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Ex Army FV434 Instructor

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  • Location
    NORTH SHIELDS
  • Occupation
    CIVIL SERVANT
  1. yes they do! an air compressor charges to operate pressure on the servo (thats why you have air tanks on them for) there an air over liquid system (same as a bedford MK)
  2. its funny this one, everyone (including me) seems to know someone who was there, as its became more of a must see event. One bloke at my old unit ( the gunnery instructor) told me he witnessed it and that some officer had got in (which sounds feasable) and started it up put it straight into gear and he was off, problem was the hand throttle was tightened full on and he flapped. Someone else who was on the top when it happened reached in to the drivers hatch and turned off the master switch and stopped it (eventually). These stories always get embelished over time, and i dont know how much of what he said was the real truth. Mind when I was there I witnessed a crew take a Chally 1 past a load of skitish officers horses being taken for a walk at full throttle, the next thing there was stable girls being dragged through hedges and over roads whilst hanging on for dear life whilst the six or so horses scattered. Bet somebody was tapping the boards for that one
  3. in the most obvious answer possable a FV434 as it comes with the following fantastic features.... a multi fuel engine a crane loads of space in the cargo bay to put your weekly shopping
  4. thats just brilliant, (especially the second one) think we need another that looks like Stalin
  5. yes just to clarify that point I obviously meant dont pick up any of them, once its been fired after a couple of years whats left of the paint goes anyway so they all look the same (so you couldent tell one from another anyway) and honestly who in their right mind is going to try picking up live ordenence? Having said that I read about a French farmer not so long ago who'd been picking shells up and storing them at his farm on the Somme, they reckon they were picking up whats left of him for days.
  6. so you mean that gets the customers in and there going "ive got 5 grand i'll have that DROPS please", and they go "no this is the DROPS that you get for 5 Grand" and show you a pile of rust on some axel stands that's genius
  7. I'd also keep in mind that we used to fire allsorts at them with the RARDEN's quite often HE (High Explsive) APSE (armour peircing secondery effect) that's explosive and phosphorus !!! as well as Sabot and Prac rounds which I wouldent worry about. The first 2 i would though as i'm sure there must be quite a few that didnt go off
  8. yes I also picked up on that when I read it. It must be properly knackered. It might not be to bad though, there'll soon be loads and some in good condition that's been parked up at TA centres ect coming onto the market anyway, as the MAN fleet starts to replace everything in the next few years, including new DROPS vehicles.
  9. what often also transpires is that more often than not the governing politicians tend to be somehow connected with or very soon after they leave office end up being on the board of the particular company that won the contract.
  10. Most of the problem is these people either in whitehall or any outside company that supplies equipment ( at the cheapest cost possable) have never been in the army themselves. Therefore you end up with people developing the kit who have all sorts of academic qualifications and no real experiance apart from on paper of whats needed. This is nothing new is it?
  11. i think now just being able to recall the novelty of driving one that hadnt broken down long enough to have been qualified with familirisation training on my FMT, or doing road tests (which it usually failed) I honestly cant remember what the visability was like in the rear view mirrors. Like i said before they broke down so much that I ended up being the only VM in the workshop who'd had a working one long enough for an instructor to sighn me off as Familirised on it. I remember even senior ranking VM's asking me "so what are they like to drive?"
  12. yes silly me forgot the mirrors, cant fault them, 2 of them one on each side, so shiny you can see your face in them, (cant see very well behind you due to the box body) (Actually i was making that last bit up)
  13. were all guilty of that one, you can always spot someone who'd been doing a sleeping inspection of the turret when he got out due to him having cramp in his neck. what was said earlier about Bovington taking it as a gift, It reminded me of something. I was talking to one of the curators when i was there and he said when the first arms amnesty happened after the Hungerford masacre, some police force sent them an old live 38 webley revolver and about 20 rounds of ammunition through the post in a jiffy bag, that someone had handed in at the local nick. He said there was hell on......you couldent make it up could you?
  14. yes ok its been nearly 20 years since i last drove or worked on a stolly (you start to forget little things like the weight of them after a time) Knew i was right about the flatrack size though!
  15. and another fault i just keep remembering them..... it's like remembering a bad dream On Operations as well as the chassis spliting the box body ones (with the secure kit in I mentioned before ) they started being cast for the rear axel housing splitting with metal fatique as well, just past the differential housing.
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