AlienFTM

Before it was decided to save the whale, squaddies got a suitcase (it had whale-skin "leather" corner reinforcements and got removed from the 1157). Most of those of us of a certain age who served got one issued and it wasn't handed back in during final kit return. Mine is upstairs in the wardrobe essentially unmoved since 1989. ISTR it is marked ADAMSON 850. This was typical. We had a character called Florry. He had done the best part of 20 years and was a Trooper already (he had made Lance-Jack on a number of occasions, usually sympathetically by a new squadron leader, only to get busted because, nice bloke that he was, he had reached the level of his incompetence at Trooper. I can still see how Florry had sat with his suitcase on his lap (picture it for yourself) and written his name and last three in soldier pen as did I (later - learning from Florry's mistake. Wait for it ...). Then when he picked up his suitcase by the handle, it read 118 ENITNEROLF. If you cannot see what happened, close your laptop, stick a sticker on it and open it back up. You'll find yourself naturally just closing the lid and doing it. then when you open the lid, you'll see that everyone else is now reading it upside down.

Sadly I haven't seen this thread before now and looking at the date Bazz posted, I surmise he is away now. You could always pop round the corner into Norfolk and visit the regiment in Swanton Morley marra. Oops too late.

Get on http://www.arrse.co.uk and visit the Old'n'Bold forum. It's all like this.

Then when an infantryman goes off on one about the infantry being most important, remind him that everybody who isn't infantry learned all that stuff in Basic, THEN went and learned a real trade. I'll need a bigger net, this one's a whopper.

Many many years ago I read a book (title long deleted from memory - sorry) about a tank crew who were unmounted in Normandy and issued with a brand spanking new Sherman. Spent their next days chipping all the the nice cleean bright white paint off the inside so that if they were hit, the paint wouldn't flake off and behave like the effects of a HESH round.

4/7DG (4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards) were in Bhurtpore Barracks,Tidworth in the summer of 1976 prior to B Sqn 15/19H (Aliwal Barracks, ditto) deploying to UNFICYP. Upon our return from Cyprus, 3RTR were resident in Bhurtpore Bks and 4/7DG had gone to BAOR. I therefore presume that your Ferret was issued to 4/7DG upon deployment. Being an armoured regiment, it would have been used either as Squadron or Regimental Sergeant Major's Ferret (look for a callsign 19C, 29C, 39C or 95) or as a rebroadcast vehicle (callsign 98 or 98A). I cannot after these years remember whether the OrBat of an armoured regiment allowed for a Ferret for D (Support) Sqn SSM (c/s 49C).

"Fine pair of shoulders, lad. Show 'em off, show 'em off."

Funnily enough at Bovvy at the weekend, the Great War room had a lot of barbed wire. When I impaled myself upon it to determine its veracity, it was plastic.

"You'll be lucky, it's this deep." (Well he is obviously trying to keep it clean.)

Somebody asked the unit. See above. Bazz, it's 35 years. I saw 17/21L and thought of Roly T***, 17/21L, on ERE to us and in our troop. Guy on the right reminds me of him. Do you remember him? It would have been a long time: do you think he might have stayed on from their Omagh tour, through 16/5L and 1RTR (IIRC) all the way through? Always possible he went back to Tidworth with 17/21L and then back to Omagh later. Or is it my eyes growing dim? Roly and FA Cup Final Day 1976 will forever remain in my memory. Being ERE, he wasn't going home with us at end of tour, mid-May. In stead, all the EREs bartered for better roles than they'd had. Roly had been driving Ralphy, but got himself a place driving ATO. He crowed that while we were checking culverts on the road between Omagh and Garrison, he'd be curled up in the 10-minute Room watch Man U beat Southampton. We got out early and checked the culverts and sat down in Belcoo RUC station to watch the final. In Omagh, ATO got tasked at 1450 ... Oh how we all larfed.

When I was in Hoagy's Ferret (I think he had gone off CVR(T) driver converting) I still took my SLR.

In July 1977 after Ex Trident in which NATO SF units air-dropped into an Escape and Evasion exercise where 15/19H were the Orange forces, GW Troop stayed behind to fire their Mark 5 Swingfire Ferrets. I was volunteered to stay with them to provide the OC's Land Rover as fetch-and-carry. Day 1, Monday. PRAC Swingfires downrange. Day 2, Tuesday. Arrive at the firing point, find the peat downrange still burning from yesterday's shoot. Not good. "You'll not be firing today until you have put out yesterday's fires." The troop jumped into my FFR and the four-tonner that had brought the ATGMs from the ammo bunker. ATO came with us, commanding my FFR, "just in case". Besides, he had nothing better to do if there was no firing. There was 4000m of command wire in the back of a Swingfire and enough fuel for that journey. After 4000m it would continue on a ballistic path until something gave. It was maybe 8-10Km by road to the far end of the target area. We started beating. There had been a number of shots at (IIRC) an M47. There were several fires smouldering around it. We found a live mortar round in the line of one of the fires. ATO took over. First thing he did was hand me the keys to his rover and sent me back to the FP to ditch mine and bring his, complete with the tools of his trade. One of the GW Troop corporals had worked with ATO on our recent tour of Omagh, so ATO dragged him with him. Taff wasn't exactly happy, especially when ATO calmly picked up the round and carried it to the M47. The commander's hatch was open. ATO climbed in and placed the round on top of the breech, attached enough of PE88 to accommodate a detonator and gave it a 30-second fuze. ATO worked hard to keep Taff walking, not running, from the tank as the fuze counted down. (He had told us what he was doing all the time and we all had prime views and we counted down for them.) I had my Pocket Instamatic out and tried to get a pic, but the shock was sufficient to jerk the camera and the pic was entirely unsatisfactory. But this is what happened in that instant. Bear in mind that everything about this M47 was rusted solid. The round went off. It depressed the breech. It slammed the barrel to full elevation, then slammed back down and up again. The gunner's hatch (closed) flew open, slammed against its stops and slammed shut again. Except that the explosion was still swelling the turret and the hatch passed clean through inside the hull. A cloud of rust covered about 10m radius from the M47. All in all a pleasant moment. Entirely off-topic. I spent this afternoon in the Tank Museum with nipper. A mate of mine, who spent much of his career in GW Troop, works at Bovy, but he wasn't in today (I did ask). At Tankfest I noticed that the Mark 5 Ferret had acquired a GW Troop 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars sticker. I gave him stick on our Facebook group. Very close to the Mark 5 is a Striker, which replaced the Mark 5 (and according to the info on the FV438 I noticed today, also replaced the 438). Now this particular Striker has been a museum exhibit for years, and it interests me because it bears the markings of J "Sidi Rezegh" Battery, 3RHA, who provided GW support to the 15/19H during the interregnum between ATGW being taken from the RAC (after the above 15/19H shoot in 1977) until its return some time in the late 80s I think. Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I realised my mate had done it again: sticking a 15/19H GW Troop sticker on a GW vehicle. I have the photographic evidence and I'll be having a word with Steve.

I take your point. Earlier posters suggested a resemblance to Chieftain and Kirkudbricht in the 90s. How a range worked in this era will certainly have changed from how it was in D-Day. For one thing, during a hot war, the cost of repairing mover infrastructure is a price to be paid. During a Cold War or the so-called piece we now enjoy, government budgets have to be accounted. I am sure when 15/19H converted from Sherman to Comet in December 1944, no thought was given to using PRAC rounds when all that was available was service rounds. When I discuss a service round, I'll confess to thinking HESH, as it was essentially the only service round we ever saw on Scorpion. There was Shell (HE) but because its effect was only marginally better as shell than HESH but its armour defeating capability was far less, so that a full load of HESH was of more use than any split of HESH and Shell. Likewise AP, AP©, AP(CBC) and most other armour-piercing rounds other than HEAT were all obsolete having been replaced by APDS after the Second World War and I never gave them a thought. Like I said, point taken.

I was working from memory. I do remember that the Americans don't express it exactly the same as we do.

Towed targets ("movers") are used to train gunners to attack moving targets by aiming ahead of the target and traversing the turret to maintain the lead * during the action. They are always canvas on a wood frame so that a PRAC round will pass straight through it and not damage the infrastructure. Service rounds are never used, because they will damage the target or the rails and bring the range session to a halt while the mover is fixed. Movers traditionally trundle left to right and back across the range. It is possible to have movers toward (let's face it, it's the only way we ever expected 3 Shock Army to move), but this exposes the tracks to damage from any rounds corrected for azimuth ("line") regardless within reason of range. Once upon a time, so urban myth would have us, manned heavily uparmoured Cents were used as movers, but over time the risks to crews became too great and it was long out of practice by 1976 when I did my Scorpion gunnery course. It was often suggested that an officer guilty of high spirits in the mess would be nominated to command the mover, and that the New In Green (NIG is in no way racist when used by the army in this sense) trooper would be volunteered to drive it just to wind him up. _____ * Lead (sounds like one of a pair of cities in Yorkshire, not a weight in a Zeppelin) is the amount you point the gun ahead of a moving target. For anyone who has heard the joke from Full Metal Jacket, this is what is being referred to. "How can you machine gun women and children?" "Don't give them as much lead."

Once upon a time I remember learning that sticking /? (I think was the combination) onto the end of a URL causes the browser to think it's new URL different from the one cached awayand go away and reload afresh regardless, assuming the question mark to be a search string then ignoring it. Something like that. Haven't needed to use it in so long I cannot remember anything else about it.

A fighter ace from a Polish squadron came to a girls' school give a talk about his experiences during the Battle of Britain. The head mistress introduced him, then stood back, beside and behind him while he talked. "Zer I voss, alone in ze sky und suddenly I was surrounded by six Fokkers." The girls all tittered. The head interjected. "Girls, a Fokker was a German aeroplane. Stop being silly," and to the guest, "Sorry about that. Please go on." "Yes, vell zese Fokkers were in Messerschmitts."

Don't think so. But I am sure there is a website dedicated to them somewhere.

Don't forget the man who was in recce, learned to see in the dark and has a go at any idiot who cannot see in the dark using just an Eyeball, Mark 1 and shines his torch in his eyes, destroying his night vision.

Or, as I read (probably on ARRSE) Why carry your weapon into battle when you can let your weapon carry you?

Have you ever push-started a Ferret? Doable I'll grant, but not easy.

Ow ow ow. Please, Sarge, why is my hand burning? Ow. I can feel the pain, though separated by 30 years. Oh the joys of being a Control Signaller and not having to get denims dirty. And Troop Leader's operator. "I'll keep the troop on the combat team command net while you lot cam up. With my other hand I'll do you a nice brew up here from the freshly-boiled BV in my nice warm (ish), dry (ish) turret ready for when you have finished tangling yourselves in the dirty, smelly, cold, wet cam nets. Let me know when yer done." ;o)

It was only at his funeral a few years ago I discovered that my uncle had driven a Bofors-towing truck of 25 LAA across three D-Day invasion beaches, into Sicily, Italy and Normany. Such a quiet, unassuming man. So many questions I can never now ask him.

Have you ever tried getting in / out of a Scorpion with the GPMG fitted? I couldn't do it 30 years ago when it was my day job, never mind now.

If you aren't cavalry / RTR who usually (excluding the tanky in the current picture thread) employ the two-way stretch, wearing the badge over the back of the eye socket (which brings it much closer to the ear whilst still technically actually being over the eye) makes them look more warry (or "ally" in latter-day mil-speak), like a para or a marine. Even REMF (PONTI in latter-day mil-speak) squaddies can be walts. Because armoured vehicle crews always wore a headset whilst mounted (prior to Scorpion and that awful bonedome), over a beret it was quickly realised that a two-way stretch, pulling the beret down on both sides with the badge over the nose, made wearing a headset over a beret more comfortable. The "tanky beret" as the two-way stretch was also known, was as much cursed by SSMs as is wearing the badge over the ear. Truth be told. I never personally got on with two-way stretch because it didn't sit as well on the head without a headset and it tended to fly off. So I tended to the other extreme, wearing the badge well over the left eye. After all, being recce there was no accusing me of being a walt. It's all a question of governemnts telling squaddies to be uniform and squaddies pushing back. It's amazing how two blokes can wear the same kit so differently. Entirely off-topic but it just flashed by, read a couple of days ago. SSM bollicking a Sapper on parade. "Sapper Snooks your sideboards are far too long. Who do you think you are? Elvis?" "Uh-huh-huh."