AlienFTM

Last picture caused me an instant sweat but I am sure mine (the latter - I got one fresh out of workshops halfway through the tour) was 01EC28.

I was pretty sure 39 were at Dempsey. When I made the RAPC BAOR shooting team for Corpsaam in 1984, I overnighted with 39 the night before we travelled back courtesy their paymaster who was OC team. But it was so-o-o-o long ago ... I am sure 3RTR Armoured Farmers on Arrse keep banging on about sharing Barker with 25.

Catterick Commando August 1975 - February 1976 mukker. By my calculation I was last reinforcement to join the regiment in Omagh.

I crewed a rebroadcast Ferret in Command Troop 15/19H on and off (mainly on) between 1976 and 1980. The set-up was C42/B47 as you have. In 1980 we got Clansman had had to refit every vehicle in the regiment. The rebro Ferrets, being in a very radio-oriented role, got 2 times UK/VRC 353. 30-odd years later I cannot remember whether the Clansman harness for Ferret came as a full harness kit or a conversion kit. Since Ferret was a pure Larkspur set-up, I'd guess the former. (The CVR(T)s had been built for Clansman but budget restraints meant that they worked with Larkspur until Clansman was issued. Their Larkspur harness was a hybrid to give a degree of the Clansman function CVR(T) was designed for whilst still using Larkspur kit. I am quite sure CVR(T)s were issued a harness conversion kit rather than a full Clansman kit.) What you really want is a full Clansman harness kit for Ferret but somehow I doubt you'll find one. That kit will have contained the diagrams you are looking for.

The 419B shows 25 Fd Regt RA January 1978. It will have been in Paderborn / Sennelager (I cannot now remember whether 25 were in Barker Bks Paderborn - my preferred guess - or nearby Sennelager). I was in Alanbrooke Bks Paderborn with 15/19H at the time.

The pink card shows it as being with 16/5L and 1RTR between 20 April 1972 and 28 May 1974. It will have been stationed at Lisanelly Barracks, Omagh, where 15/19H took over from 1 RTR later in 1974. I joined 15/19H in Omagh early in 1976.

The abbreviation MT is is a military given. Nobody care or needs to know what it stands for. MT is MT. In fourteen years' service I never knew or cared. It was only when I read Warriors Paraded (iirc), an omnibus of the between-wars years works of Anthony Armstrong (one book of which I had read long before joining up) that I found a reference to Mechanical Transport (as opposed to horse-drawn). I sit in the Mechanical Transport camp. Another abbreviation which we used but didn't care about was FHQ. When a cavalry squadron was in camp, its administration was carried out by Squadron Headquarters, but as soon as it went into the field, it became FHQ. Again, nobody knew or cared, but FHQ it was. I always assumed Field or Forward HQ. Coincidentally, Home Headquarters, The Light Dragoons recently digitised all their literature (see http://www.lightdragoons.org.uk/downloads.html ) and I am currently working through The History of 15/19 The King's Royal Hussars 1939 - 1945. It records its orbat in December 1939 as: My bold. Every day is a training day.

No. The Mark 2/3 was the definitive Mark 2 build. Earlier Mark 2s were upgraded to Mark 2/3 and designated Mark 2/4. It would be one or the other, not both.

I holiday in South and West Wales every year. For a couple of years we stayed in Laugharne, just along the coast. Whenever we drove through Pendine, it is quite obviously ex-Army (I think one of the buildings might even be marked NAAFI but it's been a handful of years now.) Artillery is plausible. By the sea at Laugharne of a summer's afternoon, it was usual to hear aircraft, then hear the calico tearing-sound of some sort of chain gun dumping its rounds into the sea.

A few years ago rummaging in an Army Surplus shop in Southampton between West Quay and (a few yards away from) the Bargate, I found some combat jackets marked 1994 pattern, seemingly essentially identical to the 84 pattern I was looking for but in ripstop. Brand new.

Even a staff software engineer with a multinational IT megacorporation can fall prey. I did last month. An e-mail from "Facebook" told me my account had been hacked. Rather than follow the provided link (basic error number 1), I visited http://www.facebook.com which refused to log me in. Seems I had actually been hacked but Facebook knew I wasn't in Minsk and locked it down until I answered my secret question and changed my password. Usual way into your address book is when a website invites you to tell all your friends: "Just tell us your password." How often have you seen this? How often have you blithely entered those details? Ever had friends contacting you right after to tell you about the spam you are shifting? I have a stock e-mail to cut and paste.

Doing sit-ups in an early pair of lightweights could cause the button holding the central belt loop to ride up and down squeezed into the crack of the jacksy and cause great pain after more than a few.

I've since realised that this information is available at the Tank Museum in a display next to the exhibit, which is almost certainly where ...

On the hillside, engine warm, downhill, push-starting was easier than digging the handle out of the bin. In camp, top of ramp, cold engine, to be honest, we'd push started it the previous day: never gave a thought to the handle. Couple of guys from the troop walked out, quick push, wallop.

Are you sure it's a camouflage net???

Some of the most realistic model pics I have seen, thanks.

Hello mate. Quite fancied a gander at the pics, but having found the Ferret blurb on the website and clicked on the camera icon, I get: [h=1]Not Found[/h] The requested URL /standard/ferretkit2.JPG was not found on this server.

Pull up a sandbag. In 1976-7 I was with the UNFICYP Force Reserve Squadron driving Mark 2 Ferrets along the Green Line all day and every day. One of the outstations at which we were based was at Skouriotissa, a mining community in the Danish Contingent's (DANCON) area of responsibility at the extreme western end of the Green Line. From here for two weeks in cycle we patrolled the Green Line eastward halfway to Nicosia and back. One morning we stopped as usual at a Danish OP overlooking the Green Line and the two vehicle commanders talked to the OC OP while the two drivers blagged coffee and browsed Danish porn. Meeting concluded, we drove off. The ground was wet (this was a winter tour), a wheel slipped on the muddy track through the minefield down from the hill and I ran over a large rock which threw 01EC28 about a bit. Big CLUNK but no damage. Continue patrol. Stopped at the next OP, same routine. Meeting concluded, I turned the master switch on and pressed the starter. Zilch, zero, nada, rien, gar nichts. Luckily we were again on a hilltop between the minefields. The other crew gave a gentle push and off we went down the hill and I was able to bump start it without running off-track and into the minefield. We got home okay. We had a REME fitter attached to each troop / outstation. I invited Screech to have a gander. "Hmm. Looks like a knackered starter motor." He got on the phone to Nicosia and the AQMS told him a new starter was on the way and to prep the Ferret for a starter motor change. So there we were grovelling under the Ferret. I got the stater motor access plate off and he set to work undoing the three bolts that held it in place. Having struggled to get the spanner in place (9/16" AF rings a bell), he found it was too long to actually attack any of the bolts. Back on the phone. "Known problem with the Ferret starter motor. Cut your spanner in half." He did so. It took him about six hours to get the three bolts off and work the starter motor round from the bottom off the engine bay, round the engine and out of the top. A new starter motor had arrived from Nicosia. A further six hours reversing the procedure. The sparrow's were lighting up their first fags of the morning and kick-starting their lungs when Screech invited me to start her up. Nothing. Good job this morning it was the other section's (half troop: two scout cars) turn to patrol. Screech got back on the blower. "Get the crew to return to Nicosia and we'll have a proper look in the LAD with all the proper equipment." As it happened, there was a bunfight on in the Officers' Mess that night and Rommel (Troop Leader and my vehicle commander) was down to miss it. Instead, he dressed in his Number 2s and we set off back. "Hold on, hold on," I hear you intervene. "How did you get the Ferret started?" Good question. Luckily the former mine manager's house in the mining complex at Skouriotissa (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skouriotissa) was on a mound raised above the quarry floor (more likely the quarry floor had been lowered below the manager's house). In the 20 or so metres of ramp down to the quarry floor, we were able to push start the Ferret and set off for Nicosia. The UN record time from Skouriotissa to Nicosia had been set at 34 minutes by a lightweight Land Rover driven by a UN-authorised reporter. I did it in 45. Not bad in the dusk, in the wet and with 12 volts going through the 24-volt system. Yes indeed. We got back to Nicosia, Rommel got to the mess do, AQMS had a look at the Ferret and found that when I'd hit that rock, it had dislodged a battery which had shorted against the battery box and discharged. New battery and I was ready to return to Skouriotissa in the morning, the cool, fresh, not in a rush 40mph breeze doing a good job of clearing Rommel's weary hung-over head. Moral of the story? If you are changing the starter motor in a Ferret, go for a pack lift: it's far easier. Shortly thereafter 01EC28 was removed for a full base overhaul and I was issued a new Mark 2/3 to replace it. Trailing digits were 23, but I can no longer remember the new (it was older, but freshly-overhauled; it was soon part of a PRE and declared the fastest Ferret in the squadron by the VM who test drove it) Ferret's full number.

As I recall (but I am probably wrong). GREEN: No NBC threat, NBC kit carried. AMBER: NBC attack possible, kit worn less respirator. RED: NBC attack imminent: full protection. ISTR there was a state BLACK but I cannot remember what it was. Maybe BLACK was what I have called RED and RED was "NBC attack has taken place, working in NBC conditions". I think it was Spearpoint 80 (might have been ET 83) where the troops stayed at NBC Amber for days and days and days in the pouring rain and noddy suits started to disintegrate, so the GOC decreed that although Division (Corps?) were at NBC Amber, noddy suits were not to be worn. Every exercise we spent several days at NBC Amber, purely for the embuggerance factor. Could have been worse: we could have been wearing Soviet gimp suits.

Missed that one. I do believe 1 QLR took over Alanbrooke Barracks from 15/19H and I heard that the Paderborn posting was never the same again: spoilt it for the whole garrison. Every bar placed out of bounds and so on.

A very good friend was a squadron sergeant major in 15/19H, who had been sent to Berlin to cover a Chieftain squadron of 14/20H who had shipped out briefly. The night the wall came down, he organised the removal of a complete section of wall which was then taken back with them to Detmold, where it was mounted near the main gate of Lothian Barracks, 15/19H's home at the time. I often wonder, now that Detmold has been handed back, what happened to that lump of Wall? Probably 1000% of it has been sold off. Amazing how valuable house bricks and concrete can become just by tagging them as Berlin Wall.

Looking at the top hatch shapes and comparing with wiki, I tend to agree BTR-70. First guess was BTR-60 but the hatch shapes are not right.

I was issued one of those in the Durham ACF about 1971.

But then again, the PzKpfw 4 was in production before the war, and stayed in production until the bitter end.

Fair point. I read once, a long time ago (probably 1970s) and the source is long gone, that 20 years' peacetime development can be concluded in six months during wartime.