Hi don’t know whether this thread is still being watched but only just discovered this site.. I was an Army apprentice POM Plant Operator Mechanic in the Royal Engineers at Chepstow 69-71, then Chattenden (near Chatham) our, main trading area at the time. We has the Gainsborough, per the comment it pitched when driving.. it had a pre-select gearbox as one of its distinctive features, so much different to operate, and a tiny bucket for the size of the machine, I recall they mostly had a dozer blade fitted, fitting the massive boom to swap to a bucket was difficult, I don’t remember what we used to’crane’ it..never saw one after training, but as always the new equipment was working with the squadrons.. and I just remembered, I saw a photo of one with the RAF airfield construction squadrons from the 60s, so I would be confident that the Army inherited them with the Airfields role, late 60s. our main machines were the Michigan 75. DS dual steer which seemed to be indestructible. Very similar to a Bray..through the 70’s our main machines were the Allis Chalmers 645 which again were very reliable, I was in an ‘airfields’ squadron, we had the Michigan 275 a big beast for the big jobs. Our small loaders were the Muir Hill A5000, with,2,4 and crab steering.. we had to swap buckets to forks on these, pins were too tight,. Very difficult and slow to swap unless you got very lucky.
