AlienFTM

I saw a picture a few days ago that showed how a man had built a Scalextric circuit inside the body shell of what I understood to be a Le Mans 24 Hours Porsche racer.

Well THAT's a posh fire cart. I saw nothing that sophisticated in my time. The fire carts in service 1975-89 looked like they belonged behind a single plodding horse in a wartime field. In fact they were powered by about 6 man-power as opposed to 1 horse-power. Camp guard would double as Fire Picquet and would parade at lunch time under the provost staff to be told to rush to "a fire" near a given fire hydrant, plug in the hoses, turn on the hydrant and demonstrate that everything worked. Also tested the hydrants in turn. Heaven help you if you got a hydrant at the other end of the camp. Always painted bright red in my experience. The hoses were rotten, the connectors and adaptors (if present) may or may not connect or adapt. Fire Piquet, not a soldier's favourite pastime. Watching the Fire Picquet double by was like watching the Keystone Cops.

I wouldn't personally be too optimistic about that. Certainly about finding a turret. I doubt there'd be any left after they converted all the Scorpions to Sabres. Though if I were to go looking on spec, I'd try Castlemartin Ranges. I walked the coastal path there a few years ago and got seriously depressed seeing all the stuff that had been contemporaneous with my service as range wrecks.

No you were not. Well, by comparison with me, obviously. bags of style, panache, flair and élan though. Again, obviously. ;o)

I was surprised whilst reading / reviewing a recent Arnhem book for Arrse that alongside the King Tigers etc of 9 and 10 SS Panzerdivisions, there were also Renault FT10s. Incongruous or what?

I got one issued in the ACF about 1971. Gutted: wanted a proper green one. You forgot to mention the slits in the shoulder so that you could feed the epaulettes of your shirt through, requiring only one set of rank badges and shoulder titles.

No such problem by 1976. We had industrial launderette-style washing machines and driers with the coin slots removed or deactivated, both in barracks and in the RUC stations on the border. Before going on stag, stick your dirty kit in the washer on a two-hour hot wash. End of stag, put it into the drier for two hours. Job done. Just don't try this with your woolly pulley: I saw examples that would have been tight on Barbie after this treatment.

Two times 353 in the same harness. Iirc simply switch both sets accordingly, announce "Hello all stations this is 98A this is an automatic rebroadcast net. Out" then pick up a book and half listen to the traffic for a coded order to stop rebroadcasting and PUFO. And watch for the batteries discharging, squelch starts to flicker because the squelch is automatic and cannot be adjusted and each set keeps sending the other to transmit one after the other. A dead easy job which was mine for a couple of years but I only ever did once on an umpire net on Crusader 80/Spearpoint. Absolutely no special special boxes necessary.

I distinctly remember seeing these though (see my post) I never possessed any myself. Come to think of it, it might have been in the ACF pre-army.

I was chatting with a QM's clothing storeman about 1985 and the question came up of Shirts, GS. As wdbikemad says, they were about but old stocks were to be used up first. The quantity of KFs in store must have been phenomenal, because even though the only people to wear them were those who were ordered to, most of us got issued two times KF and handed in the same pair at end of service 14 years later (in my case). In 1989 when I left I still hadn't seen one, even on the scores of young clerks who passed through Worthy Down on training courses while I was there in the Computer Centre. In the same conversation, the storeman explained to me why there was a sticky patch on the Mark 3 NBC jacket high on the outside of the left (iirc) arm where nobody could see a chemical detector paper (which was what the patch was for on the wrist) while masked up with a respirator canister fitted as normal (which was when a detector paper would be of interest). When they brought out the Mark 3 NBC suit, the intention was that stick-on rank badges would go on the upper patch so that you did not address the CO or RSM as mucker whilst masked up. Unfortunately the badges were not ready when the suits were and as they became available, they piled up in a warehouse in a depot somewhere because nobody thought to order them, then when they were checked, they were found to have all stuck together to create a single manky rank badge. Something else I never saw.

The cap badge in Bazz's series of pictures is 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars from our tour 1974-1976 when we were Northern Ireland Armoured Car Regiment, based in Omagh and with responsibility (according to AN ANALYSIS OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND, foreword by General Sir Mike Jackson GCB CBE DSO ADC Gen http://w1.publicaddress.net/assets/upload/224146/-1650345631/opbanner.pdf ) for some 53% of the border with the republic. Some of the best and most formative days of my life.

Cheers mate. thanks for digging. Today I have visited a couple of Tank Museum pages without problem. Ho hum.

Ditto the following link: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?36465-TANK-OF-THE-WEEK-Sturmgeschutz

Well there's a surprise. I occasionally find myself being warned by the corporate firewall about dodgy websites, but I didn't expect Google to throw this up: Danger: Malware Ahead! Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on hmvf.co.uk. Content from http://www.tankmuseum.org, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware. Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss, and permanent file deletion. Learn more Not something that I expected to see. (This was this link: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?36379-Our-new-building-is-rapidly-taking-shape-out-there-here-is-a-progress-update&goto=newpost ) Over to you.

Dredging deep into the memory depths of map marking, if my memory serves, three vertical bars above the rectangle indicates a foreign regiment (in the UK a regiment generally equates to a battalion; only the infantry have regiments but do not frequently or intentionally serve in the field as such). In a foreign army, a division might comprise a regiment comprising a number of same-cap-badge battalions. From memory: . section .. platoon or troop etc ... significantly oversized platoon or troop (eg one the Armd Recce Regt's Close Recce Squadron's troops of eight vehicles. | squadron, company etc || (British) regiment or infantry battalion ||| Foreign regiment X brigade XX division XXX corps XXXX army XXXXX army group The number 73 before the symbol suggests 73 (fixed wing aviation) Regiment Edit: The NATO standard map marking symbols are derived by and large from the Germans' Second World War vehicle markings.

Well don't tow a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule behind your truck then. Tow a cannon instead. Or better yet an artillery piece.

Haven't looked (cannot afford to lose a morning's work) but my guess would be Chelyabinsk. If not, it should be: google it. Edit. I might have started a new post but no. Watch out on the documentary channels (or for DVD box sets) for Life After Humans. It was originally a single two-hour programme looking at how the planet would revert to nature over time if Man simply disappeared. It was so good that they made at least one, maybe two series of one-hour programmes (less advertising obviously) looking at the event from different perspectives. I think all the places named in this thread featured, usually about the second quarter hour, thus: "25 years after humans. This has happened; that has happened. How do we know this? Because it already has, in Chernobyl / Gary, Indiana / the coal mine on the island / etc, etc." And they'd spend the section looking at how these places have unwound over 25 / 40 / 50 / however many years since Man walked out. Highly commended. Not one episode missed. Praise the Lord for Sky+.

Former commander of BAOR (and Arnhem veteran) General Sir John Hackett's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hackett_(British_Army_officer)) Third World War, August 1985 (careful: wiki seems to have got in a muddle over his first and second books, and a cursory glance at wiki fails to turn up a link to an article on the former weighty tome, of which I relate here) was read as a training manual by BAOR when it was first published in 1978. He argued that it would not be difficult or expensive to reorganise BAOR into two more-flexible Armoured Corps than the one corps that it was for most of the Cold War, and that we could stop them, I forget where but if memory serves they did not reach the Rhine. 3 Armoured Div arrived late to the party, becoming operational 1 Jan 78 and responsible for the Corps area south and west of the Harz Mountains (presumably in case 3 Shock Army tried to do what the Germans did three times and drive their tanks through the "impassible" mountains). Iirc according to Hackett, the Soviet advance went well both north of the Harz (against 1, 2 and 4 Armd Divs) and further south yet (against the Americans) but a significant bulge formed in front of Paderborn, which was of course a great morale booster for 3 Armd Div who lived there. As my good buddy Lugsy put it, "It must be down to all the biological agents in the City Club." If you don't get the meaning of this statement, don't bother trying. The City Club (the only bar in Paderborn where they had bouncers on the door to throw the drunkards in) is now long gone, taking with it the grab-a-granny nights and fights with CS and Schermulies that were regular). I do seem to recall however that it has its own Facebook group. No worries. If we didn't win, we wouldn't feel a thing thanks to the alcohol.

The 353 (and iirc the 352) worked in the military VHF band, 30-76 MHz. The amount of antenna rod required for this frequency range was 2m (any more and the automatic antenna tuning unit (TUAAM = Tuning Unit, Automatic Antenna Matching iirc) would try and tune the antenna to more than the 1/4 wavelength they were designed to tune to. I do remember that Larkspur used 4-foot rods, available as lower, middle and top sections, making 12 feet possible (for HF sets, lower frequency, longer wavelength). For a Larkspur VHF set, either a top and a middle or a middle and a bottom section would give the necessary 8 feet (but istr that middle and bottom looked remarkably ... mmm ... sturdy: aesthetically, a top and a middle was what you wanted). I cannot now remember (less demand for HF with Clansman) whether Clansman rods came in top, middle and bottom sections, but as before you want two sections, giving you 2m of rod. Note that VHF waves are more sensitive to polarisation than HF, so the rods are always mounted vertically (it was normal when flying 12 feet of rod for the C13, to use a sloper to angle them so that the height of the rods was less cumbersome on the move). I never saw Clansman in an Abbot so I don't know what the harness was like. Assuming that the 352 had a proper antenna base for the 352, the rules ought to be exactly the same. If, however, there was a special set-up, that is beyond my knowledge.

MTW. Mechanical Transport (ie MT) wing? Too mundane?

A couple of comments (trying not to tread on what other have written, but bear in mind that every unit's interpretation of dress regs varies (and every soldier's interpretation of his unit's dress regs ...). In no particular order. The new new square rank badges for DPM started to appear about 1975/6, but unless you were promoted, you retained the old version (as described above). It was normal to black out NCO stripes so that they did not become targets, but I remember one lad had been promoted Lance Jack just before I arrived and he deliberately didn't, so that his peers could see he had been promoted. He took a lot of stick. Many units also painted beret badges black. As NI Armoured Car Regiment, responsible for 53% of the border and far removed from the bulk of Op Banner forces (indeed, NI Armoured Car regiment was a permanent Arms Plot posting of 18 months - later 2 years - not an Op Banner tour of 4 - later 6 - months. NI Armoured Car Regiment was later restyled NI Armoured Recce Regt to stay in line with the rest of the RAC Recce line, but the hardware didn't change until much later), there was no doubting who we were, so we didn't bother. Besides, the red felt badge backing would have shown through anyway so what was the point? NI gloves were similar to the Gloves, Combat later on general issue about the end of the 70s, but had padded fingers (less the index fingers for shooting). Many units wore combat trousers as uniform; maybe as many preferred lightweights (individuals with the olive green precursors to lightweights could wear them as an option since formal parades did not happen). My first uniform faux pas was to wear combat trousers while all around me wore lightweights. My second faux pas was, having read the instructions on the flak jacket to wear it under the combat jacket, to wear it under the combat jacket. No! As an armoured car regiment, some personnel wore webbing cut down to consist simply of 57 pattern belt, one magazine pouch and a water bottle. Regimental accoutrements. Being cavalry, whose purpose in warfare is to bring style and panache to what would otherwise just be an ugly brawl, we wore a navy blue towelling scarf. But we have covered this ground over and over, so I shan't whitter on any more. ;o)

Are you saying it is fitted with an automatic gearbox or are you referring to the standard Ferret semi-automatic gearbox? The gearbox on Ferret is beautiful. I seem to recall it was designed by the David Brown stable, intended for a pre-war Bentley or Aston Martin (the Aston Martin DB series are named for David Brown) and ended up gear-changing the seminal Routemaster bus. There are plenty of posts in this forum and elsewhere on how to use this gearbox so I shan't go into that. I for one would never dream of replacing it.

I can believe it's ex-Canadian but only because of the location. I commanded 33BA81 in BAOR around 1980, as far as I could tell the oldest A vehicle in Paderborn Garrison and one of the first tranche of Ferrets, with the square driver's side hatches as shown in the pics. Actually I have a feeling it now belongs to someone on this forum, in the USA and converted to a Mark 2 and that I have exchanged PMs. So on that basis, it doesn't even need to be ex-Canadian because of location.

Having seen this thread reactivated and having reread what I wrote here ... Perspective. In Cyprus in 76-77 with the UN, we had troops dispersed along the Green Line from one end to the other. Every day a section of two Ferrets patrolled each sector (a total of five troops plus one on R&R, but my dim memory suggests that one of the troops didn't patrol the Green Line per se) from outstation, along the length of the sector and back, so each pair of Ferrets covered some 20-25% of the Green Line, out and back. We never used the spare cans: fill up after one patrol ready for the next and that was it. My recollection of the patrols is (from West to East): Skouriotissa in the Danish Contingent (DANCON) sector halfway to Nicosia. BRITCON West out of Nicosia. CANCON East out of Nicosia. AUSCON East of Larnaca. Either SWEDECON or FINCON (it's the memory, age you know?) out of the Box Factory at Ayios Nikolaos adjacent to the Dhekelia British Sovereign Base (East). The more I think about it, the less sure I am. Pretty sure that Bazz will put me right, or anyone else who did an UNFICYP Force Reserve Squadron tour.