a storage bin it's an ammo can and you can make it out in this picture, it's to the right of the smoke launchers and i have added a picture of the can at the start of this tread as well

81 mm mortar ammo box [ 58cm (22¾ inches) Long x 26.5cm (10½ inches) High x 23cm (9 inches) Wide ] ?





H.P.

Possible 105mm ammo box ?

81mm Mortar ammo box.

Something which does wind an old tankie guy up sometimes is the over amount of stowage or incorrect stowage you see put on vehicles. From experience in a tank and CVRT recce Regt I will try and lay out a few things we did on ours.
First thing is external stowage bins added by crews was generally down to the individual crew if they wanted to do it. Once someone had a good idea it generally caught on and other wagons would then do the same as per Frenchys
Image of the Chally 1s and the side turret baskets on all 3 wagons. On my troops and most of our Regt Challys we had half a chieftain long bin in the same area as per my Chally I did a few months ago.
Also on our challys we had old chieftain small bins ( from rear of chieftain engine decks) and when we used these on exercise they were put on the rear baskets on the turret.

CVRTs are a whole different animal. Before the retro fit when most scimitars were fitted out with the old sabre bins crews would bolt, weld, bodge any old stowage/ ammo boxes any place there was a space big enough to fit something in. We usually used old hand grenade, vent tube or MBSGD boxes.
Things like half or even quarter length Chieftain long bins were also used as were the old chieftain small square bins which were an easy thing to demand through the system.
On CVRTs the majority of hull stowage would be on the sponson plate using tool securing points or other fixed hard point and also some items secured to the large rear hull bin. Extra turret stowage was usually mounted to existing hard points.
Crews would also manufacture baskets of various sizes made of steel mesh and metal strips to fit on the hull sponson plate.

During the Gulf conflicts you started to see a bit more external stowage on UK MBTs than you would of before. Bergen's strapped to baskets etc and bedrolls tied or bungees to the skirts.
Personal kit like webbing was normally outside when we could do it for ease of use. So on Chally 2 turret crew would have it round the MBSGDs and the comd would keep his behind his cupola or in his turret bin outside. On CVRs the Dvrs would be wrapped around either of the MBSGDs, the Comd/ gunner would usually have his wrapped around his hatch. On my Striker I kept mine bungees behind my Comds cupola and the operator kept his over his hatch or in the missile bin basket.
The big difference on modern wagons now tracked or wheeled is the added slatted armour. That has taken away alot of crew access to the hull and also the old places you could actually fit extra stowage boxes.
So I would say on newer vehicles, the old style ammo box makeshift stowage will become alot rarer to see. But on older vehicles from say gulf era you would still see lots of different variations fitted.

Frenchy, BootsDMS, thanks for your help, i know i didn't make it easy for you guys at the start, i blame the 15 hour night shifts that i do, i have a habit of leaving pictures out of posts or attachments to emails forget to be added.

John Hagan, many thanks for the in depth explanation regarding stowage on british army vehicles, i only plan to use these 81mm ammo boxes as items being moved about in a trailer attached to a british army quad bike, i just wanted to make sure i was adding the right stuff the the trailer..

thansk agian to everyone who took part in helping me, i have at the moment two of these type of boxes but i found another six more in another "spares box" so i might cast some more using bathroom sealant and get some resin or possibly try to do a short cut by using two part epoxy resin glue to fabricate some more of these ammo boxes.

Yes, 81mm mortar box.

The Chieftain bin one to which I was referring was the one in Henri-Pierre’s image, which was the only picture in the thread at the time. I can tell the difference between Chieftain and ammunition boxes but the thread layout makes it hard to tell to which post I was replying.