AlienFTM

Love it. In my day we tended to blame the accursed Fantasians. (I think when they start the demo at Tankfest every year it is these same Fantasians they blame for having landed on the Dorset coast yesterday evening and did you not all see it on South Today?) Still, Hadrian cannot have been all bad: he built a wall to keep the accursed Geordies out. I'd love, if I could be bothered, to compare this statement with the one Chamberlain wrote and when no such guarantees were given by 1100 hours, 3 September, a state of war existed between this country and Germany. A quick wiki search will easily find the declaration, but not the ultimatum.

In February 1982 BFBS Radio in Germany carried a report from the House of Commons during the Replace Polaris With Trident debate. I think it was Lord Carrington stood up and demanded to know what, without a nuclear deterrent, HMG would do if some tinpot dictator walked into a British dependency. Three months later all I could think was, "Tinpot dictator walks into British dependency? BA is going to get a bucket of sunshine, special delivery."

The fuel filler filler on Spartan is just a recess in the roof. Driven off-road (where else to drive a CVR(T)), dust and leaves accumulate. Remove the filler cap, Istr a filter to catch the big stuff but you just know that some will get through. I used to find pine needles.

What Chas says. But we didn't bother staking ours to the ground: it was more effort to bug out if 3 Shock Army came over the hill. Besides, the cam net was draped well clear of the vehicle, so staking the hessian didn't gain you much. Unlike in the picture, our Scorpions had the hessian and the cam net separate. On our Sultans the whole lot got rolled into one gihumungous lump (about 4 cam nets stitched together and a similar amount of hessian). A bitch to cam / decam but at least we might expect to remain in one location for a while (on exercise: during the big one we were told we could expect to move every half hour or so before we were direction-found and stonked.) We also had hessian attached front and rear to cover all the lights (and Land Rovers etc had them to cover the shape and shine of the windscreen). To this day, if I get my Tesco bags for life wet, a quick sniff of wet hessian transports me back some 35 years.

Not during my brief acquaintance, no.

When it all kicked off in NI, the Armed Forces had left all the war-torn regions east of Suez and were set for a quiet time, unprepared for a civil war on UK territory. Body armour was needed in a hurry. It was provided largely by the USA (then engaged in their own war in Vietnam). There are stories (I believe A Long Long War carries a first-hand account) of the first troops in being issued "flak jackets" that still carried the blood stains from their previous owners. As troops flooded into NI, flak jackets surely turned up in job lots. By the time I got there in 1976 there were still nearly as many types of flak jacket as there were soldiers to wear them. This looks not unlike the one I was issued, but judging from your picture I'd say mine had a firmer, more prominent neck. I do remember the rubber butt traps to stop the personal weapon sliding off the shoulder but I don't remember it having a field dressing pocket (as previously identified). There were almost certainly jackets of this type worn in NI and unless there is something obvious on there that you haven't told us about (like its manufacture date is 2011) I challenge anybody to prove that flak jackets of this pattern were not worn on Op Banner.

No mate. But I now remember some unit or other issued a squaddy with a card which he signed and was then laminated, so that on Active Edge he simply swapped the card for the weapon, the Arms Store had his signature and it was dead easy to sign out and to carry out a weapons check: either the weapon was there or the card was.

I just replied to 01EC28's other thread, having recognised 01EC28. Having seen the history card (which confirms it was with UNFICYP armoured car squadron in 1976), I see that it was issued to 15/19H again in 1986 after I had left. Interesting that it remained a Mark 2/3: as a recce regt we only ever had Mark 1s for RSMs'/SSMs' rovers and rebros. Bazz, who was still 15/19H in 1986 (or a meringue?) will be able to confirm that as a Mark 2 it was issued to Recce Troop (since 15/19H were MBT again by then). So that's two of the Ferrets I drove with 15/19H preserved by members of this group. Job's a good'n.

I have just noticed 01EC28. Unless I am very much mistaken this was my Mark 2 in UNFICYP from September until about the end of 1976 when it was taken for a base overhaul and I was issued a new one straight out of same. It's been through a couple of minefields and appeared briefly in a film about 1980. The film started with a bunch of people being ushered into a nuclear bunker having been selected to run a post-apocalyptic world which is about to happen any day now (in the film). There is a scene of rioting and a UN Ferret comes into focus, this one. I have never been able to remember the name of the film, but I watched it at Barker Bks Paderborn. Having received the mother of all bollickings from my brother for not writing frequently enough to my mother during our recent NI tour, she got three blueys a week from Cyprus describing the saga or our (mine and the Ferret's) adventures. I had to number the blueys so that she read them in turn. Sadly not kept.

For three years I spent my exercise evening sat in the back of the 15/19H BG Command Saracen / Sultan. Many was the time we'd receive a NODUFF* message reporting that in the wee small hours after the pubs had shut, another Merc containing four young adult males had ploughed into the back of an armoured column, there were casualties and Starlight** assistance was urgently required. ------------------------ * No Direction Find: this is not an exercise message and is to be treated with high priority. ** Starlight: appointment indicator for medical services.

Looks to me like an M4A3E2/E8 hull with the flat glacis plate. I was of the belief that all Fireflies had the earlier glacis plate with the hatches protruding. But I am usually wrong and no doubt I am again.

Location of the butt number was determined so that the arms storeman could see it quickly, so it depended on the angle he approached the rack from in the building he was in. It might frankly be anywhere. Almost always on the butt (hence "butt number") - okay for the pedants, on the stock - but as we have seen in this thread, not always.

Alconbury springs to mind. the Americans left some years ago but istr reading that the base is maintained because it is of historical interest. I don't know about climate-controlled hangars, but I believe any hangar suitable for SR71s ought to be suitable for CR2s.

I first got issued CH about 1984, the year in which my daughter was two years old. When she married a few years ago I managed to find a picture I took one Sunday morning when I awoke to find her wearing my boots beside my bed but unable to move due to the weight of the boots and she was in up to her nappy.

The story I heard from our squadron artificer (REME) in 1977 was that the Pigs had been sold off as obsolete to Portugal when it all kicked kicked off in NI. they found that Saracen was simply too big for day to day in Belfast (though we retained them in the NI Armoured Car / Armoured Recce Regt in Omagh until and beyond 1976 when I was there) so MOD went to Portugal and bought the Pigs back. A lot of mods went onto these Pigs and the weight crept up and crept up. According to Tiffy, in NI at every Monday morning O Group (Orders Group - Meeting) the question was asked, how much oil in the Pigs this week? Too much and the seals blew; too little and things siezed. I am sure our resident Pig experts can add / illuminate / whatever.

Deactivated? About 1971-2 I live fired 303s in Durham ACF.

I was last man into Omagh at end of tour in 1976. I visited the Clothing Store in search of Patrol Boots and Gloves NI but I got short shrift at the high port, allegedly because it was end of tour and they were out of stock. I always felt the clothing storeman had earmarked them as his personal buckshees. There have been threads on Arrse about both items. The boots appeared in a number of patterns, notable with and without toecap welts (pictures of both are easy to find). As stated above, Gloves NI had padded fingers less trigger fingers. About 1979 we got issued Gloves, Combat which were essentially identical to Gloves NI less any finger padding. During the intervening years, rather than wear green woolly gloves (no use when trying to work a radio and mark a map in far-sub-zero or driving rain) I wore either black leather ski gloves (available from the PRI shop and therefore semi-officially suitable in uniform) or my own German sheepskin-lined motorcycle gauntlets which in days before electrically heated motorcycle gloves were the best I was going to get. I also wore sheepskin-lined Panzerstiefel tank crewman's jackboots in the field. You have to understand that for a small country like ours to field four armoured divisions on permanent 4 hours' notice for war in BAOR and a brigade on ops in NI, savings had to be made somewhere and self-purchased non-standard uniform was accepted, nay actively approved. Just as now, I hear you say.

These look to me like Mao Trousers, part of the Chinese Fighting Suit with a matching sleeved Mao Jacket (as worn by the Chairman). They were worn under whatever you want. With the zips inside the legs you can drop your trousers, zip the Mao trousers up, pull your trousers up and you have nicely warm legs underneath whatever you are wearing without having to remove your boots, be it lightweights (de rigour in command Troop whatever the season), combats or overalls as worn by crewmen. I was first issued a set I suspect in January 1978 for my first ever winter CPX in Command Troop, to be returned post-exercise. We were told they were experimental. Everyone in our recce regt got a full set a year or two later. Excellent piece of kit: only the hands, head and feet turned blue in the cold instead of spreading and turning the body numb all the way to the torso in the West German winter. I managed not to hand in my Chinese Fighting Suit when I rebadged in 1982. In 1985 I got a phone call from my former Unit Paymaster. "Hello Corporal Alien you have been selected from a shortlist of one to be my navigator for the Inter-Services Regatta (BAOR vs RAFG) out of Kiel in August." So I fronted up at Kiel where Major Head introduced me to our crew, the CO and RSM of the Ordnance Depot to which he had been posted. He always managed to be short-crewed as it saved a hundredweight of crewman and more including kit. One race was a night race. We split the crew into two watches, Maj Head and me; the two RAOC blanket-stackers. We did the early night stag and handed over to the other watch about 0400. Yes it was August, but we were in the Baltic and yes it got quite cold during the dead stags. The race was meant to last 24 hours and at the start it was in danger of not finishing cos there was no wind, but during the night the wind got up and by 0800 and time to get out of my scratcher, it was all but over in a little over 12 hours. The CO announced to me in a way that said "I am CO of an Ordnance Depot; I can get hold of all the latest kit," that "This nice new quilted suit I am wearing is quite warm." Corporal Alien put him down with, "Yes, I have enjoyed its benefits since I was crewing Ferrets in 1978 but I really didn't think that August is cold enough." By now all trace of the Mao Suit had completely disappeared from my records. When I got out in 1989 it was one of the few items I felt worthy of keeping. When my daughter took up rowing (and coxing) in the 90s, she found them ideal. Haven't seen the trousers since (I suspect they got river-water dirty and she slung them surreptitiously when she moved out without me getting a chance to stop her) but the jacket hangs on the coat rack in the hall. It got a run out last winter when it was really, really cold. Not been necessary this winter. Seems to have shrunk though ... During this regatta we famously caused a U-boat to believe he was about to be rammed. Oh and for the record, we stuffed the Crabs. ---ooo0ooo--- Okay since you ask. Another race, we were just outside Kiel, west of the northern approach channel. All or part of the race used a coastal buoy and two of the channel markers delineating the marked channel from Kiel harbour and the Canal out to the open sea to indicate the triangle course we were to sail. We were on a windward leg heading probably more or less north-east from the inshore buoy to the more northerly channel marker. If you have read The Cruel Sea, there is a moment where the radar operator on the corvette on the Gibraltar run, trying to catch up with the convoy, reports an unusual object on the screen. It's about the size of a small dinghy, but it's making enough knots to be closing on the convoy to their front. The skipper twigs that it's a U-boat on the surface trying to close and engage. What the Germans haven't noticed is that they in turn have a corvette hammering up behind them. Eventually the U-boat crew click and dive, but too late and the corvette launches a perfect pattern of depth charges on them. In modern parlance, they pwn them. Sadly not before the U-boat has engaged and sunk a merchantman. Sonar then detect a target right underneath the merchant crew in the water and the skipper has a dilemma whether to engage, thereby probably killing merchant crew in the water or let the U-boat go. He decides to get the U-boat kill. In the film, the harrowing scenes are well portrayed of merchant crewmen believing they are being rescued by the corvette, turning to horror when they realise the corvette is on a depth-charging run, ploughing through them and dropping depth charge right in their midst. Only afterwards does the corvette realise that he has just engaged the sinking wreck of the merchantman they had abandoned. So. Cruel Sea moment. "Boss, there's a strange object approaching the marker buoy. It's small and dark and really motoring." Binos, out. "Blow me down, it's a Bundesmarine submarine." So here we are lumbering to windward and closing on the marker buoy from the south-west and the U-boat hammering down from the north. There's no change in bearing: an indicator to both sides that we are on a collision course. (What the U-boat crew didn't know was that when we reached the buoy, we were turning right through 135 degrees onto a course parallel with them and there was plenty of room for us between the buoy and the U-boat. So we reach the buoy just ahead of them as predicted. During this time I have watched the lookout tap the watchkeeper on the arm and point at us, the watchkeeper bend forward and speak over the intercom (presumably "Captain on the bridge!") a number of bodies arrive atop the conning tower with lookout and watchkeeper, all getting into an ever-increasing frenzy. I swear I read lips shouting "Verdammt crazy Englischers!" They are making 20 or 30 knots (we are struggling to make about 6). The captain bends to the intercom to order hard a port just as the skipper pulls the tiller and we start to go round the buoy. The U-boat crew palpably relax. But hang on. Our yacht is flying the red ensign. Technically we are a military reserve craft and junior by far to a regular Bundesmarine submarine by a long, long way. We absolute must observe the correct military protocols. The blanket stackers were doing an excellent job as sail-monkeys as we tack through the easterly wind but as navigator in this slick crew, I am rather spare. Being stood above the transom holding onto the rear mainstay and talking to the skipper who is helming, it takes the blink of an eye for me to untie the ensign and lower it to horizontal in the manner of a standard bearer, the approved manner of lowering the flag in salute when there is insufficient flagstaff to actually lower the flag in salute. As the U-boat sped off into the distance, my last glimpse was of the captain bollicking one of the crewmen and reminding him to dip their ensign by way of returning the salute. For good measure I threw up a friendly wave. I suspect his return wave might have involved just two fingers. Oh wasn't life fun?

Looking at the pic and the thread, I suspect in my previous post I am referring do a different system of zap numbers.

Under the Post-1982 system, there were no callsigns with numbers greater than 4 or letters greater than hmmm either C or D. (I moved out of a radio-centric role at exactly that time and worked on a very quiet, HF Divisional Logistics Net. Memory suggests that every non-control call-sign had an alpha suffix A - D. But don't quote me, I was out of the loop.) Apart from prefixes that were theoretically daily-changing. It had been determined that because the front-line net structures all varied slightly, it was possible that enemy electronic support units could derive what type of unit was on a net. Especially since pre-1982, prefixes were semi-hard-coded as follows: India: Infantry. Kilo: Infantry alternate. Tango: Armour (tanks and recce). Uniform: Armour alternate. Golf: Artillery (guns: see pic). Whiskey: Artillery alternate. Echo: Engineers. Foxtrot: Engineers alternate. Alpha: Aviation. Bravo: Airborne / Special Forces (what a coincidence that on Op Granby, three SAS patrols took the call signs B10, B20 and B30) and so on. The reason for this ordering is that this was the ordering of answering in a mixed-arms battlegroup or combat team. This was a very strict discipline. If you have played for example Call of Duty or World of Tanks with half a dozen mukkers and all had to shout over one another, you'll know the chaos. On radio, however, strongest signal wins. Only one person can talk at a time and it could lead to an interview without coffee if you interrupted the OC. Brevity was also therefore key. Operators had to learn IKTUGWEFA as an aide to order of answering. This put the combat units first where they logically would be. The reason there were Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Engineers alternatives was because a combat team might include the same unit-internal call sign from two different units, for example a troop of 3RTR Chieftains c/s 24 and a troop of 15/19H Scorpions, also c/s 24. Thus one would be designated by CTHQ as T24, the other as U24. It didn't help that umpires usually took the Uniform prefix, but that's another story. So to unit internal call signs, pre-1982, since your vehicle contains an 8. They were theoretically carved in stone, but ... I'll use armour as an example. First digit indicated the squadrons. Sabre, (ie combat squadrons A, B, C and maybe D) would take the first digit 1 - 4 depending how many were on the orbat (order of battle). 6 indicated Recce. Close Recce squadron of the Armd Recce Regt took callsign 6 so that when detached to their various BGs, the 6 c/s fitted into that BG's net without having to be rejigged. HQ Squadron would take 8 and Command Troop 9. C/s 9 was the CO. 9A would have been 2ic It blurs with age: 91 - 94 comprised I think Ops Officer, Adjutant, Liaison Officer, Regimental Signals Officer. RSM was c/s 95; two rebro Ferrets were 98 and 98A (me ;o) Sabre squadrons: second digit indicated the troop (1 - 4, maybe 5) and a support troop (which were called over my time alone Assault Troop, Guided Weapons Troop and Surveillance Troop) callsign x6. Troop leaders took the troop callsign, eg 21, 22, 23, 24. Troop Sergeant eg 24A Troop Corporal eg 24B Troop Second Corporal (usually a Lance Corporal) 24C Sabre troops usually had three or four vehicles. At any level, 7 was a spare call sign so that when for example with the NI Armd Car/ Armd Recce Regt the squadrons rotated between Omagh and Fermanagh, the Fermanagh squadron HQ took the call sign 7. (Troops continued to use their own squadron call signs.) Within the squadron or company, the 8 suffix was REME. So that the B Sqn Artificer ("Tiffy") was c/s 28. Even though armoured units had huge numbers of radios, the REME Light aid Detachment (LAD) did not. I was never aware of any 28x call signs.* As with the Command element at Regiment / Batallion / BG level, the command element at squadron / company / combat team level involved a 9. Squadron leader was eg 29, 2ic was 29A, Second Captain (a role never filled in peacetime: it allowed for an extra watch keeper in wartime) 29B, SSM 29C, SQMS 29D. It went on. I stand to be corrected. 29E was squadron ambulance, 29F A echelon, 29G B echelon. So to your c/s 38G. I initially read it as 39G and translated it as C Sqn B echelon - which would have been a Land Rover. But 38G? I never had the pleasure of BATUS (in a Recce Regt we could exercise pretty much anywhere: only the close recce troops went to BATUS with the BGs they were attached to). My best guess is that in BATUS where the structure was as full and undeviating-from-norm as possible, 38G was a REME Land Rover. ---ooo0ooo--- Zap codes. not something I was ever intimate with, but ... Despite being able to qualify a callsign by appointment indicator*, it is sometimes necessary to specify an exact single person. Say Lance Corporal Snooks's wife has gone into seriously premature labour and they need to get him off the exercise RIGHT NOW. LCpl Snooks is nominally the troop leader's operator. He might therefore be referred to as Pronto of c/s 24. However, unbeknownst to the control signaller, during the night the commander of 24B was taken ill and medevaced. LCpl Snooks is the troop's designated spare commander, so he's jumped into the troop corporal's wagon and now answers to Sunray of c/s 24B and a spare body, Trooper Grimes out of the back of a Surveillance Troop Spartan has been bumped to Pronto of c/s 24. The last thing Trooper Grimes needs is to be told his wife has been rushed to the MRS while LCpl Snooks revels at finally getting a command for the rest of the exercise, unaware that his wife is on life support and has lost his baby. Worse, in wartime or a big exercise, there is a fatality. Troop leader reports it up the line to Squadron, on to Command Troop who phone camp and send the padre round to tell the wrong wife her husband just died ... The whole purpose of zap codes is to identify exactly one single person absolutely without compromising his personal security (PerSec). It might be random. It might be best it it were alphabetical to make it quicker and easier to look up, but Tpr Adams will still be for example Zap 01 (on whatever zap list he is on) as he progresses through the ranks to half colonel and there will never be a clue as to who he is outside of the zap list. One thing that has long intrigued me. At Bovvy you can see iirc the CO's command tank of Scots DG from one sandpit or another. On the turret side is a list of zap numbers. I have always wondered whether the value of this is worth the breach of PerSec in that every crew member's name is in clear for all to see. ___________________________________________________ * There was also an entire dictionary of Appointment Indicators that might be used in parallel with call signs. It was possible to qualify a call thus: "Hello 24 this is 2 fetch Sunray over." Sunray indicated the senior person at that call sign, ie FHQ wanted to talk to the troop leader, not his operator. If he'd wanted to speak personally to the operator he'd have said: "Hello 24 this is 2 fetch Pronto over." Sunray could be qualified as Sunray minor (the 2ic). Appointment indicators did not replace call signs, they supplemented them. To get REME assistance, it was normal to report for example: "Hello 2 this is 24A I have broken down at Grid 4SAFC (sent in the code of the day: Griddle, Universal Griddle, Mapco, Batco were all current during my time. There was also Slidex but it was a higher level code.) and require BLUEBELL (REME) assistance.' Then leave FHQ to get in touch with the LAD, who weren't as precious about remaining on air at all times as were the sabre troops.

Tank Times fell through my door a couple of days ago. Interesting stuff in there about it.

Pretty sure our Saracen ACVs (no turret, Paderborn 1977 - 79) had the same smoke dischargers as our rebro Ferrets, Mark 1 as described. Our Saracen APC, (Omagh 1976) only ever seen in the dark, never saw the smoke dischargers.

Scroll down the bottom. There is a button marked Selected Messages (n) where n is the number of messages selected. Click the dropdown arrow and select Delete. Job's a good 'n.

During the Cold War, to a recce regt mines were a theoretical risk only. Must have been 1981-2 it was decided we'd have a day's mine training. This artefact reminds me of an attachment to an anti-personnel mine to render it detectable. Remove it and no amount of mine-sweeping will find it unless you get down and dirty with a bayonet. Geneva Convention demanded it be present: I don't recall the USSR ever signed it.

Tip. Don't ever let them hear you refer to RSDG. Royal Scots Dragoon Guards may well be the regiment's full name, but the short name is Scots DG and like every regiment, they get upset if you get it wrong.