[Senna4Ever]

My niche interest in exploring our defense vehicle registration system was recently re-kindled. Specifically, I took a closer look at the vehicle classification system that our defense vehicles follow and it's represented by a single alphabet in the registration (i.e. the third character after broad arrow).

For the bigger picture on registration of vehicles of Indian Armed Forces, headover to wikipedia link where I have contributed more.

Here is an attempt to summarise what I learnt as this would be interesting for fellow BHPians and more importantly, to get inputs from more knowelegable members.

Some of this information is readily available on internet and I had already known:
e.g.

A - Two-wheel Vehicle (e.g. motorcycles)

B – Light Motor Vehicle (e.g. passenger cars like beloved Safari Storme and Gypsy)

C – Truck (< 3 tonnes) (e.g. Tata LPTA 713)

D – Truck (3 - 5 tonnes) (e.g. Ashok leyland Stallion)

K – Ambulance (irrespective of size)

Now, as I looked/searched a bit more, I cam across more photos and classes (i.e. alphabets) which led me to following conclusions:

E - Multi-Axle 6x6 or 8x8 vehicles e.g. BEML Tatra trucks or Ashok Leyland FAT 6x6

F – Specialist Light Vehicle?

I have only seen one instance on internet and it was of a Force Motor's Light Strike Vehicle (LSV)

H - High Mobility Vehicle (HMV) with material handling capability?

I stumbled upn this recently and only found one particular model that carried this classification, TATA LPTA 2038 6x6 which has material handling capability (i.e. attached crane to load/unload goods). So, it's hard to generalise the whole 'H' class.
Here is a bad snapshot from a video.

P – Bus, Fire Truck, Tanker, Recovery Vehicle etc.

Found different kinds of vehicles which carry the 'P' classification, seems to be a broad category, e.g.
Bus


Tanker


Fire Truck


Recovery Vehicle

R – Missile launchers, mine-protected vehicles and radar vehicles?

This is where it gets bit vague and it seems that vehicle class 'R' is more based on vehicle usage rather than actual kind of vehicle e.g. Missile launchers, Mine-protected vehicle (e.g. OBV MPV) and more. Official classification must be more technical.
OBV MPV (mine-proof vehicle)


Missile Launcher


Vehicles with Radar systems

X – Armoured or Combat Vehicle

Vehicles which are meant for active usage in combat field. Obvious examples: tanks and armoured personnel carrier
VRDE armoured personnel carrier


Tank



Hope it was as interesting to you as it was for me! Cheers!

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing, Senna4Ever! Moving your post out to a new thread.

Related Discussion (Cars & 4x4s of the Indian Defence Forces)

[Senna4Ever]

Part II

Some already new findings:

Vehicle class C also extends to pick-up trucks


Vehicle class G
Finally found some images, class G is meant for heavy duty trailers, which can be used to transport tanks or armoured personnel carriers



Vehicle class N
Stumbled upon this recently as seen here on truck carrying the 'HT-16' electronic warfare system. It's the only example I've seen, so not sure what the class 'N' represents.


So, to summarise:

The third part which is a single alphabet indicating the type or class of vehicle:

A - Two-wheel Vehicle (e.g. motorcycles)
B – Light Motor Vehicle (e.g. passenger cars)
C – Truck (< 3 tonnes) or pick-up trucks
D – Truck (> 3 tonnes)
E – Multi-Axle 6x6 or 8x8 vehicles
F – Specialist Light Vehicle (e.g. Light Strike Vehicle)
G – Heavy-duty Trailers
H – High Mobility Vehicle (HMV) with material handling capability?
K – Ambulance
N – Electronic Warfare vehicles?
P – Bus, Fire Truck, Tanker, Recovery Vehicle etc.
R – Missile launchers, mine-protected vehicles, radar vehicles etc.
X – Armoured or Combat Vehicle (e.g. tank, armoured personnel carrier)

Cheers!

[samuelv]

WoW...Thanks for Sharing....I always used to wonder how we would read the number plates of Defense vehicles. Also wanted to check with a few Army personnel in our circle, but never got a chance to do so. Great effort put in to decoding the number plates against the class of Vehicle.

[Toni]

Fantastic, well done, it was so confusing always to decode the defence vehicles number plates.

Thanks for sharing.

[lejhoom]

On a lighter vein I recollect what an army officer once told me about this. He said, "To begin with, the arrow tells the driver that the vehicle is standing upright and he can drive it."

[Senna4Ever]

Some downtime results in more findings..

Class E - Used on 4x4 truck - (Tata 1212TC if i'm not wrong?) Leads me to believe that class 'E' extends to all multi-axle driven trucks including 4x4, not just 6x6/8x8 trucks



Class J - Snow Cutter and Blower

BRO's Fresia Snow Cutter


Bucher Snow Cutter



Class M - Road laying equipment? Seen here on a road-roller


Class Q - Construction Equipment e.g. excavator, backhoe loader

Excavator


Backhoe loader


So, time for revised list:

A - Two-wheel Vehicle (e.g. motorcycles)
B – Light Motor Vehicle (e.g. passenger cars)
C – Truck (< 3 tonnes) or pick-up trucks
D – Truck (> 3 tonnes)
E – Multi-Axle driven trucks (e.g. 4x4, 6x6 or 8x8 trucks)
F – Specialist Light Vehicle (e.g. Light Strike Vehicle)
G – Heavy-duty Trailers
H – High Mobility Vehicle (HMV) with material handling capability?
J – Snow Cutters
K – Ambulance
M – Road laying equipment? (e.g. road-roller)
N – Electronic Warfare vehicle?
P – Bus, Fire Truck, Tanker, Recovery Vehicle etc.
Q – Construction equipment (e.g. excavator, backhoe loader)
R – Missile launchers, mine-protected vehicles, radar vehicles etc.
X – Armoured or Combat Vehicle (e.g. tank, armoured personnel carrier)

Cheers!

[Senna4Ever]

Originally Posted by sabinesnubbing

My friend was in India recently and took several photos of vehicles/plates for me. One of them surprised me as I have not seen anything like it before. I think he took it in Delhi and I am sure it is some sort of (new?) military number or Ministry of Defence number or.......
Anyone got any ideas?

Spotted the same registration recently and had a vague recall of your post. The car has changed from SX4 to a Ciaz (obvious lateral replacement since SX4 is discontinued). Identical registration as before indicates that it is rather connected to a rank and not the vehicle. Extra tid-bit is the BRO (Border Roads org.) logo on left front of car.

As for the registration format itself, 'ZF' is the unexplained odd-ball here (but definetely not a new format), '23' ofcourse indicating a 2023 registration and '00002' a 5/6 digit unique number. The departure from usual white-on-black format on defense vehicles is also bit strange. Maybe some our BRO friends on forum could shed some light on 'ZF'.