Most HISS's have the 788 sticker on them. I've altered many of mine, and the artic version came with a numbers option, but I was thinking that an alternative could be to give the "788" another meaning than just the tanks serial number.

For instance the 40/8 boxcar of WWII France, it could transport 40 soldiers or 8 horses. Perhaps the HISS holds a crew of 7 and contains 88 rounds of amunition?

Okay its not such a groundbreaking thought to earn its own thread - buts its something to chew on.

-CJack

_________________

Maybe it is Rip-It or Munitia's personal squad, like Anakin had the 501st...

_________________

It could be like a division number. Like 788th armored division.

Springfield HISS represent.....YO!!!!!!

_________________

Interesting idea. The blue HISS IIIs are marked 827, different number, different unit, different colour.
The other markings on the Original HISS are a small white circle that reads 3/63 and another that reads GH7c.
While 788 could be a unit designation, I still think its just the vehicle's ID marker. The white circle with 3/63 coud be 3rd platoon 63rd battalion (though that's an aweful lot of armourored battalions)
3rd of 63 HISSes in that unit? (think Borg)
GH7c could also be a unit designation or a vehicle designation

I used the extra numbers from my arctic HISS to change the numbers of my other HISSes, ordered some more from Cobra Stickers to finish the rest of them off. Each of the numbers had a different meaning to me.

_________________

Could it be 7th Company 8th Squad 8th tank? Makes more sense that 788 Hiss tanks or 788 units of Hiss tanks.

Let's say there are many companies, each made up of ten squads of ten tanks.

780-789 would be one squad.
790-799 would be the next squad.

I kinda see this being the most plausible.


Just remember that just because a unit has a high number does not necessarily mean that there are actually that many units active. Take for instance, the U.S. Army. Currently there only a hand ful of active divisions, but their numbers differ wildly.

1st Cavalry Division ( first of one)
2nd Infantry Division
1st Armored Division . (first of one)
3rd Infantry Division .
4th Infantry Division
10th Mountain Division
25th Infantry Division Schofield Barracks, Hawaii ( 25th of FIVE?)
82nd Airborne Division (82nd of two)
101st Airborne Division (101st of two)
170th Infantry Brigade Baumholder, Germany (170th of two)
172nd Infantry Brigade Grafenwöhr, (172 of two)
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team Vicenza, Italy (173rd of two)
2nd Cavalry Regiment Vilseck, Germany
3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Fort Hood, Texas
11th Armored Cavalry Regiment Fort Irwin, California (only three of these)

See what I mean?

Also, tac signs (the Big numbers you see painted on the sides or backs of vehicles) might not have anything to do numerically with the unit's TO&E designations, i.e. during OIF 1, 2nd platoon, B troop 3-7 cavalry, 3ID's tac sign looked like : 92\ which meant 9th squadron (battalion) sized element, 2nd troop (company) sized element, then the slash meant second platoon. The same unit, which had been reassigned to another BCT in the interim, went back to Iraq for OIF 3 with this tac sign: 21B\ , which meant 2nd BCT, 1st squadron sized element, B troop, then the slash meant second platoon.

Basically, those numbers can mean whatever you want them to mean.

Wow that's some education you just put upon me. I never knew all that. So I suppose, for instance the 82nd and 101st got their numbers during WWII when many more Divisions were needed, so do you have any idea how it is that the 82nd and 101st (or any of these divisions or regiments) were spared while the 1st, 2nd, 81st and 83rd were retired?

_________________

Maybe maybe.. the hiss toy Was designed thinking in normal Children which buy 1 toy of each to play... not 150 of the same like you...

_________________

I look at it as the individual tank number with the first number (7) being the unit number (7th Armored Division). I picked up a sticker sheet from Cobrastickers and changed out all of the numbers on my HISS tanks.

_________________

I typed an answer so long that I timed out

TL;DR : Basically, there are two reasons. The first is that the numbers essentially mean when the unit was constituted, not necessarily how many of them there are. Just beause the it's 82nd Airborne Division does not mean that there were ever 82 or more Airborne divisions, it just means that it's the 82nd infantry division constituted, and sometime over the course of it's history it became an Airborne Division. This is sometimes effected by mission specificity, ie the 1st Cavalry Division, which was created as a cavalry division, but is now a light armored division
The second is that all the unit designations like division, brigade, battalion, have changed meaning over the years, so that a unit constituted at one time during the army's history may have been a vastly different sized entity than what we have today. During the between war drawdowns the units doing essential work stayed, the units doing REMF work went, and you end up with a crazy mix of numbers. Unit history and such may effect this. Base Closings in the 80's and 90's had a big effect on this.

edit: I'll give you an example I was part of: In 1995, with the "end" of the cold war, the Army was drawing down the size of it's forces in Germany. The base housing the 3ID (m) was closed, and it was brought back to the States. Since the 3ID(m) has been around for EVER, it was decided that it would not be deactivated, but there was nowhere to base this unit. What actually happened, was, the 24th ID, a unit with a long history and tradition, was reflagged 3ID(m) and 24th ID went away. One day I was in the 2nd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 24th ID, the next day I was in the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3ID(m). Tah-Dah!!

Yarg! I never could figure out how the Army designated their units. I always felt the Marines' unit designations were easier to follow, but I guess someone in the Army might find the Marines' system a bit confusing.


I go along with this idea as well. Of course the fun of the whole thing is those numbers can mean what ever you want them to mean. To me, the big red number is the vehicle's designation number. The small white circle is the unit number.

What about the Rattler? Is Z-06 the squadron designation? Is 41 the plane's ID number?
The Stinger has BW-X04.
The ASP is CGP-X03, VA81-267 and 1-267.
The Moray has R-07.

_________________

Oh, it get's worse, believe me, I mostly left out mission specificity of divisions, which now has no meaning at all. The marines have the added advantage of being a smaller force. Not limited by their size mind you, but very much more mission focused as far as TO&E goes.

My understanding was that the HISS number was based directly on the German WWII numbering system for their tanks.

http://www.tankzone.co.uk/pages/ww2_ger ... bering.htm

_________________

Cjack, retirement/deactivation of units (in this case divisions) normally has little to do with their unit number, instead it's often a combination of their histories (the more famous/reknown ones are the last considered for deactivation), influence (when you have either politicians/military leaders who served in the unit or the unit has very strong supporters in political/military circles - this is somewhat common in UK due to the regimental system and the honorary Colonel in Chief title that every regiment has), roles or locations (e.g a unit whose role has been redundant or based in a area overseas where it is no longer needed gets axed since it's cheaper/convenient to just reassign the personnel to existing units in other roles/location rather than retraining the entire formation for a new role or new area of operations), in the case of the 82nd and 101st, given their achievements during WW2 and their specialized role (paratroopers), it pretty much made them on the lower end to be deactivated.
Just to add, the division numbers are not in sequence simply for the historical reason of disguising the number of divisions an army has otherwise the opposition could make a good guess of the strength of an army it was facing and track units more easily (this was the case in WW1 and WW2 when the US was raising new divisions so the numbers were to confuse the germans as to how many troops the US had) along with making the opposition waste time trying to find non-existant units in such a sequence though these days, military organizations being very traditional, when an army expands, it normally brings back a deactivated unit rather than creating a new number.