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

[Big Al]

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 -

Remember it well

[chevpol]

Remember it well

 

we had something similar in the Royal Observer Corps, only it was embassy cars (anything with diplomatic immunity). I never had to go and report it, but I reacon that the bobby on the desk wouldnt know what to do with the info anyway!!!

 

I have a soxmis card in my collection

 

Mark

[Diesel demon]

oh well at least he wasn't called fritz or frank:d

 

steve

willy's wurst wagon !

[Diesel demon]

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:

 

The Soxmis lived in Bunde and used the NAAFI in Herford..when they decided to go shopping the RMP would escort them in and out and help them with their vodka and great British ciggies...madly bizzare when you think we used to chase them/block them in and they were living and shopping amongst us !

[Diesel demon]

 

 

A brilliant time watching them, watching us, watching them etc etc, the best fun was had by removing the small labels off the banana's in the death pack and wearing them as rank pips...the amount of film wasted on the 'new' rank was hilarious...thanks Ivans

[schliesser92]

The Soxmis lived in Bunde and used the NAAFI in Herford..when they decided to go shopping the RMP would escort them in and out and help them with their vodka and great British ciggies...madly bizzare when you think we used to chase them/block them in and they were living and shopping amongst us !

 

They did have diplomatic immunity! They were also GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) officers.

There were also missions with USAREUR (in Frankfurt) and with the French in Baden-Baden.

we also had to be careful - there were occasions when heavy-handiness ended up with tit=for-tat reprisals with the NATO missions in Potsdam.

 

Here is the card that our erstwhile foes carried -

 

Edited September 17, 2010 by schliesser92

[AlienFTM]

was`nt it the 11th who amalgamated with another Regt to form QOH ?

 

11th amalgamated with the Tinny Tenth (so dreadfully led by Slade at Sahagun that they missed out on the 15th's unique battle honour) some time in the early 60s IIRC (before my time) maybe 63 (edit: later than I thought - 1969) to become The Royal Hussars. In 1992 the Royal Hussars merged with 14th/20th The King's Hussars (14th and 20th had merged in the 1922 amalgamations) to become the King's Royal Hussars.

 

15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars (15th and 19th had merged in 1922) merged with 13th/18th Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) (ditto) in 1992 to become the Light Dragoons.

 

The Queen's Own Hussars (3rd and 7th merged in 1958) merged with The Queen's Royal Irish Hussars to become The Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own & Royal Irish) in 1993.

 

Are you keeping up at the back? I hope you are taking notes: I'll be testing you later.

[AlienFTM]

11th amalgamated with the Tinny Tenth (so dreadfully led by Slade at Sahagun that they missed out on the 15th's unique battle honour) some time in the early 60s IIRC (before my time) maybe 63 (edit: later than I thought - 1969) to become The Royal Hussars.

 

I have learned something useful:

 

In 1779, the light troop (of the Tinny Tenth) was detached to form the 19th Light Dragoons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_Light_Dragoons

 

Luckily, further reading of the wiki link reminds me that this iteration of the 19th was disbanded on 10 September 1821 due to reductions in size of the British Army. Whenever there were reductions, it was the junior regiments (higher numbers) that got it.

 

This means that when in 1862, the 19th Royal Hussars were created and given permission to inherit the battle honours of the 19th Light Dragoons, they had no direct link to the Tinny Tenth whose prevarication under Slade might have caused carnage among the 15th at Sahagun but for the latter's brave change that led to the routing of two French cavalry regiments and so many many casualties inflicted on the French 8th Dragoons in particular that the 8th were disbanded as a direct result.

 

So that when 15th and 19th merged in 1922 (19th had again been disbanded, but subsequently this became an amalgamation), there was no tainting by a historical line that included the Tinny Tenth in the regiment I (and Bazz) served in, 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars.

[Bazz]

Esp fpr Alien,

 

NODUFF now replaced by NO PLAY, see below

 

NO PLAY Used to distinguish real from exercise messages, eg

accidents, casualties, public relations. “NO PLAY” are to

be the first and last words of the text of the message.

[ferretfixer]

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:

 

Do you still have THAT SMG?.........:cool2:

 

Reply to Second Qoute:

At the time those major FTX's were going on & we were all involved in them. After week two, I think we could all say we had had enough 'Fun'. The guards duties, fatiques, lack of sleep, mostly dirty (For Some!) became tedious.

But TODAY, OMG! I also would PAY a lot to go & do it all one more time! What an Exhilerating time it would be! If were all Honest, MOST of us here who had been through those 'Expiriences' would do it all again, as well. Or am I wrong?................ Mike.

[Big Al]

 

Reply to Second Qoute:

At the time those major FTX's were going on & we were all involved in them. After week two, I think we could all say we had had enough 'Fun'. The guards duties, fatiques, lack of sleep, mostly dirty (For Some!) became tedious.

But TODAY, OMG! I also would PAY a lot to go & do it all one more time! What an Exhilerating time it would be! If were all Honest, MOST of us here who had been through those 'Expiriences' would do it all again, as well. Or am I wrong?................ Mike.

I dont think you would be wrong there is nothing in civiy street that you could compaire these exprancices to, I would do it again but I dont think we or the country could affored to do it on the scale we did in the 70/80s

[schliesser92]

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (aka Phil The Greek to us old sweats) said in a TV interview recently that the Armed Forces have the capability to turn ordinary people into extraordinary people.

 

I think that must be true, as only extraordinary people could enjoy the crud that we endured!

 

Sleeping under canvas in sub-zero temperatures, site guards, border patrols, weapon qualification (always it seemed in sub-zero temperatures!), the Gipsy Season (sometimes all-year round!), Germans (they could be a pain in the bum, sometimes). And there was the duty-free booze, tobacco products, private cars etc. Absolute hardship!

 

I would do it again, though! They just have to get rid of that Mickey Mouse gun (SA80) and give me an SLR, a non-girlified Rover (srs III would do) and a good old SR C50/R236 station.And they would not have to give me a medal, either.

[Diesel demon]

I thrived on Exercises ...Flying Falcon, Summer sales etc etc, It was the chance to get away from a nagging wife burbling kids and go and play for a few weeks.

Did the Germans realise that on top of the remotest hill tops there were huge parties being had but they could never find us all cammed up and hidden away :nut:

 

My first major exercise and my first night in 'the woods' when one of the lads took me down the beer tent which was in actual fact the cookhouse tent converted within minutes into a thriving drinking shebeen..we got a night move once and the guy who had drank the least got to drive the Pod for health and safety reasons ! I remember someone telling me to grab hold of this pasrticular quad cable and follow to my det so I got back in one piece as white light was NOT allowed however loud music and beer drinking games were abound.

 

Would I do it all again?......you bet:-D

[schliesser92]

I remember someone telling me to grab hold of this pasrticular quad cable and follow to my det so I got back in one piece as white light was NOT allowed however loud music and beer drinking games were abound.

 

Would I do it all again?......you bet:-D

 

Aah! the drunken following of the appropopiate quad cable - remember it well!! I also remember deploying to a hill outside Hildesheim. It was a touch foggy. Following quad cables was necessary in broad daylight! It was three days before we realised where all our RF interference was coming from. The fog lifted and we found ourselves under a TV tower that was not on our maps!

[robin craig]

Was this the gentleman in question?

 

R

[eddy8men]

that's the man, how did you manage to get a pic of wolfgang plying his trade on the training areas. i remember when we saw him coming we'd all leg it out to be first in the queue, like kids at the ice cream van:D

[timbo]

Was this the gentleman in question?

 

R

 

 

Based on the state of the terrain he seems to have covered I am pretty impressed with the off road capabilities of that van !

 

Sure he wasn't workng for the East Germans?

[robin craig]

Dear Eddy8men,

 

Glad to provide the picture for you. Quite amazing how 'lil 'ole me sitting here in Canada can find that picture for you isnt it?!

 

Did you see the picture on another thread that I posted recently of the Chieftain in another thread?

 

R

[schliesser92]

that's the man, how did you manage to get a pic of wolfgang plying his trade on the training areas. i remember when we saw him coming we'd all leg it out to be first in the queue, like kids at the ice cream van:D

 

 

Read somewhere that he had sadly passed away.

[Enigma]

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 -

 

 

I have a Dutch variant of it.

[eddy8men]

hi robin

thanks again for the pic of wolfgang but what's this about a chieftain can you give me the name of the thread and i'll check it out.

 

cheers

 

eddy

[bjbsophey]

I have a Dutch variant of it.

 

 

Had the pleasure of cornering and blocking 2 of these soxmis cars in hemer behind the sally army /church army place , whilst i was teaching some young lads to drive a 432 on public roads , Rmp's didnt hang about either , we all got a citation for being vigilant , just pure luck we saw them .

[Diesel demon]

 

 

A Genuine SOXMIS card

[schliesser92]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]35167[/ATTACH]

 

A Genuine SOXMIS card

 

there are various versions, they kept revising them. And of course in most of the languages used by foreign troops stationed in Germany. As far as I know, there were French, English and Dutch versions . I cannot recall any others.

[robin craig]

Eddy,

 

as im barely komputer lierate I will post the picture here, I can manage that, but only because i've had a big mug of tea in my Land Rover Mug!

 

R