ArtistsRifles

Found one on the On-Line O/S maps just west of the Fawley power station - only place name is "Sprats Down" - see the map extract below:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d146/ArtistsRifles/airfield_map.jpg[/img]

Just seen this on MilWeb tonight

http://www.milweb.net/webverts/29524/

Rare CHURCHILL MK VII CROCODILE infantry tank

 

S/n D52135, W.D.no. T252109/H, production date 10 - 1944.

 

We can offer you our above-mentioned tank for sale, as seen on the above pictures, for only GBP 22.500,-- (or EURO € 33.000,--), excl. VAT, delivered in it's "as is, where is" condition, loaded onto your transport ex yard / Holland, subject to being unsold.

 

Or make us an offer which we cannot refuse, try us!!

 

Please note that we are also interested to trade this very special CHURCHILL in for other interesting material.

 

Best regards,

Sindorf Trading Holland BV

Wish I had the cash plus vat and transport fees!!! :-(

I'd like to try and use a cam-corder to record the auspicous event - and hopefully the equally auspicous coming out as she wne tin and not the debacle of aTitanic impersonation!! :-o

So you can see what happens when the bilge pumps and dowtys kick in for real!!!

so, numbers....

 

richardrosser

Snapper

ArtistsRifles

rambo1969+4

rapier rob

safariswing

ian2b+3

 

 

is this right?

 

It shall be SATURDAY 25TH NOV.

 

 

As the days are closing in, meeting at around 1000-1100hrz would be best.

 

I shall get printing at work, and make a few packs up with info and maps.

 

Be nice to see you all:)

 

Sounds good - got a date and a time - just need an RV location now!!!!! :-) :-) :-)

Have you tried your's yet Neil :evil: and Martin the Reo is classed as 2.5 ton lorry :-D

 

Getting there Mark - getting there!! Got feelers out for seal retainers a year ahead of schedule and next maintenance period will see the cab plates coming up to check the clutch master and the rubber boot over the winch...

Luckely I'm not jealous too, not a bit, not the slightest bit of me isn't the tiniest bit jealous.

 

* runs for a dark corner to cry his eyes out *

 

You and me both sir - you and me both!!! :-( :cry: :cry:

Welcome Martin and good to see you are thinking of getting a MAN'S toy, a Jack :wink:

 

Ditto the welcome to the mad-house here Martin - but a REAL mans toy has a red triangle on the front - and floats!!!!

I flew in a C-47/DC-3 ( G-AMPY in 'Northwest' colours ) back in 1985, from RAF Cranfield. I was in the third row back, on the right. If I remember it cost £10!

 

I've had a few memorable test flights too, from my days as a light aircraft engineer at Newcastle, and an Air Cadet flight in a glider from Catterick in mid-winter was memorable for the cold! Those Air Cadet uniforms didn't keep out the cold too well, and the flying was delayed because the tow cable was frozen onto the winch!

 

Steve

 

Best flight - I guess that had to be any in the Seventies that brought us back to the UK in one piece. Don't have the words for describing the feelings as one looked out the C-130 at the patchwork of fields that made up the English country side...

Worst flight - definitely has to be coming home from Maastrich to Gatwick on an NLM Fokker the night of the great storm in 1986. Sitting there watching the wings flex, the M25 traffic go from dots to recognizable vehicles then back again and the stewardess sitting there crossing herself repeatedly did NOT inspire confidence! :-) :-)

You lucky devil!!!!!!! :-) :-) :-)

Oh damn!! Lee beat me too it again!!! :-( :-( :-(

Was on guard duty at the DoY barracks in London for an official function which was strictly invitation only. Heir to the throne was there and the horse face hag turned up with the then husband in tow as part of the entourage. Their names were not on the guest list so they were refused entry. She got a strop on and relations went downhill from there...

Personally I think she can't hold a candle to Princess Di in anything but..............

Best I can manage is escorting a certain person who's face resembles the anus of a horse - and who recently re-married - out of the D0Y at bayonet point back in the 70's!!!

I'm up for it - but please bear in mind I'm 6' tall and 22 stone so smallish holes can be somewhat more of a problem than for most!! :-o :-o

Well I take each year to the Great Dorset Steam Fair complete with the mystery object. After 12 years of showing nobody has ever asked what the mystery object does, very few ask about the missiles (which I would consider to fairly eye-catching) all I get is endless silly questions about the smoke dischargers. But I think you mean by real life, live firings. I do have footage of those but never witnessed the real thing.

Actually - I'd like to see the vehicle itself. Maybe one day!! :-) :-)

Although seeing the firing footage would be good too!!

please Sir can i put my name down.....please 8-)

Me too - even tho' I'm a bit on the large side!!!

No - your safe - we're all laid up with the dreaded snuffly cold... :-)

If I had the TB3 I could do the Bermuda Triangle thing.... Probably make a lot of people happy in doing so.. :evil: :evil: :evil:

Oh damn - really running out of ideas now.

It's not part of the trigger, firing, loading or aiming procedures.

It is part of the missile/missile carrier.

Missile is solid fueled so can't be fuelling, can't see it being a fuzing aid......

Can't see whats left now - but would love to see one of these in real life!!!!!

Ok......................

When the missile is fired the guidance wire is redeployed - I'm guessing the crew don't wind it back in - so - a means of reloading the guidance wire???

My wife won't have anything to do with MVs if she can help it. She's been to Duxford MV meet a couple of times when I was attempting to be a volunteer there - but she doesn't like the vehicles and cannot understand the people. Even me!!! (sometimes). But she comes on the battlefield trips and likes to visit cemeteries and sites of interest. She is not into museums that much. The kids go anywhere for a laugh. My son James is hooked. Good lad. I have trouble tempering the gun-nut in him. My daughter is a petrol head - but only for cars. She is 11. Give her time....

 

Oi!!!!!!! When did you marry MY wife???????

Starting to run out of ideas now - something to do with the wire guidance system

Hardy Ferret,

 

Ahh.. a man after my own heart, I curse the metric system, brought up with Imperial and will always be using the inch side of the ruler. When you are working on good old British engineering, it makes no sense to measure everything in metric.

 

Some of us have to uphold the British traditions, like Whitworth threads, etc.

 

Richard

 

You were the lucky ones then - when I did my apprenticeship (over 34 years ago...) body shells were all in metric and powertrain components were all imperial!!!! :-o :-o :-o

Oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh Theres some lovely bits of kit there!!!!

I'd love one of the Grumman TB3 Avengers - or the Saab Draaken or the Fairey Firefly or the Hawker Hunter or even the Hawker Sea Fury.......

Any one who wants to give me 50 years of presents all rolled into one can pick from one of those!! :-) :-) :-) :-)

Nope

 

Is it

1) Some kind of brace used between the vehicle and the carrier in the lowered travelling position

 

or 2) Some kind of loading aid???

Nope & nope

Oh rats - wish I'd seen one of these in operation but I think they were before my time. Was I right about the way the linkage seemed to work? If so is it something to do with missile or the launchers system (struggling for hints here....)

Our (1970s) 4-man and 10-man Composite Ration Packs were dateable by the tin of red fish in every pack.

 

After Tuna became iffy because of Mercury in the seawater, we continued to see it in Compo for many years until it was replaced by Salmon.

 

... which in turn got removed - I suspect for the same reason - by Pilchard.

 

We ate like kings on exercise. With a 3-man CVR(T) crew, we might get 3* 4-man ration packs for four days, but if an exercise ran Monday to Friday, we'd get another 4-man pack for the 5th day, total 16 man-day-meals for 15 man-days. Note also that after crashing out at 0200 Monday and not eating until maybe 1600, then being back in camp by 1600 Friday so as not to upset the Germans, we ran up a lot of spare Compo.

 

Singlies had a daily Food charge deducted from their Military Salary at source, so back in camp, there was no necessity to acquire surplus Compo. Married "Pads" paif for their own food and many a cavalryman's child grew up familiar with Chicken Curry, Chicken Extreme, Stewed Steak in Gravy, Snake and Pygmy Pudding etc.

Heh - you forgot the old "favourites" - cheese possessed and bikkies brown....

Even so. with BAOR on permanent 4-hours' notice to move throughout the Cold War, there were vast stocks of Compo and the QMG must have got in a sweat when he realised just how old some of the Compo was. We started having Compo Days, where the whole Army ate Compo - nothing at all fresh in order to shift some of the older supplies of rations. The Catering Corps were not allowed to use anything but Compo on Compo Days.

 

That said, after I left the cavalry for the Pay Corps, I was attached to an Armoured Workshop REME. Because of my Control Signaller skills, unlike any other Pay Clerk - sorry Military Accountant - who ever walked the planet, my going-out-on-exercise frequency actually went up. Incredible, but my skills were in short supply, even if my trade pay for Control Signaller was ceased six months after transferring in. Happy teddy bear was I ... NOT.

 

Now instead of messing by crew, the Main REME group with which I exercised, like most non-combat units messed centrally, i.e. the cooks went on exercise and cooked for everyone. But here's the rub. The cooks were on exercise; virtually the whole unit bar a VERY small rear party went on exercise, because the nature of their work and how they procured parts actually made their job EASIER on exercise because, for example, suddenly there WERE Chieftain engines in the whole of BAOR and we couldn't have Chieftains standing idle in the field, could we.

 

So the cooks went on exercise and they took all their fresh rations with them, even though Compo was available. So for the first week or ten days of an exercise we ate essentially fresh rations, and only when that was all gone did we resort to Compo. And boy did the REME not like Compo?

 

I remember the last day of one exercise, the cooks were really down to the bare bones of their Compo and one of the choice (CHOICE?!?!? FFS!) of dishes was pilchard pizza. Notwithstanding the fact that Pilchard is simply adult sardine, NOBODY would touch these pizzas. Me? I had a feast.

 

Especially since the cooks and the MRG HQ all knew that I maintained their pay accounts and that their radio work became very poor when I made them learn to get by without me because I was due to be posted out you know?

 

Mmm Compo ... drool.

 

I used to like it too - our cooks had a singular habit of setting up the #1 field kitchen, opening all the packs and tins and throwing everything into a couple of the dixies together with a couple of tins of curry powder then rice in the other couple of dixies.

We had curry for every meal and funnily enough - despite the content including burgers in bean, suasage in beans, beans, chicken curry, chicken extreme, stewed steak in gravy, Snake and Pygmy Pudding, cheese possesed, fish paste, meat paste, crushed biscuits brown, cheese possesed, dead fly pudding etc. :-) :-) :-)

When I left I had a couple of cases of unused rat packs that got slowly used up. Played a mean trick on a non-army mate though. We went to a car show down in St Austell and made all-in stew every night we were there. Didn't tell him that a fortnight afer he ate the last batch the world would fall out his backside... God did he get a shock!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: