What vehicles were used to deliver bombs to the Type D open stores?

Paul

you forgot one of your previous favourites, the chuck it off the back method

Carnaby;140308 wrote:

Don't know about USAAF vehicles, but I always assumed the RAF dropped the side of their lorries.

From AP 2852A, Bomb Dump Procedure:

Bombs would be fed into the dump from the 'lorry road', down the 14 deg. ramp, the top of which was 12 in below the floor level of a fully laden Austin tender. Wooden sloping battens were used to bridge the gap between the ramp and the lorry. When required the bombs would be removed via the 'trolley road' at the opposite end, the level of which was 4 in lower than a standard type ‘C’ or type ‘D’ bomb trolley. Thus when the bombs were stored on conventional 4×4 battens the levels were equalised.

So is the "Austin tender" that is mentioned a make of vehicle? Seems that I have heard of them before. Would you happen to have a photo of one? Sorry I don't know more about British trucks and such. I have seen photos of some of the vehicles used at AAF bases such as Crowley and Fordson. And now that I have written this, Austin ambulances. OK, I'm slow, what can I tell ya ; ) ! Would the lorry be on the same frame as the ambulance?

Would the Bedford QL series have been used for this purpose?

Karl wrote:

Would the Bedford QL series have been used for this purpose?

The Austin Tender was a 6x4 3 ton truck fitted with a flat platform fitted with 6 inch high hinged sides and tailboard. The QL wasn't really suitable as the vast majority had fixed sides, Qls mainly equipped the Units that formed 2 TAF, during WW2 few would have been in Bomber Command although towards the end of WW2 the QL Trooper was used for aircrew transport; I will try and attach a picture of an Austin Bomb Tender but Internet Explorer keeps shutting my link down
TED

the attached is post WW2 but gives a good view of the tender

Attached files [IMG]/community/140321=15577-Austin bomb flat 004.jpg[/img]

Thank you Ted. Now if only somebody made a scale model of that truck. I was wanting to do a diorama of bombs being trammeled off a truck onto the ramp at the bomb dump. Then I got to reading a bit and realized my GMC wouldn't work. I did finally realize that the trucks had to unload off the side and the GMC (to the best of my knowledge) did not have that capability. Now I see the correct truck and my idea shot down in flames : 0 ! But I learned a bit and I thank everyone for their input. I do enjoy the vast storehouse of knowledge here! I guess I could do my 6 x 6 backed up to one without the transvers in front of it.

In the main, 8AF combat stations had their bomb stores replenished by 8AFSC and its sucessors.
So, 2.5T GMCs and Studebakers would be the primary MT arriving with bombs.
Both of these had standard US Military pattern cargo bodies, which did not permit side-unloading.

buccaneer66;140311 wrote:

Paul

you forgot one of your previous favourites, the chuck it off the back method

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I purposely didn't include this one, as it shows a milder version of a practice that was eventually stamped out in the 8AF.
However, it does once again demonstrate bulk unloading from supply, prior to station personnel transferring the delivery to the proper storage areas.

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This is perhaps what you had in mind?
There are several versions by different makers, but they were fairly prolific.
Hugh

I replied to this yesterday but as happens from time to time it has disappeared into the ether!

Just to add that in addition to airfields using their own assigned trucks to collect bombs from factory or munitions depots,British civilian contractors were used and they usually had drop side trucks such as the Austin so delivery by rolling off down the ramp from the lorry road was possible.

The 3164/42 HE Store was, effectively, imposed on the USAAF since it was the prescribed standard from mid-1942 whether built by US Corps of Engineers or by British Contractors and the workaround by the USAAF when using fixed side trucks was to offload by crane, forktruck or bomb service truck from the trolley road.

It should be remembered that the lateral traverses on the store and the two end compartment ETs were optional if there was sufficient safety distance available so, in its most simple form, a Type D of four compartments would have only three earth traverses separating the compartments. So, where there was no lateral traverse, and subject to firm and level ground alongside the paved road, a loaded truck could be reversed up to a ramp and offloaded with the tailgate down.

Another important factor was the increase in the number of bombs to be stored as the bombing offensive stepped up. This necessitated storing more bombs in a compartment than originally authorised. This required layering the bomb stacks. It was possible with some 'wangling' to offload bombs down the ramp and onto battens laid on top of a single layer but, dependent on bomb size and diameter, this was difficult due to the combined height of two sets of battens and two layers of bombs requiring rolling bombs up an incline.

The USAAF solution, and indeed the RAF method when required, was to crane the bombs in directly atop the stack below so that the upper layer sat in the interspaces formed by the bottom layer. This meant, of course, that to get them out without a lot of labour they had to be craned out too.

Image 5 in PBs Post # 7 is interesting and (too me!) exciting since I reckon that I can narrow down or even fix the location. During my research I have found a couple of USAAF airfield bomb stores which had an odd offloading ramp. That image suggests that they may have been built to cater for bombs delivered by non-drop side trucks or used regardless when the main stores were full.

So Hugh, go ahead an build your USAAF diorama with drop side trucks (civilian) being used on the lorry road.

Post 7 Image 3 I think is Ridgewell. The camo nets to the RH background would have covered the open compartment Incendiary Bomb Store Type C.