Was it really that much fun being in the british army in germany in the 70s/80s ?

[Diesel demon]

Aaaaaah The Diester ! great memories, nearly as good as the Koterberg and Red Rudie who could tell you what Freq's to use bless his little Communist socks and all the diesel and benz we used to flog him for a shower and cakes ![/QUOTE]

 

We used to deploy on Farms at weekend where possible. As an L.A.D (WORKSHOPS) this enabled us to work on vehicles in the barns with lighting because the exercises were tactical.

I always approched the Farm owner & establishd a rappor. This enabled me to get to know him & get us the little luxuries we would require. IE: Exchanging our unwanted unopened compo leftovers. For a shower, coffee & cakes with the family on Sunday for the whole section Etc & anything else we wanted. Of course, the Farmers Mercedes was a Deisel & we had PLENTY of that!.... (Usefull!) When taking Jerry cans to him, he took me upto a loft in one of the barns. The WHOLE floor was covered in neatly stacked Jerrys cans from every available N.A.T.O Army that had 'Visited' his Farm! So he obvioulsy had been playing this game for quite few years! All part of Public relations, you understand!...:cool2: I steered the coversation round to: 'Have you ever found anything from the War round here'?......... & was given a Nice Swastika armband! He also showed me a K98k Rifle that he had found in the eves of a Barn! Sadly, had had cut the wooden forend down to 'Sportarise' it! BUT, he did ring his Brother who was a Militaria collector himself. That contact was one of the best I have ever had! Over the years I had Hundereds of items from him. It was so good, I went to the trouble of privately having a telephone installed in my Married Quarter! It yielded loads of stuff & paid for itself time & time again! One of MANY happy years spent on Service in B.A.O.R! Mike.

 

As a Signals Regt Recce Sgt, I once happened upon the most woderfull Schloss you could ever imagine..in for a penny I thought and approached the owner, he took me into his lavish well funished office only to notice a BAOR road map pinned to his wall with nearly all of the Signals exercise locations pinned on it.

He told me I could use any facilities I wanted and even had his own suply of damage report forms to hand...there was no bartereing, this guy knew the score !

[ArtistsRifles]

On the reverse of the coin - the last one I did (1980) I was grounded due to being diagnosed with epilepsy and the Regiment and the MoD were fighting over my fate so for the duration of the exercise I was attached to RHQ at Gelnhausen. No real job as such, just filling in where needed - armoury, LAD, Sig-Int, Ops-Int, OC's runner - that sort of thing.

Anyways - in one of my periodic forays into the Ops-Int cell I noticed a board on the wall with red numerals on it. Never changed for days at a time then would increment up at least one sometimes more.. Being of a curious disposition (read bloody nosey) I asked the Sgt Maj of the Ops_Int cell what the board was for - he told me the figures represented the total casualty figures in fatalities - NOT injuries - for the exercise. If they went over 30 the exercise was considered for postponement/cancellation.

At EndEx the figures stood at 28.

[timbo]

You want to read A Tracked Armoured Car.

 

I want to finish writing it.

 

Looking forward to proffreading the manuscript..!

[schliesser92]

On the reverse of the coin - the last one I did (1980) I was grounded due to being diagnosed with epilepsy and the Regiment and the MoD were fighting over my fate so for the duration of the exercise I was attached to RHQ at Gelnhausen. No real job as such, just filling in where needed - armoury, LAD, Sig-Int, Ops-Int, OC's runner - that sort of thing.

Anyways - in one of my periodic forays into the Ops-Int cell I noticed a board on the wall with red numerals on it. Never changed for days at a time then would increment up at least one sometimes more.. Being of a curious disposition (read bloody nosey) I asked the Sgt Maj of the Ops_Int cell what the board was for - he told me the figures represented the total casualty figures in fatalities - NOT injuries - for the exercise. If they went over 30 the exercise was considered for postponement/cancellation.

At EndEx the figures stood at 28.

 

At the time I was promoted and posted from 1 Div Sigs to 8 sigs (back in 1978), the regiment was on exercise. They ended up with 5 fatalities - and that was a signals unit!

Being the sergeant with rear details, I had a fair bit of work to do with the sheriff (provost sergeant), padre and the care bears from SSAFA .

[ferretfixer]

At the time I was promoted and posted from 1 Div Sigs to 8 sigs (back in 1978), the regiment was on exercise. They ended up with 5 fatalities - and that was a signals unit!

Being the sergeant with rear details, I had a fair bit of work to do with the sheriff (provost sergeant), padre and the care bears from SSAFA .[/QUOTE]

 

Anyone who has deployed on an Major FTX in B.A.O.R would remember that casualties were the norm & acounted for in pre ex planning. It was always sad to hear of a Fellow Comrade who had lost thier life in the Service of thier Country during what was in reality, 'Peace'. But, to have Peace, you MUST train for War! Sadly Sh*t happens. Human frailties come to the surface with tiredness, exhaustion & fatigue. This is when people get carless, sometimes half hearted in thier chores Etc. It is pefectly understandable. Drivers get very tired, Ferrets turn over, Commanders get cut cut in half. Tanks sink in the ground & crush crews sleeping under them for shelter (Shouldnt have happened, but it did!) Vehicle mounting the pavment & killing pedestrians. Steering or brakes sometimes failing, Etc, Etc. The list is endless. And serves to remind us that the metal machines we hold so dear. Were even in thier heyday, to be treated with caution & respect. But familiarity breeds contempt Etc. And People get over confident. Another Human failing! Accidents will always happen, but they are obviously kept to a minimum where it is possible to control things. You can never get it 100%, it would be nice if you could. Personell were playing it for real usually for three weeks at a time. rest was treasured where possible. & you got a hot meal when & where you were able to make it. Not always a picnic, BUT, the comraderie was fantastic! You always shared a brew Or some scoff with your Crew/ Mates, whenever one of you could do so. This was a bonding process that I miss incredibly now I am 'Deployed' in Civvy street! I guess if wer'e Honest, this is also one of the major reasons why so many of us like to get back into uniform & run our little encampments along the lines of when we were in Service. They were good times & we had GOOD mates. We all miss them, & in a way, I believe we are sub conciously 'Turning the clock back'! What do you guys think?....Am I wrong?.......................Mike.

Edited September 16, 2010 by ferretfixer

[RecyMech]

I think Ferretfixer has just about nailed it there. I can't find a word to disagree with & he sums up my feelings about my service & the times I had spot on. I certainly miss the comradeship & the banter....nothing quite like it in civvy street. Was it fun & good times all the time ?, no, but the good stuff usually outweighed the bad.

 

The clip below (in blue) is from a recent thread where we were blabbing on about tank accidents. But this was`nt the only accident on this particular scheme, but it was the worst. Another involved one Chieftain ramming another from behind with such force that it broke the turret basket free, only to swing down & smack the driver in the face. A further incident involved two Chieftains inadvertently 'jousting' with their barrels (I swear this is true) ...one had the search light ripped clean off & the other the barrel rammed back so hard it jammed in the full recoil position.

(COPY) But speaking of tank accidents.....Anyone recall hearing of an exercise on Soltau in 1975 when the newly arrived (from UK) 13/18th Royal Hussars put a Chieftain nose down in the Causeway bog late one night ?? Troop leaders tank it was.

 

I was the recy mech that pulled it & it's dead driver out. He was driving opened up with his gas kit under the seat, gun over the rear deck. Poor bastard drowned in thick stinking mud. The water line in the turret was up past the radios. Young subaltern did his very best to dive down under the mud to try to get at the driver, but it was hopeless.

 

H

[Diesel demon]

I think Ferretfixer has just about nailed it there. I can't find a word to disagree with & he sums up my feelings about my service & the times I had spot on. I certainly miss the comradeship & the banter....nothing quite like it in civvy street. Was it fun & good times all the time ?, no, but the good stuff usually outweighed the bad.

 

The clip below (in blue) is from a recent thread where we were blabbing on about tank accidents. But this was`nt the only accident on this particular scheme, but it was the worst. Another involved one Chieftain ramming another from behind with such force that it broke the turret basket free, only to swing down & smack the driver in the face. A further incident involved two Chieftains inadvertently 'jousting' with their barrels (I swear this is true) ...one had the search light ripped clean off & the other the barrel rammed back so hard it jammed in the full recoil position.

 

(COPY) But speaking of tank accidents.....Anyone recall hearing of an exercise on Soltau in 1975 when the newly arrived (from UK) 13/18th Royal Hussars put a Chieftain nose down in the Causeway bog late one night ?? Troop leaders tank it was.

 

I was the recy mech that pulled it & it's dead driver out. He was driving opened up with his gas kit under the seat, gun over the rear deck. Poor bastard drowned in thick stinking mud. The water line in the turret was up past the radios. Young subaltern did his very best to dive down under the mud to try to get at the driver, but it was hopeless.

 

H

Sad stuff...but we were young men probably in our late teens early 20's and let loose with machines and armourments civvies could only dream of, in reality it was big boys toys with young impresionable men having the time of their lives...and lets face it we did !

[AlienFTM]

Because we were recce and in CVR(T), we had an open map of where to exercise (within reason: I do remember about 1980 we became the first military unit to enter the Harz Mountains National Park since the end of the war and evidently not all the locals knew we were allowed because I got gesticulated at a lot in the commander's seat of my Ferret that fortnight).

 

Many was the time we would be sat manning the Battle Group and Divisional Command Nets and I'd find myself passing up the chain a Noduff * message that another Merc had ploughed into the back of a column, even though there were lights on, but the Merc driver didn't believe the lights could be warning of anything bigger than him, and besides, in the dark there were only lights: the cam did its job of camouflaging the armoured vehicles. Another five wasted lives (why did Mercs always travel five-up?)

_____

 

* Noduff. Back in the day, before my time, the most that electronic counter measures (see wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasures) might comprise was to direction-find (DF) a transmitting station, triangulate it and attack it.

 

When something real happened on exercise that required urgent action (see above), a message was prefixed No DF (pronounced Noduff, like Huff-duff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency_direction_finding) so that ECM stations did not use non-exercise messages to gain an exercise advantage.

 

Even though ECM had moved on a long way from simply DFing the enemy, the message prefix Noduff remained and had absolute priority on the net.

 

_____

 

I did a search for Noduff in wiki and got but a single hit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_evacuation .

 

At the bottom it gives an example of a Noduff message. It's Australian and the Voice procedure is slightly different. The caller is sending a standard report, a request for Casualty Evacuation using a standard message format:

 

Serial Alpha: callsign reporting the CasEvac

Serial Bravo: Grid Ref of the casualty and the Pickup point

Serial Charlie: ?

Serial Delta: Number of casualties?

Serial Echo: Nature of injury

Serial Foxtrot: Priority on a scale known to caller and recipient

Serial Golf: special requirements

Serial Hotel: ?

Serial India: Action taken to avoid further problems

Serial Juliet: ?

Serial Kilo: ?

[fesm_ndt]

When I did NoDuffs it was typically the first thing said as it basically told everyone else on the net to shut up and woke up the opcp.

 

Mind you as my first job in the Army was opcp(ad) my ratel procedures keep me in good steed on later exercises

[schliesser92]

The best bit was blocking in SOXMIS cars.They seemed to swarm around us like flies around a latrine on any major CPX/FTX ! I have probably got an entry in GRU intelligence files - photo taken of me in a watchtower whilst on site guard!

 

That was another aspect of duty in BAOR - site guards and inner-German border patrols.

[timbo]

Quick question...was there a campaign medal or any kind of recognition for BAOR service ?

[schliesser92]

Quick question...was there a campaign medal or any kind of recognition for BAOR service ?

 

NO.

 

There is a commerative medal that one can purchase, see -

 

http://www.awardmedals.com/

[Diesel demon]

The best bit was blocking in SOXMIS cars.They seemed to swarm around us like flies around a latrine on any major CPX/FTX ! I have probably got an entry in GRU intelligence files - photo taken of me in a watchtower whilst on site guard!

 

That was another aspect of duty in BAOR - site guards and inner-German border patrols.

 

SOXMIS !....Iv'e still got my card..as for NODUF, exactly the same in NI when a contact was reported, get off and stay off the net

[ferretfixer]

The best bit was blocking in SOXMIS cars.They seemed to swarm around us like flies around a latrine on any major CPX/FTX ! I have probably got an entry in GRU intelligence files - photo taken of me in a watchtower whilst on site guard!

 

That was another aspect of duty in BAOR - site guards and inner-German border patrols.

 

Yes EVERY Single Serviceman who was posted to B.A.O.R ALWAYS got a SOXMIS Card!

You all remember the 'Spot checks' done randomly by CSMs when they would stop you now & again & demand to see your card! Wo betide you if you didnt have one with your MOD 90! (ID Card for the uninitiated) I never actually saw a SOXMIS car in all my time in Germany. Though I made a mental note promise to myself, that IF I ever did. I would run over the front end & crush it in my 434!....... Oh Dear, Im SO sorry Comrade, I didnt see you there trying to climb up my nostrils & photograph me!.......:cool2:

[RecyMech]

What I want to know is.....no matter how silent or well camoflaged you were.....how did the NAAFI wagon or that German bloke flogging coffee & applestrudel still easily find you ?

 

They had some damn fine detection kit :cool2:

 

H

[eddy8men]

lol, i remember being on soltau on exercise under cam nets and the bratty wagon turned up, how he never got bogged down i'll never know but i remember thinking they were the best frikadelle and fries i'd ever had.

 

eddy

 

was his name wolfgang ?

[steveo578]

eddy8men

was his name wolfgang ?

 

Oh well at least he wasn't called Fritz or Frank:D

 

Steve

[Meteor mark 4B]

Quote: I certainly miss the comradeship & the banter....nothing quite like it in civvy street. Was it fun & good times all the time ?, no, but the good stuff usually outweighed the bad.

 

I wasn't there in the 70s/80s, but in the 60s on Centurion and Chieftain with the 11th Hussars. Nothing quite like in civvy street about weighs it up. We have a thriving Old Comrades Association and website and meet up for the main reunion every year and it's excellent.

[schliesser92]

I was on exercise with 22 Sigs with a radio-relay wagon and a TEV, to tie in a flanking US formation. We were parked in the edge of a wood near a village, and the Yanks managed to lay their connecting cable about 3 clicks past us (they could not find us!). After a major search, the RMP found us. There was a mass of kiddies bikes at the edge of the wood. The RMP reasoning was it was either us or someone doing a suspension test in their Beetle !!

 

That is what happens when you are adequately cammed up and bury (illegally!) your gene exhausts. Add in the gung-ho Yanks and instant invisibility!

 

For the uninitiated, here is a SOXMIS card -

Edited September 16, 2010 by schliesser92

[AlienFTM]

One exercise, probably about 1980, Command Troop would be spending the start of the exercise with HQ Sqn. (In a recce regt, Command Troop was in HQ (Admin) Sqn for administration purposes: other times and places, Command Troop was in D Sqn (Command and Support). Merging HQ and D saved a Squadron HQ leaving more bodies for sabre troops.) On exercise, Command Troop was normally on its own.

 

So, because HQ Sqn was not blessed with radio vehicles, I found myself Commanding Rebro Ferret 98A as last vehicle of an HQ SHQ packet in the convoy. (Convoys were broken up into packets of 5 - 8 vehicles with gaps between packets so that civvies could overtake. Ideally at least front and rear vehicle had radio comms so that if somebody broke down (in theory the vehicle in front ought to stop and find out, but it was easy to miss), the packet commander in the lead vehicle could take appropriate action (which might be "let the REME sweeping up at the back sort it.")

 

We had been awoken at 0200hrs with the call of "Active Edge", an exercise to demonstrate that in the event of a surprise Soviet incursion, we were able to move out of camp as per the four hours' notice to move that BAOR endured for over 40 years. Active Edge might be called by anybody from CO up to SACEUR. When SACEUR called it, he'd have silently notified the Bonn government and it usually (which wasn't often) happened in the early afternoon with absolutely no warning and fans encountering an awesome amount of ordure.

 

Otherwise, it tended to be called at the start of an exercise by the exercise commander, normally GOC 3 Armd Div in our case, or, as mentioned, our own CO for regimental, squadron or troop training. These always happened at 0200hrs, so that the formation would be out of camp and clear of the rush hour by 0600. Especially useful in Garrisons like Paderborn, where Alanbrooke Barracks was surrounded by housing. Of course this didn't allow for breakdowns. So long as vehicles cleared the back gate, they were deemed to have moved within the time limit, but there were a series of traffic lights on our route out and my wife-to-be always knew there had been an Active Edge when she saw a dead Scorpion at the second set. Every time.

 

This also added a certain amount of embuggerance. If the Commies ever came over the IGB, it was always hoped that rising tension would allow us to move into our General Deployment Plan positions at leisure and sit for a couple of weeks preparing and recceing - after all, time spent in recce is never wasted. Getting us out of bed at 0200hrs on a Monday morning was the best substitute available to make us feel like we'd been three weeks in the field.

 

Some people tended to find out that Active Edge had been called when they staggered back into camp after the pubs shut (usually around 0200hrs) and found the place full of blue-arrsed flies. Knowing they were going to be on exercise for three weeks (notice I didn't say "dry": the British soldier works best half-cut), one last blast was in order.

 

So we had been up at 0200hrs, it was raining and we quickly reached the Autobahn. I was last vehicle in the packet. No need to read a map. "Jock, follow the vehicle in front."And I got my head down, as best one can wearing a headset and resting head being the commander's windscreen (local manufacture) of a Mark 1 Ferret in the pouring rain.

 

The crew intercom (I/C) squawked. I stirred. I got and elbow in the log. "Whazzup?"

 

"There's a Soxmis car just passed us." I was awake in a blink. "Hello 8 this is 98A watch your mirrors, there's a Soxmis car about to pass you. It's ... er ... so wet that I missed the number. Over."

 

Brixmis (the reciprocal British Military Mission to Soxmis, the Soviet Military Mission) were supposed always to be pleased to get sightings, even when the cars were entitled to be where they were, because every sighting allowed them to pin down where a Soxmis vehicle had been and sometimes it allowed them to prove that the vehicle had been in a restricted area. They used to send out thank-you postcards. I never got one for passing my report up the line. Ought I to be bitter? Probably not, cos I'd have been stealing Jock's thunder.

[david052]

NO.

 

There is a commerative medal that one can purchase, see -

 

http://www.awardmedals.com/

 

I always thought there should have been, after all it was the nearest thing to all out war, with billions spent in all currencys and many deaths, which eventually the West won through superior resources, teamwork and attrition.

[theredkite]

Fascinating reading about it from the guys who were there - thanks. I don't imagine you would have realised it at the time, but while you were busy preparing for the Soviet invasion that never came, every time you went on exercise during the 70s and 80s the Soviet leadership was increasingly convinced that we were secretly planning to invade them. The culmination of this was Able Archer 83, which was I believe more of a command exercise than the full-on job with tanks and the like. The Soviet leadership really really thought they were about to be attacked, and supposedly it was the closest - after the Cuban missile crisis - that we came to nuclear war.

 

I guess knowing that might have made those exercises rather less fun...

 

Wikipedia on Able Archer 83 here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

[schliesser92]

I always thought there should have been, after all it was the nearest thing to all out war, with billions spent in all currencys and many deaths, which eventually the West won through superior resources, teamwork and attrition.

 

Actually we sort of won because the GDR was bankrupt, and they had some civil unrest and the Soviet leadership did not want to intervene as they did in Czechoslovakia in 1967 - negative PR. The system just collapsed around their ears!

 

A colleague of mine was a rupert in the NVA and told me that the NVA was ordered to remain in barracks at the end - the Politburo was busing sh*tting itself! Then the wall fell, and the rest is history.

Edited September 16, 2010 by schliesser92

[RecyMech]

That brings back memories...."Active Edge"....I had completely forgotten the name till I read that post :-D

 

First job was to draw your personal weapon from the armoury.....mine being a Browning .30 cal for the ARV. Which I always thought was a bit silly when I saw other crews walking off with pistols & SMGs, & especially as I had never been trained on it...ever. Next job was to wrap up said .30 cal in a black bin liner for the duration of the ex in order to avoid the need to clean it 2 or 3 weeks later.

 

I never did get trained on it, or fire it, or strip it, or clean it.

 

A certain quite dislikable REME Tiffy in Cmd Sqn LAD had his SMG mysteriously go missing when left for a few minutes hanging on the wing mirror of a Landrover while he was shaving. It never did turn up & he ended up in a world of pooh.

 

Medal for BAOR ?....no I think we cost the big firm enough without them giving us medals for it. With hindsight I'd pay THEM to let me do it all again.:cool2::cool2:

 

Meteor mark 4b...was`nt it the 11th who amalgamated with another Regt to form QOH ? If so I might have served with some of the same blokes.

 

H

[theredkite]

I hope no-one thinks me disrespectful if I add my own recollection of the really extremely high quality of some of the people who would have reinforced BAOR in the event of the balloon going up. I'm afraid it's more Dad's Army than Rambo but there you go.

 

In 1984 in my first term at uni I was tempted into the RAC wing of the OTC by a combination of an early morning visit from a beguiling young woman, a picture of a Fox (armoured car, not another beguiling young woman) and the prospect of lots of riotous dinners at the mess. (I realise I'm not doing much to dispel any Rupert-like images people may have).

 

We were equipped with two Foxes, one Saracen and the remainder in Ferrets, and although I wasn't really aware of it at the time (!) our role was to be part of the recce element of a TA Brigade (49? 59? Can't remember).

For various reasons I missed quite a bit of training, so when we went on exercise for the first time to Stanford Training Area I was assigned to the Saracen as commander, which essentially meant poking my head out of the top occasionally. The Saracen was notoriously unreliable, fuel blockages I think, and on the way to STANTA we were on a public road doing about 15mph, inevitably picking up a long tail back. As it was my job to poke my head out of the top I got the benefit of all the p***ed off drivers overtaking, so in a desperate attempt to make our feeble speed seem deliberate I got a pair of binoculars out and scanned the horizon as if it was really really important to see what was happening there.

 

When we got to STANTA things quickly degenerated into farce. We were put through an imaginary NBC attack: one guy closing up his Ferret forgot to move his hand out of the way as he slammed a hatch shut, nearly severing the tips of several fingers; one other guy couldn't breathe when he put his gas mask on, but rather than either (a) indicate he had difficulties or (b) take the mask off (it was only an exercise after all) opted instead to © run out of breath and pass out. Subsequently another Ferret in the bottom of a valley drove over a tree stump, severing the brakes and immobilising it. For some reason we couldn't recover the crew, and they had the immense joy of spending the night underneath a live-firing mortar exercise.

 

Owing to the rather high number of casualties I was moved onto a Ferret. I'd had almost no training, but was asked to drive it back to HQ. I'll never forget learning to use an upside down steering wheel and a pre-select gearbox for the first time while driving along a busy A14 on a Sunday afternoon...

 

Anyway, I have enormous respect for the guys properly on the front line, then and now, I'm sure my experiences only go to prove the importance of having a proper professional army!

 

Mike (O Cdt (retired)!)