November 2023
To complement the additions to the Fighting Vehicles pages, Chapter 8 is reproduced here, edited by Martin Wickham.
8. The Fighting Vehicle years
The fighting vehicle department was staffed by a number of people who had served their time at Alvis as apprentices, or came there as younger men. Noticeable also was the number of different trades involved and its engineering differed in not having the precision and meticulous requirements that I had been accustomed to; altogether a heavier industry. I never really had time to become integrated with the wheeled vehicle culture before reorganisation of the departments and major moves started in preparation for the coming of Scorpion and its siblings.
The first such move saw the main aero shop vacated and transferred to a smaller confine in what was the experimental department, which in turn was similarly re-housed in the building adjacent to the railway line. The former aero shop was prepared for the installation of three giant plate profiling machines (the Marwins). The arrival of these machines brought another memorable incident concerning my predilection for discarded timber. I had noticed a number of large wooden frames in the empty shop on which I believed the machines had been sitting on in transit. Made from beautiful lengths of pine I was keen to ensure such valuable timber was not thrown away and so by explaining what I believed they were got permission to take them away.
Taking each one apart carefully in my own time and sawing in half the very long lengths, I progressively took the bounty home in my car, working after hours over about three days. However, a few days later some men arrived to install and commission the machines and soon questions were being asked if anybody had seen the wooden frames sent with the machines. These were the templates for marking outthe floor where they were to be located and providing the precise location for the fixing holes. Well! What could I say? I had got permission from the Maintenance Engineers, but from someone who obviously didn’t know any more than I did as to what they were for. My embarrassment was manifold and, with some difficulties the templates were meant to avoid, the work was satisfactorily accomplished. I can’t imagine what would have happened if it hadn’t.
After the machines were installed, commissioned and test pieces cut, a hull side plate for the first Scorpion was machined, which marked my introduction to this new project that was to see me comprehensively involved in for the next ten years.
This first plate required a complete geometric survey of every aspect to verify that the taped information controlling the machining operations was correct. This responsibility befell the inspection function with my senior colleague, Phil Metcalfe and I. I viewed this with some trepidation since I had not had to resort to my knowledge of geometry and trigonometry since my schooldays, but without much ado it soon became an enjoyable experience to pick this up again. The same exercise had to be conducted on every different first plate cut.
I found the coming of the new generation of fighting vehicles both challenging and exciting, and put my head into some hard learning of this new sophisticated material they were to be made from. Plasma cutting, high speed profile machining and MIG welding on a scale I had never seen before were all evolving processes that were beset with problems to be resolved as they arose, and involved a huge learning curve before their every facet would be fully understood.
One of the first tasks given to me as the first vehicle reached assembly, was to produce documents for recording the construction details that would form the record of manufacture. The aero engines had a veritable dossier of information that gave details of component batch and serial numbers, test data, assembly dimensional sizes and settings, modification standard and accessory numbers; in fact everything that comprised a record of complete manufacture.
This also had to include a traceability record of when and what was done, and by whom, all of which amounted to some 40 to 50 documents. These items were reviewed by the resident A.I.D. Inspector before an engine was accepted as correct. Such records were not required to be as comprehensive for fighting vehicles, but I was aghast when told ‘this is not a b….y aero engine – I want the whole thing done on 3 sheets’, which I viewed as impossible given that there were 13 stages of manufacture in all.
However, I set about the task and by limiting the detail and condensing much of the operations to ‘one-liners’ the 10 main stages of assembling the Scorpion were initially recorded on 3 double-sided build cards as demanded. But it was hopelessly inadequate, as I knew it would be, and over the ensuing years the construction record for each vehicle type grew to meet the A.Q.D. requirements for traceability and evidence of compliance with quality standards, about 30 sheets in all.
The whole contract for these vehicles was thrown into jeopardy very early after production began, by a dispute with the welders who found themselves key to its very continuance. The application of weld in the construction of the hull and turret was a process that demanded a high measure of skill and concentrated effort on the part of the welder. His ability to meet the exacting requirements of each joint type had to be demonstrated by tests on material samples that were then subjected to tests in the laboratory.
On these results he would either pass or fail, a pass being necessary before a welder had approval to carry out the work. Added to this was the health hazard, for many toxic fumes were produced by the volume of weld being applied. All this gave rise to strong demands for appropriate rewards and safety protection beyond what had been historically acceptable. As a body, the Alvis welders were conscious of the fact that none of their kind had ever reached retirement, the hazards of the job having taken its toll before that time was reached. The environment of this new work brought that sharply into focus.
In pursuit of their demands a lengthy series of strikes began that reached a point where MOD seriously considered other options for getting the new vehicle programme under way. The dispute dragged on for months and I recall the welders union shop steward, Eric Heggie, taking on the aura of one Arthur Scargill of the mineworkers, with what I saw as his intransigent stance over their demands. This period hardened my view of trade unions with their agenda of being totally unreasonable in order to extract maximum advantage. In the end sanity prevailed and work resumed, but welding was always a flashpoint for other disputes in the years ahead.
By 1973, with vehicle production in full swing the company decided to sell off its Rover Gas Turbine interests. Although Leonides and Lycoming aero engine overhaul were in continuing decline, the gas turbine work had seen much development and the prospects for further business was good. Apart from the ongoing production contracts for the Nimrod APU and the Pegasus starter engine for MOD, the commercial use of the Rover turbines was being pursued and the potential was encouraging. However, the insatiable requirements of the new vehicle contracts for ever more space and company resources was the priority.
RGT was sold to Lucas Aerospace and moved to their factories at Hemel Hempstead and Willesden Junction. At a management meeting to inform us of this decision and its reason, I asked the works director, Ron Skidmore, if it was really wise to put all our eggs in the Scorpion basket, but can’t recall the answer I got – it was fait accompli anyway. As I saw it Alvis had a history of diverse manufacturing, a policy begun by its founder, and this had helped it maintain a profitable business and wide ranging capability, but it was fast heading towards being a one product company.
Along with the award of this major vehicle contract came the necessity for the company to comply with the requirements of a new defence standard, namely AQAP-1 (Allied Quality Assurance Paper), which called for written procedures and instructions to be held that defined practices and responsibilities for conducting the work. The objective being that in the event of another contractor taking on the work the methodology would be in place to assure continuity. To this end requirement my department took on the services of Ron Drury in 1972 who was appointed to become Quality Systems Manager and undertake this enormous task. A likeable man in every way, with a background in the Fleet Air Arm, he became a close associate of mine in the years that followed.
Sustained output ran on through the seventies and job security for everyone at Alvis was never in doubt. During this period each of the seven variants of the CVR(T) baseline vehicle came into production one by one. Each type brought its own unique problems of design and construction, the solutions of which I found an exciting challenge and enjoyed the environment of it immensely. Nowhere else would I have found such a range of physical and engineering technologies to be involved with at one time and I eagerly learned all I could. My own position strengthened as I became a key player in assuring quality standards were maintained and that compliance with the many contractual requirements were met. Only this would enable a level of trust and confidence to be earned from the resident ministry inspection body, QAD.
With the Scorpion production well under way, it became more generally known that Belgium’s commitment to NATO would be through the supply of the Scorpion-based vehicle range. These were to be built at a British Leyland car factory at Mechelen, Belgium, from kits of parts supplied by Alvis in Coventry. Through a cost offsetting arrangement clause in the MOD contracts Alvis were given, Belgium was to supply a proportion of the aluminium armour plate used in the fabrication of all vehicle hulls.
Soon after assembly of the first of the Belgian vehicles began a series of problems arose, and two production Foremen and myself were sent to Mechelen to resolve the trouble and assist the Belgian operation. The need to maintain the supply of kits and recover home production lost during the strike period imposed 7-day working over a number of months. However, a major setback was to hit vehicle production about this time (1974 ?). Some vehicles by then in service with the British Army were found to have a series of cracks and ruptures in certain hull plates.
The problem was eventually traced to the plate sourced from the Sidal company in Belgium, which, although compliant with the MoD standard of the time, had been produced with a grain structure that could not withstand the effects of welding. As hulls were by now being fabricated from a combination of Belgian Sidal and British Alcan plate a crash programme was instigated to identify which plate on every hull was Sidal.
This involved an enormous amount of extra work as, with vehicles which were built and painted, the only means of identifying what the suspect material pieces had been fabricated into was to cut a sample piece off and have it analysed. However, investigations resulting from the unsatisfactory nature of the Sidal plate resulted in a revised MoD standard and the knowledge that the new ballistic armour was susceptible to stress corrosion cracking that would, with time, affect its integrity. The exposed end grain was required to be ‘buttered’ with a thin layer of weld metal to prevent exfoliation cracks occurring and all structural welds were required to be shot-peened in order to stress relieve the material from the effects of welding, all this adding time and cost to production.
In progressive satisfaction of the government contracts for all the variants of CVR(T), volume production continued apace, together with the requirement for knock-down kits for Belgium. I was enjoyably involved with the demands of all this, although it was frequently required me to work seven days a week for long stretches of time that took its toll on my private life, such that, regrettably, I missed much of the early life of my two young daughters.
My involvement in the foreman’s trade union committee continued to absorb time with meetings, both on and off plant and the pursuit of objectives with full time officials was an ongoing distraction. However, I was keen to be at the forefront of what was going on and to be able to make a reasoned input. At one particular meeting with the Works Director over money (it was nearly always over money), I must have been bored with the debating round the table and briefly dozed off only to be startled into life when the director pointedly asked me to comment on what he had just been saying. Not wishing to be seen as inattentive I answered in the affirmative, not really knowing what he had been saying to which he exclaimed ‘there you are, Roy can see the sense of what I have said’. I was to be constantly reminded of this over the ensuing years by the union committee remarking of the time they had apparently got the management on the run when (quote) ‘Roy Probert wakes up and b….y well agrees with everything the company was saying’.
I found the quality principle a much harder thing to enforce in Fighting Vehicle engineering than it had been in my previous work situations that had all been associated with aero engineering. The very fact that you were dealing with something that was to fly kept a responsible attitude in place that made the enforcing of product quality much easier.
A different concept prevailed with FV where production was God and the compliance with quality standards was much harder to enforce. I found this difficult to come to terms with, having been steeped in aircraft traditions and would often get into conflict over the acceptability of some feature on a vehicle that I viewed as non-conforming and could compromise performance. Consequently, rejection of anything that held up production was fought over. Only this way was quality maintained, but the vehicle ethos was different and sometimes hard for a quality purist, weaned on aircraft standards, to accept. However, time taught me how to make judgements that I could confidently defend, based on knowledge gained as the project moved on.
The interviewing and engagement of new employees was another aspect of the foreman’s lot. Going through a pile of application forms and CV’s was the first stage in this process and made you acutely aware of how badly people present themselves, and expose their weaknesses in completing these details. From some twenty or so applications selected for reviewing, these forms alone would whittle down to about four who would be considered suitable for interview. This stage would be carried out by two of us and would usually result in finding just one with the necessary attributes.
The loss of the people working under my supervision, through death, occurred only once during this period of my service, but brought a fresh experience for me. It was apparently customary in such cases for the foreman to ensure that the individual’s personal effects were quarantined. It was the foreman’s responsibility to gather the person’s tools and other accoutrements and arrange for these to be passed to the widow of the deceased. Swift action was necessary to ensure nobody else seized the opportunity to take what was not rightfully theirs. But in the course of boxing up these possessions I was informed by a senior colleague that I must carefully examine everything found and make a judgement on its disposal. In the course of doing this I came across some extremely risque old photographs, circa 1920, and a number of well handled letters indicating some long ago liaison. The reason for the policy followed became clearly evident. I removed and destroyed all that might have caused anxiety and thus avoided his widow’s further distress had she found them.
A major event of this period was the retirement of Alvis Managing Director, J J Parkes, who had been at the helm of the company since 1946, to be succeeded by a retired army officer, Major-General A G Lewis, who was still very much a military man in his bearing and style. With his army background he was wholly absorbed in the vehicles, having little or no interest in anything aero (RAF) and took a while to understand that his new troops were not as readily commanded in the way he was accustomed to.
Works Director Ron Skidmore, a victim of alcoholism, was also replaced by Alan Robb, a strong-willed disciplinarian who instilled a measure of fear in some but who I came to respect and rather like. Attending his meetings was like being summoned to court where he gave out firm instructions of what he expected of each individual by the next meeting. However I learned his weakness was that he never asked if you had achieved his demand at the next event, so there was never a penalty for failure.
Production output nominally ran at 40 vehicles a month during the mid to late seventies and some work continued throughout the main Summer holiday shut-down with a skeleton staff. I usually volunteered to work at this time, preferring to take my holiday later in the year. As output against the MOD contracts eventually slowed, the end of the decade brought the first overseas order for Scorpion, which as I recall was from Iran, but about half-way through producing this sizeable order the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic regime under Iyatollah Khomeni took control of the country.
The aero department was continuing with the declining overhaul work on Leonides, supported by a contract for overhaul of the Lycoming engine installed in the new RAF Bulldog training aircraft. The late 70’s saw the appointment of a Quality Manager to head up my department in a general restructuring exercise in the wake of recommendations from management consultants (more about them later).
Major-General Lewis’s tenure in office had been relatively short (about four years) and he was succeeded by one Anthony Quayle. Whereas the Major-General was frequently seen to ‘walk the patch’ and talk to people to acquaint himself with what was going on, Tony Quayle was an altogether more remote figurehead. Not given to shop floor appearances unless conducting visiting dignitaries around he seemed interested only in the upper echelons of management and conveyed an image of being unapproachable.
Scorpion manufacture also involved me with regular visits to the gun firing ranges on Salisbury Plain where testing the integrity of the 76mm gun mounting was carried out on a given ratio of those produced. The site was located at West Lavington and the gun mounting platforms were reached only after driving by Landrover across long tracks in open countryside. It was serious business carried out with military precision; there being no room for error and personal safety was paramount. It was exciting stuff to observe shells being fired as far as 9 miles over the plains from a fortified building and to witness the test results.
By 1980, with many of the new vehicles in military service, an invitation was extended by the army for an Alvis goodwill visit to the British Armed Forces of the Rhine serving in West Germany and very gratefully I was asked to head up one of the teams to go. My team was hosted by the 9th/12th Royal Lancers based at Munster barracks, who were of course equipped with a range of the new Alvis fighting vehicles. I got to drive Scorpion and Spartan across terrain I would never have thought it possible to cross, at one point going down a steep slope into a muddy pool that almost swallowed the vehicle before I drove out on the other side, but it was an exhilarating experience.
We also travelled in a Scorpion and Scimitar convoy through German towns. Standing with heads out of the turrets was reminiscent of how invading forces appear, the people in the streets just watching as these tracked vehicles soared through their village. Hedge-hopping in a Lynx helicopter was another part of army action we were privileged to experience. From their side, it was an opportunity to acquaint us with problems their usage of the vehicles was revealing and for my part, to bring back their complaints to our design department in my report.
One action of my brief was to give away a range of Alvis ‘goodies’ to the various ranks that were gratefully received by all, and to be given in return from the commanding officer a plaque bearing the regiments coat of arms to take back to the company, where it would join the many others that adorned a wall of the monthly staff dining room. However, to my shock horror, on the penultimate night I was told that at some point during that evening I would be summoned onto the stage in their social club to address the regiment. At this juncture in my career and with all my practice during management training, public speaking was something I was never comfortable with doing – and now here was the big one.
I felt that the only way I could handle this successfully was to be mildly intoxicated, not drunk but sufficiently `affected’ not to care, so I had the requisite number of whiskeys for my need. When called I went up and carried it off without the slightest apprehension, to the resounding praise of everyone at the end, including my team. The week culminated in me, on behalf of the company, inviting our host officers out to a meal in a German country tavern, where lager filled the glass with a creamy head that came to a point like a whippy ice cream – never had lager like that before, or since. A complimentary schnapps all round off the landlord was the finale to an enjoyable night and a rewarding week for all concerned.
Hosting a dinner for the squadron commanders at a German tavern, on behalf of the company, in gratitude for the hospitality shown to us. Thursday 14th August 1980.
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