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What is a Mexe-hide?

Papav66

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Papav66

Papav66

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The South Mids area have recently purchased a periscope from Malvern, its about 4ft long and the document with it says its a Trials Mexe-hide Periscope, but what is a Mexe-hide? Some sort of bunker?

 

And if any of you have a pic that would be very helpful, cheers Paul

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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This info dates back to the mid-Seventies and is likely obsolete by now but... Mexe-hides were used by the SAS in general and 21 in particular for maintaining covert observation operations primarily in Europe.

Basically it's a Tee shaped hole in the ground with a flexible side and roof. You dig the hole, fit the walls and roof then put all the soil you dug out over the top to hide it. They are suposed to provide protection against anything but a direct hit from ordinance up to and including nuclear weapons because the flexibility built into the sides and roof was suposed to dissipate the blast into the surrounding ground.

Normally the access hatch and ladder are at one side of the Tee bar with an elsan the other side and the periscope you have was installed at the base of the leg.

A 4-man patrol would live in one of these for weeks at a time working a 2 man on, 2 man off hot bunk system during daylight hours. Periscope was used during the day and night vision kit externally during night time.

 

Does that answer the question?? :)

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Papav66

Papav66

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Yes Neil, very helpful thanks.

We were considering putting it through the hatch of the Stanton shelter but that would make if feel more like a submarine in there, so maybe we could build this mexe-hide or something similar.

Would be good if there was a pic to see how the scope is fitted as not quite sure how it would rotate.

cheers Paul

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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Can't help with photo's I'm afraid - back then it was classed as secret/classified equipment and camera's weren't allowed on operations. Sorry!! :-(

 

I can tell you they were claustrophobic environments though - especially if a US armoured unit displayed the map reading proficiency US forces were known for back then and parked one of their M-60's on top of the hatch for a week... Do NOT ask how I know this.....

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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Roughly what were the dimensions?

 

Now you are asking something - this was 30 odd years ago...... :shake: :shake:

 

I think - so don't quote me on this - they were something like 5'wide in the leg of the Tee, leg was about 8 to 10' long, and the top bar was around 3 feet wide by 10 feet long.

The whole thing was sunk about 6 to 8 feet below ground so there was maybe 2+ feet of earth over the top.

 

I've asked some friends from those days if they have a better recollection of these for you.

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radiomike7

radiomike7

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Now you are asking something - this was 30 odd years ago...... :shake: :shake:

 

I think - so don't quote me on this - they were something like 5'wide in the leg of the Tee, leg was about 8 to 10' long, and the top bar was around 3 feet wide by 10 feet long.

The whole thing was sunk about 6 to 8 feet below ground so there was maybe 2+ feet of earth over the top.

 

I've asked some friends from those days if they have a better recollection of these for you.

 

Neil, going by your dimensions and taking the weight of average earth as 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre, you are talking about shifting about 20 tonnes of earth. How on earth would you do that in a covert manner:confused:

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Stormin

Stormin

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Now you are asking something - this was 30 odd years ago...... :shake: :shake:

 

I think - so don't quote me on this - they were something like 5'wide in the leg of the Tee, leg was about 8 to 10' long, and the top bar was around 3 feet wide by 10 feet long.

The whole thing was sunk about 6 to 8 feet below ground so there was maybe 2+ feet of earth over the top.

 

I've asked some friends from those days if they have a better recollection of these for you.

 

With only two feet of earth cover on top I wouldn't rate the chances of surviving a hand grenade explosion let alone any real ordnance or a nuclear device.

The Channel 4 programme on the WWI bunker showed they had to be 30 feet down to survive the ordnance of that time.

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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Neil, going by your dimensions and taking the weight of average earth as 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre, you are talking about shifting about 20 tonnes of earth. How on earth would you do that in a covert manner:confused:

 

Took about two days - well, nights really - 3 men digging, 1 man on watch with a cam net over the top.

I did say I wasn't sure of the dimensions and have e-mailed a colleague from back then to see if his memory is any better.

Once in place they were left there and after a while they were easy to spot as the earth used to sink in outlining the "Tee" shape.

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fv1609

fv1609

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could find nothing on the web/google. cheers P

 

Ah well you can't always find everything on Google. It does it so fast if it produces no hits, I often feel like asking "Are you sure? You can't have searched everything in that split second?"

 

Anyway my analogue search here took a couple of days but I knew I had something. Improbable as the shelter might seem I think it was based on components supplied by Heywood Williams in the early 1970s.

 

Hide02.jpg

 

Supplied in man-portable kits various configurations could made to suit the circumstances for a forward shelter. It was said to be safe against small arms & machine gun fire & against all but direct hits from shell fire. So Neil was it something like this?

 

Hide01.jpg

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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Ah well you can't always find everything on Google. It does it so fast if it produces no hits, I often feel like asking "Are you sure? You can't have searched everything in that split second?"

 

Anyway my analogue search here took a couple of days but I knew I had something. Improbable as the shelter might seem I think it was based on components supplied by Heywood Williams in the early 1970s.

 

Supplied in man-portable kits various configurations could made to suit the circumstances for a forward shelter. It was said to be safe against small arms & machine gun fire & against all but direct hits from shell fire. So Neil was it something like this?

 

 

Pretty much Clive - I know it pretty much filled a Sankey trailer but I remember it being more of a conventional Tee shape. The entrance side was maybe half the dimensions given and the area marked missile trap was where the elsan sat. The part in your diagram pointing up the screen was maybe a bit longer- IRO a couple of feet.

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gazzaw

gazzaw

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I'm sure somewhwere in the past I saw details of a bigger unit, that was dug in with a back hoe or such like.

 

It was primarily designed to be dug by the Light Mobile Digger (LMD) (Thornycroft??) basically a rear mounted conveyor belt with teeth that dug down to depth (approx 1.3m) then driven forward pushing earth upwards and outwards from the excavation. The MEXE (basic comd shelter) could be dug out with 3 passes for main area and 1 for missile trap/entrance bay.

with a section of Asslt Pnrs and LMD it could be in the ground and backfilled in an hour (trained troops) to hand dig was obviously a lot longer but have put them in within 12hrs of hard graft. depending on soil/ ground types- a lot longer on Salisbury plain that wrecked every hand tool with its flint/chalk sub soil -parts of GDR /BAOR ex areas were very sandy and easy digging.

 

Gary W

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gazzaw

gazzaw

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The entrance side was maybe half the dimensions given and the area marked missile trap was where the elsan sat. The part in your diagram pointing up the screen was maybe a bit longer- IRO a couple of feet.

 

The first diagram a few missives above is the correct dimension for the comd shelter and was always 4 arches (3 bays) in main part and 4 for missile and entrance bays- the purpose of the missile bay was to allow any blast effect (e.g. from grenade lobbed into entrance or nearby explosions) to travel into this area and upwards pushing soil and Flexible Revetting Material (FRM) absorbing some of it. To put an elsan in there -if you were to spend any time down there- would have been untenable - with approx 10 people disposing of their excreted compo into a bucket, unless you wore respirators at all times (good NBC (now CBRN) training)

 

The FRM was cut and wrapped around the upright stakes and over the arches in a certain way before wiring to stakes and backfilling- this was an art in itself to prevent the FRM bulging inwards and drastically reducing your working space.

 

hope this helps

 

Gary W

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ArtistsRifles

ArtistsRifles

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Don't forget there were never more than 4 in a patrol and never more than 1 patrol in the Mexe.

The elsan (basically a covered bucket) was there (a) as we didn't have the luxury of external latrines of any sort and (b) as a last resort use item - it was a standing joke that if anything did blow in the hatch it would blow up the elsan with dire consequences.

 

Spot on about the installation of the FRM being an art - a black art in some opinions!!! :)

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