[Milsurplus] Spares boxes

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Jack,

For a long time (at least through the 50's), that's in general how it was 
done, although with small sets like the ZB, a spare parts kit might have been 
assembled to take care of five sets or ten sets instead of only one.  Centralized 
supply managed by SK's, at least for radio equipment,  was relatively new 
when I went into the Naval Reserve in 1964.  Over the years, I've had a number of 
different sets from the 50's and earlier, both shipboard and aircraft and 
some in quantity, that were still in the original crates.  All of it had spares 
kits, some packed in steel boxes, some in cardboard.

I'd guess that until practical data processing equipment (later called 
computers) came along that were capable of keeping up with how many 1 K/1 watt 
resistors or 6J5's were in all of the equipment on board, it really wasn't 
practical to do it otherwise.  The Army did it differently, but then they always had 
20 people where the Navy would only have one or two.  And swapping parts 
between units on the ground is much easier than between ships at sea.

In a message dated 7/21/2005 10:09:45 PM Central Daylight Time, 
scr287 at sbcglobal.net writes: 
> The recent find of a spares box for a ZB set got me
> to thinking(dangerous).
> 
> Lets say an aircraft carrier had 50 planes, all with
> a ZB set. Did they have a stock room with 50 individual
> "Operating Spares" boxes, one for each set? Along with
>   a spares box for each RU, ARB, GO etc etc. Seems like that
> would take up a lot of room.
> 
> Just wondering...
> 

Robert Downs - Houston
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