every thing i seen showing the ratios for the 3053 and 3052 had first second and third as the same ratios and forth they just switched overdrive in place of forth thus giving you a u shift pattern instead of a standard h pattern .
Well, I can see your problem. I'm not looking at the gear ratios, I am looking at the spreads between the gears. That is what the engine sees when you shift from one gear to the next.
I didn't have a table of gear ratios handy, so I made my table of spreads using the table of maximum speeds for each gear (gasser vs MF) found in TM9-2320-209-10. One should be able to assume that they used the same maximum RPM for each shift.... but further investigation shows there is a "mistake" in their table at 3rd gear.
Looking at the parts manual for the transmissions shows, that the only change of significance is the 4th gear ratio was changed to be an overdrive ratio. 1st/rev, 2nd, 3rd, stay the same, and of course the old 5th (1:1), stayed the same.
However, the gear splits MF vs gasser are, (+/- rounding error):
1 - 2 = 1.78 vs 1.75 (close enough to equal)
2 - 3 = 1.69 vs 1.79 ( a little off)
3 - 4 = 1.63 vs 1.68 (close enough to equal)
4 - 5 = 1.27 vs 1.43
If there was a "missing gear", you would see a spread table something like:
1-2 = 1.7
2-3 = 1.7
3-4 = 3.4
4-5 = 1.?
You don't.
As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat. The army's change between the gasser and MF transmission proves that.
-Chuck