What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

My M117 is not an M117!

D

DEADLINE222

Well-Known Member
After finally getting around to inspecting my casing, it turns out that is not a M117, but rather a T54E3 which is dated 1953.

Can anyone tell me about the T54E3, and how it would have been painted?
 
The only reference i can find to anything like this refers to T 154E3, being a bomb tail unit for an undisclosed size bomb.
The colour would normally be Olive drab /green.

A picture would be a lot of help!

cheers
Bob
 
I would really, really like to paint this casing, but I apear to be stuck.

I seem to have three options:

1. Leave it alone and wait for information to materialize.

2. Assume the T54E3 would be painted per standard specifications like an M117, and stencil appropriate nomenclature.

3. Paint it up like an M117 and lie to everyone, including myself.

Now, I am given to understand that the "T" in T54E3, means experimential. Corrrect me if I am wrong.

Would the "T" offset the paint job much? I ask becasue everything I have in my collection that is a "T" is painted black. Fill me in, please.

Assuming that the T54E3 was fielded, and painted accordingly; what would have it looked like in June of 1954? Would it have been the old style nose and tail stripes to indicate the filler type, or the current day, single 3 inch nose stripe?

If it was fielded and looked like the M117s in the following pictures; what would the nomenclature look like? Would it look basically the same as that found on the World War 2 AN series bombs? Does anyone have a good picture?

150750.jpg150750a.jpg
 
It's not an easy area to research. Data on stockpiled items rarely goes back to the developmental series numbers.

In this case I've found very little, one 1950s reference mentions the new 750lb bomb, T54 (M118). It then appears that the designation was changed, the T54 was given the M117 designation, M118 was then used for (if I recall correctly) the 3000lb. M117 model numbers are given in documents from at least 1965 on. By 1968 or so it was the M117A1, then by 1970 the M117A1E2. The T meant test. After the late 50s (57?) the T designation was changed to XM.

Large numbers of items were often used for testing in later stages of development. Once adopted it was then common to simply place the items in stockpile without changing the "T" stamped markings. The paint could be updated, the stamps were often left as is. One example of this was that during inspections of chemical weapons awaiting destruction, inspectors found a significant number of T77 155mm projectiles in stockpile, declared for treaty purposes as M121s. This caused some confusion until explained and shown through documentation that the T77 was redesignated - those on the shelf were repainted but nothing else.

Depending on what time frame you want to depict, the most likely paint scheme (for stockpiled) would have been 1-3 yellow rings at the nose and tail, depending on which explosive fill was used. If you want to paint it for test there were a large variety of different markings, depending what type of test was being conducted and the testing locations.
 
Deadline222: I noticed that the picture name/ID is welford_2_00000d.jpg. The personnel are US Air Force and they were using the old 2-4-6 wrecker, so I was wondering if that photo could have been taken at RAF Welford in England, which had US Air Force munitions located there. Likely not but interesting thought.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top