British WW2 tank radio vp

[Niknak8655]

Looking specifically for British world war 2 armoured corps radio procedure and generic callsign for a tank troop and squadron 

[Colin]

You might try postwar/Korean war British and Canadian procedures/callsigns as they would be pretty close.

[R011]

At some point, the UK and Canada started using a standardized NATO VP.  It's probably similar to WWII, but there were differnces.  One I know of was starting transmissions with "Hello [station being called]"  Call signs are likely the same or not too differnt.  Those weren't standardized throughout NATO like VP was.

 

On the lighter side, if you ever watched Stargate SG-1 which featured USAF special forces, the Canadian writers of that show apparently knew at least some Canadian callsigns, but didn't realize the bits they used were different from what the US uses.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ive a 1968 Chieftain gunnery manual here that gives some of the proceedures then in use. There was a Centurion simulator at Bovington that had the crew operating with similar proceedures to this. That doesnt necessarily mean it dates from the war,but it suggests at least that its reasonably close to what they were using in the 50's at least.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ufj8yi6fmpi4bdf/Chieftain Pamphlet No19 Armament 1968.pdf?dl=0

Ive got a 1945 gunnery manual somewhere, Ill try and look it out. I dont recall it mentioning crew commands though,it was mainly gunnery technique.

[rmgill]

I have manuals that cover this. RT Procedure signal  training all arms, 1945. Appendix III has a nice fold out showing the Signal plan for an armored regiment. By way of reenacting, I have also run our nets per the book and have a pretty good working knowledge of how it works in practice with the gear.  

Rt procedure is pretty standard for Brits and CW in WWII. Single callsign or link sign method with the control station calling out stations by their link sign and the outstations calling the control station by their own link sign. Squadrons had a three letter code sign.  Say your company code sign is BST aka Baker Sugar Tare. Thats the coy commanders tank. He (or his loader) would call regiment by Hullo Baker Sugar Tare...  as well. The Regt command would call his various company/squadron commanders by their relevant link signs.  

The platoons/troops subordinate to BST would have figures 1, 2 ,3 appended to the overall code sigh.  thus BST1, BST2, etc. their subordinate elements having a,b,c appended. Thus, if three tanks, then the link signs for the lower 2 tanks would be BST1a and BST1b. Usually the overall first phonetic would be used so Baker1 for 1st troop of that sqdn, baker2 for the second. Baker 3 dog for the 3rd platoon 5th vehicle. 

Organizationally, squadrons (companies) were on a specific net via their WS 19 B set (vhf) and the regimental command tank (battalion) reached via the A set (HF). Squadrons could be, at commanders discretion operated on their own frequencies. The tank troops (platoons) normally talked on their B sets.

One could flip between squadron and regiment nets easily with the intercom box. Incoming transmissions can be heard on the intercom, I think outgoing as well, but if you are on the b set you won’t hear calls on the a set and vice versa, the control box in the turret will illuminate alight to indicate that the a set is unattended if both turret crew are on B. usually it was commanders and loaders fiddling with wireless. Gunners did on 2 man turret tanks/ armored cars. 

The co’s rover (humber staff car), the artillery op, the motor company command, tech adjunct, MO, Recce troop and AA troop were all reached on the same A set net by the control station/hq tank.

The other three tanks of the regimental command troop were reached via b-set, and one of those relayed to brigade hq. Relay could be manually or rebroadcast where the received signal on the WS19 A set was retransmitted out the B Set.  

There were suffix number sets for particular elements, 15 for the co if as an outstation on his own net, 17 for scout car patrols (thus BST17a), 22 for recce troop and others for various elements in a mobile formation.  

Artillery OPs had ws19 A sets for talking to their supported formations with WS 19s or another type used for talking to their batteries. Usually in dummy -gunned OP tanks. If they had a single ws-19 flicking between two preset frequencies would be the rule. But if they had more gear they could just flip to a different A set on the control box. Often the OP tanks were with each of the squadrons with a battery command tank at the regiment level as well. 

Reg hq had a separate set of recce cars in 2 car patrols and a recce troop of cars (~11 elements) or tanks that would be on the same overall  own net, but again talking to each other normally on their b-sets.. They’d talk to each other on their b-set.  

Infantry tanks often had a radio fit that integrated a vehicular power supplied ws38 for talking to PBI..

Above regiment, you have command trucks, armored command trucks and such that have multiple radios for talking to their own nets and nets above. The key thing being that in every case, the formation controlled by that net has link signs derivative of that net. So on your own net as the control station you use the link signs of the out stations and as you are a subordinate of another net for higher echelon, you actually have a separate link sign for that higher net which you speak to that control station as.  Thus, the HQ tank for BST would be say HKI (howe king item) on that other net. 

[rmgill]

Thats probably not very clear as I’ve tried to summarize what was arrived at over 6 years of war in a final form and distilled in a 1/2” thick bundle of pamphlets.. feel free to ask questions. Pdfs of this and other signals manuals are available at royalsignals.org.uk. 

[rmgill]

On 1/27/2021 at 1:33 AM, R011 said:

At some point, the UK and Canada started using a standardized NATO VP.  It's probably similar to WWII, but there were differnces.  One I know of was starting transmissions with "Hello [station being called]"  Call signs are likely the same or not too differnt.  Those weren't standardized throughout NATO like VP was.

With different ones for Rn and RAF iirc..

Early in the war they were 

ack, beer, charlie, dog, ...

later it was able, baker, charlie, dog, easy, fox, george, how, item, jig, king, nan, oboe, peter, queen, roger, sugar, tare, uncle, victor, william, x-ray, yoke, zebra.. which I think is still a bit different than US phonetics. 

Still, the single call sign method is the most unusual thing compared to what were are used to hearing..