AlienFTM

I am fairly sure I first saw it at the start of 85 (being worn by a QM's clothing storeman). I have just had a look in the label and I can confirm that it does not give either date. I'd suspect it is 84 pattern because it was when it was designed but universally known as 85 pattern cos that's when it appeared in the QM's Clothing Store.

All they needed now was the kitchen sink to throw at the enemy.

Image 6 of 37 shows an umpire Scorpion (second in the section in background) of C Sqn 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars. Note the C Sqn tac sign (circle) partly visible under the near vehicle's mudguard and on the side of the second vehicle's turret on the edge of the photo. Had I not seen the tac signs, I'd have said that sat on the turret browsing map (a dangerous thing for an officer) could be the officer who was my troop leader and vehicle commander the following year, but that was B Sqn, so obviously it wasn't. ISTR that "H" (younger brother of OC C Sqn) didn't finish Sandhurst and his Troop Leader's course until 1981 anyway.

I have just been at looked at a map of the exercise (see image 36 of 37). I'd never realised before how close to Braunschweig (Brunswick) and the Inner German border the exercise took place. I had been aware that it covered the main 1 (Br) Corps area, but on the day I wasn't bothered. 3 Armd Div's GDP area was further south and we were isolated from the rest of the corps. In our day 16/5 Lancers were based at Wolfenbüttel, just south of Braunschweig. If you look at a modern map, you'll see a line which I believe denote the Land boundary between Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony in the former West Germany) and Sachsen (Saxony in the former East Germany). I'd put Wolfenbüttel maybe15 miles from the IGB. Within the RAC, 16/5L, like the Berlin Garrison, were seen as much as a tripwire as a credible defensive force, famously described as The First Speed Bump on 3 Shock Army's Road to the Channel. I remember the combat life span of 16/5L being predicted at 20 minutes after the Commies crossed the IGB. Looking at the map we see Orange Forces' start line on the FTX running through Braunschweig. This would constitute Blue Forces' FLOT (Forward Leading-edge of Own Troops). The area between the FLOT and the FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle area) would be occupied by the 1 and 2 Armd Div recce screens, comprising four squadrons of Scorpions along with engineers blowing primary demolitions as soon as hostilites became inevitable and preparing reserve demolitions ready to be blown as the recce screen withdrew in contact, encouraging Orange Forces along our choice of axis. Phase 1, the aggressive delaying battle, will have taken place as the Orange Forces reached the FEBA and the main defensive positions manned by the armoured and mechanised battlegroups of 1 and 2 Divs' four task forces, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. During Phase 2, Blue Forces fought a fighting withdrawl in contact, drawing Orange into the killing zone at Goodwood. I'd be prepared to bet that most of 1 Corps' artillery had fire missions ready to fire on Goodwood. The road west out of Hannover, marking the northern boundary of the killing zone was along a ridge. Orange Forces were sucked up the hill and effectively destroyed ready for the 4 Armd Div (Task Force Golf and Hotel) counterattack. That's how I remember it. Anyone from 1, 2 or 4 Div care to correct me, I'll not cry.

I have been back to the Crusader Gallery at http://m136.de/spearpoint-80-gallerie If you look at picture 33 of 37 on this page you'll see an umpire Scimitar (white cross on the side, white flag on the antenna). 3 Armd Div provided all umpire assets for this exercise. 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars were 3 Armd Div Recce Regt. This is therefore most definitely a 15/19H Scimitar. Note the A Sqn tac sign under the driver's side headlight and under the smoke dischargers. A Sqn was 15/19H's Close Recce Sqn with Scimitars, whereas the two Medium Recce Sqns had Scorpion. I have the name of the commander (in the commander's seat) on the tip of my tongue. He was a subaltern in B Sqn before we went to Paderborn, where he was promoted Captain and troop leader in A Sqn (the divisional Close Recce Sqn). Close Recce Troops comprised eight Scimitars, making them half the size of a Medium Recce Sqn and therefore a big command for a lieutenant, hence A Sqn troop leaders were captains or lieutenants due for promotion. The driver (sat on the mantlet) looks remarkably like one of my drinking buddies and a fellow member of the Uncle Tom's Cabin pub football team. I still keep in touch with his sister (she and I support Sunderland AFC: he went to the Dark side during the Keegan era). I could give you his name but as an ex-member of the Armed Forces I am conscious of his PerSec. Besides it is possible I am wrong. I always associated him with C Sqn (even though apparently he joined the regiment during B Sqn's UNFICYP tour in 76-77, but our paths never crossed). That doesn't mean he didn't get transferred to A Sqn: it comprised 5/9ths of the regiment's recce vehicles. Come to think of it, an appropriate ratio, since the regiment was occasionally referred to as The Five and Nines. Bazz, do you recognise the officer?

I agree. the man extreme right looks like a man who was convicted decades later on the evidence of another iconic photo from the uprising.

As a concise reference, that ties in with just about everything I have read. I commend it.

I've seen the Crusader films before on http://m136.de/'>http://m136.de/'>http://m136.de/ but nothing relates to me. None of the other videos in this thread covers an exercise I was on. Over the months I have worked through the http://m136.de/ records trying to find anything of me but without joy.

Sounds like a cavalry officer to me.

Three after my Rebro Ferret in 1980, 33BA81. And yet 33BA81 was a Mark 1 where 33BA84 (clearly in the previous pic) is a Mark 2. Presumably when Ferret 2 was generally replaced by CVR(T), many of the surplus were converted to Mark 1 to make them useful again.

http://m136.de/ More pictures than you could hope for in a lifetime. Whenever I get a chance I look for a picture of me or somebody I knew but I have only scratched the surface. I do remember being asked by my CO if I'd let a French newspaper crew photograph myself and my Rebro Ferret on Spearpoint 80. Being a mere Lance Corporal, it was quite an honour to be asked by the CO rather than told. Never did find a copy of that pic. Don't even know what newspaper it was.

I could be wrong but I thought all Clansman sets had IC connectors. I am sure we had the capability to park the Scorpion on the reverse slope, run Don 10 over the top of the hill and put the OP on the forward slope communicating via remote handset, and we had twin 353s at the time. IC itself was a function of the Clansman harness rather than the sets, Shirley? Then after I packed it in they replaced one of the 353s with a manpack (351/2) and if necessary I assume we could rebroadcast the manpack onto the Combat Team Command Net via the two sets in the other vehicle.

UIN is Unit Imprest Number. This number indicated the number of the Imprest Account Most apposite definition I can can find online is from Webster's: http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Imprest?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Imprest&sa=Search#922 Imprest fund Military (DOD) A cash fund of a fixed amount established through an advance of funds, without appropriation change, to an authorized imprest fund cashier to effect immediate cash payments of relatively small amounts for authorized purchases of supplies and nonpersonal services. Every unit has (I am writing from 1970s - 1980s experience, which is appropriate to this thread but may not remain current - for example the Unit Pay Office has gone) an Imprest Account which the Unit Pay Office use to handle routine cash transactions such as Aquittance Roll payments for soldiers who get paid cash in hand; petrol coupons (when we got our petrol duty free in BAOR by buying petrol in 10-litre multiples using coupons bought from the Pay Office); etc. The Unit Imprest Number uniquely identified each unit. UINs beginning and ending AnnnnA were permanent units (the A suffix) in the Army (the A prefix). For example, 15th/19th The Kings Royal Hussars were, if memory serves after 30 years A0124A. I have a funny feeling that when squadrons were detached for example to UNFICYP in Nicosia, the suffix changed because this was not a permanent unit. But I was a simple Ferret driver in those days and all I cared about on my pay statement was how many beer tokens went into the bank. If you go back and recheck your document, I'd expect to find that 9/12L's UIN would be just a couple of digits before 15/19H, since UINs tended to group logically by arm or corps. 12 Armoured Workshop REME was A1112A. I think 7 Armd Wksp was A1107A. The term is often, nay invariably, defined as Unit Identity Number and in fact common usage has probably by now made this the official definition in the same way that DPM is officially Disruptive Pattern Material, even though DPM as most of us know it is actually a dispersed pattern material.

On Crusader / Spearpoint 80 there weren't enough Clansman channels to go round! And Clansman was the panacea for all communication problems. Mind to be fair we were only using half the freqs because not everyone had Clansman so we had to be careful to match channels. ISTR we were also using an unusual modulation method to achieve compatibility, but obviously it's over 30 years ago now.

ISTR in Ice Cold in Alex, the German patrols are swanning around in M3 halftracks. As for Burton and Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare, what most grates on me (see pic in thread), is the 1970s (1960s? I was a lot younger then) haircuts. Has anyone ever looked at what passed for the norm under a Stahlhelm?

Many many years ago I read that before my time it was normal in BAOR to repaint armoured vehicles gloss deep bronze green after the exercise season and before any parades, then repaint them olive / black before the next exercise season. But I read that before I joined up in 1975, so don't ask me where I read it.

Have you not been watching WWII in colour and HD on Discovery the last couple of weeks? Somebody has taken a lot of time colouring in old B&W archive footage and it looks like The World At War for colour TV. Thoroughly enjoying.

I understood that Airfix were bringing out a set of WW2 Italian Infantry in 1/76. Contents: 2 wounded; 46 surrendering. Oh yes, the old ones are still the oldest. Sorry.

If I wanted something unique, I'd love to find a StuG IV. A have a Tamiya kit somewhere if I could be bothered. Saw a programme a year or two back which claimed that the StuG III was the commonest armoured vehicle of the Second World War and so successful that when the factory was bombed out mid-war, they diverted some of the PzKpfw IV hull production to continue to produce StuGs while they rebuilt the StuG III factory.

NBC pack made a world of difference on a hot West German summer's day. It also has squaddies and civvies alike staring at the only people in full noddy kit as Swanny (my driver, sadly RIP courtesy of a sniper in Iraq a few years ago) and I had been lent the only Spartan on the exercise cos his Scorpion had died and being only a week from Scorpoling, it wasn't considered worth repairing so we borrowed a Surveillance Troop spartan. Besides, since Chalky had been medevaced, we were only a 2-man crew anyway. Cool air forced into the face, beautiful. CVR(T) ... ALL mod cons. Mmm yes.

Well here's a coincidence. Pointed by the Army Rumour Service at a German website I have bookmarked and I am sure I first heard of it through HMVF, I was browsing Ex Red Gauntlet, 1979, our (3 Armd Div) Field Training Exercise of that year. There are 22 pictures available from this link: http://m136.de/red-gauntlet-79-galerie and the photo at the bottom of picture 21 is well worth comparing with the original picture that spawned this thread (though I note that it seems no longer to be available). Sadly because of the way the pictures are accessed, I cannot post a direct link.

I think I still have somewhere an early copy of "One of our submarines" by Lt Cdr E Young, who became the first RNVR officer to command a boat. Having survived a collision and sinking (on a U-class boat, not Ursula after whom the suits were named - tip of my tongue - Umpire - wiki is my friend), he passed his Perisher and in 1943 iirc he took command of a new S-boat under construction, Storm. In peacetime he had worked for Pelican Books. After the war, he wrote his magnum opus and Pelican made it Pelican Book Number 1000. Good book, some good photos and a line drawing of Storm. It would be interesting to compare Storm and Sturgeon. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Submarines-Sword-Military-Classics/dp/1844151069

Basically what he said. Combat units preferred to wear lightweight trousers rather than combat trousers because they tended to be better-fitting without braces and because the cost of replacing damaged combat trousers was far greater than that of replacing lightweights. Lighweights also dried out in minutes after a get-wet river crossing, drying from the heat in the legs, whereas lined combat trousers kept you wet forever. In my regiment, combat trousers were only ever worn on guard duty. Besides, combat jacket and lightweights was more aesthetically pleasing than full combats. Remember, the purpose of cavalry in warfare is to add style and elan to what would otherwise be just an ugly brawl.

15th The King's Hussars (or Light Dragoons depending on the era)* bore the garter bearing the legend Honi soit qui mal y pense ** on their cap badge, carried forward to 15th/19th Hussars. But I wouldn't get too excited. Istr that any "King's" regiment could bear the crown on its badge and any "Royal" regiment, the garter. 15/19H, being 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars bore both. It may have been the other way round. And it wasn't compulsory, so there will be King's (and Queen's) regiments and royal regiments which didn't. Household Cavalry badges also include both the crown and the garter. _____ * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_The_King%27s_Hussars ** Evil on him who evil thinks.

That's a bone of contention in itself. The big wing took forever to form up in the air, whereas scrambling individual squadrons at just the right time had them where they were needed when they were needed and no time wasted. According to Issue 1 of Military Times (who sponsor Arrse, and which copy 1 I reviewed), the results claimed by the big wing are open to debate. Those who decried the big wing were replaced shortly after the battle, leaving its proponents to do as they would. Maybe the big wing was right in the end, but had it alone been employed during the battle, I suspect we'd have lost, because we couldn't have plugged so many holes at the same time.