AlienFTM

IIRC Mr Bean then rescues the number plates from his Mini, swaps them with an identical Mini in the car park and drives off.

Our armour had to fire on the ranges, where the same flags had a completely different use. As a result, I am sure some vehicles had flag sockets locally manufactured. I do remember The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett, the pictures of Chieftains firing, allegedly at 3 Shock Army, all showed red flags flying (to indicate that the tank, on the ranges, was at Action). On the ranges, the Scorpion gunner's immediate action when the commander called Action was to check internal and external stowage on his side was not going the jam the traverse, check the turret systems master switch was on to power the electrical firing system (otherwise it would be foot pedal backup systems), then put eyes to the sight to look for targets. The commander had a lot more to do. First of all, change the flag from Green (guns clear) to Red (action). I often wondered how many commanders, first time they went to action for real, at least thought of changing the flag out of habit. If there was a misfire (of the main armament), the yellow flag was flown. As part of the misfire drill, there was a pause. Somebody who did Scorpion gunnery less in the past than I did will tell you whether the wait was 15 minutes or not. Istr that a stoppage (of the coaxial GPMG RG) demanded the flying of a yellow flag along with one of the others, but I forget which. I also str the wait was rather less: maybe 30 seconds? In convoy Istr we flew the flags from the offside antenna.

I must admit that spoked wheels were in vogue on sports cars in the 1970s ...

The Wartime Christmas Festival & Craft Fayre will be held at Bovington on Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th December. As it's Christmas, all admissions will be half price. Also of note is that ‘Holidays 4 Heroes’ will have a stall there selling t-shirts, branded goods, beaded jewellery and other stuff suitable for Christmas Presents and Stocking Fillers. Other charitable causes, plus a few traders will also have stalls, and there’s always plenty of advance publicity locally. The Army Rumour Service has a Book Reviews section which sees publishers sending new books out to Arrse members for review. We the book reviewers all seem to have accumulated a vast array of books over the last year or two through this method, each read only once. (The books are not all military-themed.) We propose to sell these ‘once-read’ books, some of them signed by the author, through the Hols4Heroes stall. Better than that, you can actually read warts-and-all real-world reviews of the books here: http://www.arrse.co.uk/content/section/251-book-reviews_1.html I am sure the Tank Museum will give more details of the whole event as the time draws nearer.

If you end up with used, put them on the inside and new on the outside. Nobody will know ... except me obviously. Whenever I go to Bovvy and see the SP Scorpion, I wish they'd do the same, swap half the prototype holy wheels with the service wheels on another CVR(T) and put the service wheels on the outside of both. Scorpion with prototype road wheels just looks so wrong.

Do what the crews did and remove all interior paint so that it didn't spall when the vehicle was hit.

The preferred training manuals in my day were by Commando Comics.

Some sort of cushioning / protection to save a gas bag from damaging itself on something sharp on the roof? Maybe the gas bag was removed when petrol became available but the "lagging" didn't get removed?

We used to park three Sultans (previously three Saracen ACVs) about an inch apart in the hangar so we could walk across the tops and couldn't if we wanted to twist an ankle between them. Tracks are actually a lot easier to manouevre than wheels. We'd load the Saracens onto flats for the train to take them to the exercise area along with the Scorpions, Scimitars, etc (Ferrets sometimes drove, sometimes trained). We drove them on. It was a bitch to reverse them off (usually - sometimes we could drive them off too) because the slightest variation of the steered wheels from straight instantly had the vehicle hanging over the side of a flat car that it only just fitted on anyway. When driving off, the Sarry went where the front wheels pointed: when reversing off, it instantly turned to cuds. With tracks, by default it goes straight until you steer it.

Both sets of pictures are exactly what we used in my day, though where the pamphlet says "smartly to attention" ... well that isn't the cavalry way when on vehicles. "Smartly to attention" is strictly for the drill square. One thing that we always used (not mentioned). When reversing a wheeled vehicle, the straight arm out to the side to indicate "turn the wheel this way" was okay for gentle wheel turning, but when the commander wanted the driver to turn the wheel hard over, we tended to spin the index finger or the fist (taking most of the arm with it) in the physical direction he wanted the wheel to go. Commander turns his hand anti-clockwise, the driver, facing the opposite way, instinctively follows the motion and turns the wheel clockwise, front wheels go left, vehicle turns to vehicle right. Summer of 1977, the Squadron Leader organised a day out for me. USAF were trialling YC14 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YC-14 ) and YC15 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_YC-15 ) at nearby RAF Boscombe Down. Fifth Troop Leader took a composite troop of a slack handful of various CVRs, Ferrets, Saracens, etc from Tidworth and we spent the day loading and unloading vehicles. ISTR these aeroplanes could carry something like 200 tons of evenly-loaded freight and they just wanted to see how it went loading A vehicles. I have to say the US system of hand signals was completely alien to us and we spent a lot of time trying to get our heads around their hand signals. They could, it was claimed, take off fully laden with next to no runway and land fully laden on a football pitch. We were more impressed by the planes' performance than by the loadies' hand signals.

I once saw something very similar in a series called Megafactories that just goes round and round.

Instantly identified as 4RTR.

I went to a Light Dragoons Regimental Association weekend a few years ago. I walked down a line of vehicles and soaked it all up. I didn't even register that Scorpion had been out of the line for over a decade until I realised it was clean and loved and civilian owned (02FD21: coincidentally if you buy an Airfix Scorpion, its VRN is 02FD21). All the Scimitars, Sultans, Panthers, Jackals, etc had been cleaned but still had a certain in-service grubbiness about them.

Remember, for authenticity it only needs to contain Scissors and Eyebath (something like a small eggcup). Because everything else in the First Aid Kit was consumable, they got consumed, but somehow it always proved impossible to replace them. Because scissors and eyebath were not consumable, when the troop sergeant did a CES check, he'd call for the "Kit, First Aid, AFV, Small" and with barely a pause, he and the equipment owner would simultaneously call "Scissors and Eyebath" as the latter held the kit and the two ancillaries aloft to indicate they were present. Often as not, the scissors would be any old pair of scissors, not the surgical scissors provided.

About 1995 my radiator blew on the M5. Called out the AA who agreed to tow me to the next services where they could replace the radiator. I waved my manual (no pun intended: see what's coming) which said to tow the car with the automatic gearbox in neutral but at speeds not to exceed 30mph. The AA man countered, "My orders are not to travel below 40mph." I trusted him and all was well with my automatic gearbox. Dunno where he / they got the 40mph rule from though.

Hear hear.

Not so long ago I recounted the route out of Nicosia airport toward Britcon West where there was a dead, burnt out Land Rover and we drove our Ferrets around three sides of an orchard (which we assumed to be mined: the Turks laid a lot of mines at the furthest extent of their advance) to get to the road. This picture is extremely reminiscent (apart from being a Ferret obviously).

.. and I was commanding a Mark 1 Ferret, 33BA81, with perspex commander's and driver's plates. (Not a Mark 1/1). Umpire Ferret with white crosses alles uber the Platz. I didn't usually carry my callsign, 98A, but since we were umpires, I seem to recall having 4H6, my callsign on the umpire net, stuck somewhere on the vehicle. Command Troop 15/19H umpired HQ Task Force Hotel. Mine was the sixth vehicle in the troop, hence 4H6. An entirely one-off callsign. I did get photographed by a French magazine, but I never saw the pic. As I recall, I was in the middle of open land. A British LO pulled up, asked if the Frenchman (who was with him) might photograph me, click, done, on the way.

First half of my UNFICYP tour I drove 01EC28 until it replaced. About 1978-9 I went to see a flim at the SKC (now SSVC) cinema in Barker Barracks, Paderborn. I really wish I could remember the film's name. It starts with a bunch of people being dragged off to a nuclear bunker and left to run a world in crisis. Part way through, a Ferret appeared on screen: 01EC28. I can't now even remember whether it was in UN white or not. I struggled not to stand, cheer wildly and embarrass myself: instead I just nudged my mukkers and told them.

No. My driver and I found it "discarded" in a German farmyard. It might noy even have been six feet long: didn't need to be. Any offcut of a dead stepladder would be more than adequate.

Interesting question. I fully approve of your desire not to desecrate the vehicle. However, if I'd served on 432s and I'd been offered a set of non-slip sets up the glacis plate, I'd have jumped (if you'll pardon the pun). This is man who in the prime of his life liberated a six foot ladder to sit in the basket of his four foot nine inch high Mark 1 Ferret to save climbing up.

... and makes it possible for the Squadron Leader to walk into the back of the command vehicle, pick up a handset and switch it to Battlegroup Command Net while the operator is in the throes of bollicking the squadron for slack VP drills, earning a rebuke for the operator from the Regimental Signals Sergeant and a killer look for the Squadron Leader who shame-facedly tries to sneak off. To almost quote Max Bygraves (and numerous others who also covered Deck of Cards): And friends, this is a true story. I know, I was that operator.

Should have told that to the 15/19H. We did whatever we could to our vehicles to improve crew comfort etc, usually carried out by the LAD. Only rule was that anything that was in direct violation of any order, we made it reversible so that it was removed before PRE. As long as welding etc on CVR(T)s was carried out by appropriately-trained REME, anything went. About the only thing I can remember being permanent was the XPM cage mounts on Ferret rear engine decks. We had XPM cages on Sultans, but they were designed to attach using existing holes.

Float screens came off our Scorpions about 1980. The bottom left-hand picture on this page, http://m136.de/spearpoint-80-gallerie shows an A Sqn 15/19H umpire Scimitar on Spearpoint in September 1980 without float screen. We got new Sultans in 1979 with float screens still fitted. I suspect the whole of BAOR removed float screens at the same time when they finally realised there wasn't a river we'd need to swim in anger that we could actually get the wagons into without swamping.

I have to admit that thinking about it I don't remember the markings in Command Troop, and in Cyprus the Ferrets were white, so I must be remembering Northern Ireland.