Predictable Bob

Afternoon All ! Thanks for the nudge Neil - dunno if I'll be of any use but more info is needed :cool2: It appears that the recuperator merely keeps the gun fully forward so although there may be an issue with the recuperator it isn't likely to be responsible for the 'bouncing'. When does this occur ? Is it all the time or only when the FVGCE is run up ?

Lightning Vulcan Concorde :idea: if I can't have Concorde then it's Typhoon (Not the original one) :-D

:-D I stand corrected ! :tup::

:-D MJ entered service in the early 80's - possibly as late as 84/85. I remember a couple arriving at the 3rd Anglians in Minden - they managed to blow the engines pretty quickly as they didn't let the turbo's cool down ... :shake:

:-D That's a trip down memory lane ! In 1979/80 I crewed 33BH84 at 7 Armd Wksp - a remarkable beast to say the least. We broke down towing a 27KVA genny and a mate hitched another Q4 to the front and inadvertently hit 55mph on a downhill stretch of the range road - our engine was dead so we had no power steering or brakes ! My mate was trying to keep the wheel straight and stamping on the brake pedal while I was heaving on the hand brake with two hands ....... All in all an experience I'd rather not repeat :shocked: :sweat:

:??? I'm digging deep here but from what I recall on Chieftain the GUE drove the main generator with a max output of 350A and the Main Engine generator had an output of 150A. The reason for powering up the GUE first is that the batteries would struggle to start the ME and the additional power from the GUE was required (Don't ask me about the hydraulic start !) :yay:

:??? I'll agree that it's not an AVRE but it doesn't look much like the Cent ARV's I remember - were there any variants ? :???

:-D I took one of my lads and his girlfriend down to Bournemouth to see XH558 - to be honest I was a tad disappointed as it was very obviously running at low power and the climbs and turns were circumspect to say the least ! The blurb said they expected 15 years of flying before it was retired and I suspect they're treating her with kid gloves to stretch the time to the max. Before they bombed Port Stanley they did some dummy runs over an airfield with similar topography - Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. The first the residents knew about it was when a Vulcan flew over the quarters at deck level around 01:00 - I can confirm that they WEREN'T running at low power as our house shook like the devil and the Boss and I leapt out of bed expecting to find the roof in the garden ! As for Bournemouth the star of the show was undoubtedly Typhoon - that is one hell of an impressive plane and well worth going to see :-D

:-( I remember the Saturday before they stole the self loaders - a bunch of us kept a Garand shooting continuously for several hours ....... 1. Load clip 2. Join queue 3. Adopt the prone position on the firing point 4. Pickup Garand 5. Aim 6. Empty clip 7. Repeat 1-6 After a few magazines the woodwork began to steam, after a few more it began to smoke, a few more and the barrel turned grey and then there was the smell of scorched wood ...... By the end of the three full ammo boxes the rifle was probably only good for scrap but at least it went out with a bang ! The stupid thing is that I was grouping as well with my .357 Smith and Wesson as I was with the Garand (8" groups at 100 yards - Bisley was full of guys having a last shoot and we could only get on the short range) :-(

:-D Fair comment ! (But you just KNOW I was referring to some parts of the forum membership !) :cool2:

:cool2: Ah, I'm beginning to understand now - slow, insular with a narrow focus ....... :rofl: Got to admit that I can recognise BG stuff - on a good day I can even tell the difference between tanks, lorries and planes * My BWSOW was parked in a field on Saturday so it wasn't me that had a go at Tony - had it been Friday or Sunday then it could well have been ..... On a more positive note I'd like to say that I rant about tuggers as much (and probably more) than Tony or any other member of HMVF - as far as I'm concerned when towing you have a duty to either keep up with the traffic flow (this can mean nailing the right hand pedal to the floor and to hell with fuel consumption) or move over and let the traffic through. It's not very often that I have to move over for traffic though - I'm usually being held up by an artic/horse box/motorhome/milk float etc ...... * Tank = green/sand with tracks Lorry = green/sand with wheels Plane = not in contact with ground for significant amounts of time - being temporarily airborne due to misreading hump backed bridges etc does not count The Navy have been left out of this cos there's not enough of them left to make identification worth while Anything else is a damned civvy and doesn't count ! :-D

:-D Surely they're not all that slow on here are they Neil ???? How long is it since I posted about the BWSOW ????? :cool2: :yay:

:??? What's this happening in my town then ???? More info for the newbie please ! :-D

:-D The good old days ..... Neil and I just happen to know the guy that actually wrote most of the software that was used for managing the white fleet licences during the mid 90's (Trust me Neil - you DO know him !) and there's some wonderful tales to tell about some of the incidents involving them (usually refering to vehicles carrying multiple plates and tax discs in the boot and drivers from Neil's mob !) :-D

:-D An old shooting pal of mine used to go to Knob Creek (Honest !) every year to play with full auto's, mortars and all sorts of silly stuff dunno if they still allow non US citizens to play over there but the rules vary from state to state so if you look hard enough you might be able to find somewhere to have a go. On the other hand, even with the current exchange rate, it'll cost a small fortune for a belt of 50 cal ! :shake:

:-D Ah - SkyNet ! Is it just me and my kids that laugh and say "I'll be back" whenever SkyNet is mentioned ???? (We hear a lot about SkyNet cos my company is heavily involved) :-D

:-D Is this relatively recent Tony ? I only ask cos in the 90's (and before but I don't know exactly how long before) to my certain knowledge the tax discs for the entire white fleet were kosher and issued by the DVLA albeit by a rather circuitous route and without payment to reduce the chances of the vehicles being identified by the bad guys. :-D

:argh: I did my basic training in 1976 and took a great deal of flak from the DS for firing the Sterling on auto (as did a few of the other guys). When we showed them that we weren't on auto we STILL got chewed out ! It was only after we'd left basic training that we discovered that they were using up a large batch of Indian ammo -...... As an aside I've never come across intended variance in 9mm parabellum ammo (i.e. 9mm for pistol or 9mm for SMG) Basically the 9mm is a high pressure round and increasing the charge to increase the range when used in an SMG is unnecessary and would be incredibly stupid not to mention dangerous ! In the hands of somebody that can shoot a standard 9mm round out of an issue Browning will hit a fig 11 at 100m - I'm sure that Neil can vouch for that. The increased sight base and steadier stance of somebody with an SMG will easily push the range to 200m with the same ammo. I suspect that the low and high power loads that people have encountered during their service are just the extremes resulting from a lack of quality control during manufacture :-D

:cry: £500 !!!!! I used to own (and shoot) a Mk VI - I paid £80 for it plus another tenner for a spare cylinder (Which locked up tighter than a really tight thing and was far more accurate in use than the original cylinder). I had 40 thou machined off the rear of the spare cylinder so that I could shoot 45acp in full moon clips - it shot like a dream - 3-4" groups at 25m offhand which was more than good enough to embarrass a lot of the guys using precision .38sp trick revolvers ! I got £250 in compensation from the Government - I could have kept it as it was of 'special interest' but it was only ever a toy for a bit of fun - my real shooting was done with a .22lr Walther target pistol which I couldn't keep. :cry:

:nono: Do be brief geezer ! You've seen our drive and we can't even get the BWSOW into it never mind a shiny new panzer (I trained on Mk 5's - IFCS, TOGS etc are white mans magic as far as I'm concerned !) If I was mad enough to get any sort of military vehicle I'd go for a little air portable L/R - cos I could have some fun hacking around the Plain in it at the weekends HOWEVER as you well know Jackie would veto the acquisition in milliseconds ! :-(

:argh: Well I never exactly claimed we were experts - a pair of decrepid ASM's and an Artisan (whose only exposure to real armour was a ten month period teaching at Arborfield) wouldn't meet most people's idea of expertise ! I must admit that the Chobham reference lends credence to the idea that it was locally manufactured. Does anybody here have any experience of SP guns etc ? Is there one with four forward and 3 reverse ? :-D

:confused: The good news is that three former members of the most venerable Corps of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers with a combined service experience in excess of 66 years have applied their considerable brain power to this conundrum and have reached the following conclusion regarding this item: "WTF is it ? We haven't a clue !" Notwithstanding the foregoing we have the following observations to make: 1. It's not from the Centurion/Conqueror era 2. It's not 430 series 3. It's too old to be Challenger/Warrior 4. It's not a standard issue piece of test equipment The best guess is that the item was locally manufactured, probably in a REME Workshop (The screws would suggest this), possibly for a tracked gun or similar. Unfortunately the only artillery experience we have was my three years on Benbecula watching them fire Rapier and other missiles in the general direction of North America so you'll have to ask somebody that knows about long range snipers. Oh yeah - it's stating the obvious but the offending vehicle will probably have four forward gears and three reverse ! We'd like to add that our services are available at normal consultancy rates for questions on: Sport Well endowed ladies of the 70's (That's 1970's !) Chieftain and Challenger Electronic Control Systems Claret Rhone wines, including Chateauneuf du Pape Cheers guys - hopefully we'll be of more use next time ! :-D

:shocked: Is that the truck, van or both ? Either way I'd be iffy about the cam net - ours were always full of branches ! :rofl:

:rofl: Fair comment Neil - although I think that both our vans and 4x4's are scaled to fit us ! PS I doubt if your rig would get down our road :-D

:argh: Oi ! Leave me alone - it's not my fault that I'm short ! PS Of course I've said hello - it'd be rude to abuse people without introducing myself first. And for your information I don't drink any more (Fortunately I don't drink any less either !) :-D