AlienFTM

Because it just takes one person out of thousands to fall for it and they make a mint. Even the most attentive person can take his eye off the ball for a split second and click the wrong link - I did last month, and I am a staff software engineer in the IT department of one of the world's corporations. I saw an internal ad for a particular Mazda belonging to a friend, couldn't picture what it looked like, googled, saw a decent thumbnail, clicked to enlarge. "You need to update Flash." I have seen this message so many times recently that I clicked update and continue before my brain could register that the update was signed by "unknown" and not "Adobe" and bang, a non-damaging (as it happens) but impossible-to-work-making virus was in. You're doing a grand job keeping them out: keep it up.

Maybe the OP is from Norfolk? Gimme six. ;o)

And plenty of SLR variants had bipods fitted as standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_FAL

Whilst reading up on the right arm of the free world ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_FAL ) under Australia I found references to two different "short" versions of the SLR: Edit: my bold. If yer a pussy.

Between the mike and the earpiece is a raised housing. This contained a connector for an NBC mike. The helmet was designed to be worn over an S6 respirator. Plug an NBC mike into the earpiece, clamp the NBC mike onto the exhaust port on the front of the respirator and you could work the radio in NBC red conditions. Otherwise, talking through the boom mike (or a Larkspur hand-held mike) was as much use as talking with hand over mouth and nostrils pinched. NBC mikes were as common as rocking-horse droppings. The plastic adapter that attached it to the S6 was non-existent. As regimental signals storeman, one once nearly crossed my path. I say nearly, because it didn't get to the other side: it went straight in my pocket. I never had a problem talking on air whilst at NBC red.

Istr the early helmets were fibreglass. When I reroled in 1982, some bright spark had decided that the helmets would work better with chinstraps. Istr there were blanked holes under the ears to allow the attachment of three-point chinstraps, which were being delivered to regiments about that time.

The one with the built-in earpieces was issued to CVR(T) crews from day 1 in the early 70s (because Scorpion / Scimitar, even fitted with Larkspur radios, had a hybrid radio harness) and to all AV crews with Clansman. Note the velcro tabs sticking out of the ears. Pull them tight and stick them down and it allowed you to adjust the pressure of the earpieces on your ears. In theory. In practice, the velcro was worse than useless and the earpieces acted as clamps on the ears, inducing dreadful headaches. Many, many crewmen managed to find fault, any fault with the helmet and return it for repair, to be issued with a HIB or SUH in its stead, which they retained permanently. So many helmets were returned to me for repair that, instead of relying on the modular push-fit radio loom connections inside the helmet, I soldered them together. Losing battle. No idea when the non-integral-earpiece helmets replaced them.

Yer absolutely right mate. For information I am using Firefox v3.6.8

Then it must have been at one of the shows on the days either side. Aren't there about four consecutive air show days along the south coast?

Yes, I saw it on a local TV report. Don't ask me what day it was, though: I have been on my back with flu ("if it gets worse, it's pneumonia: tell reception I want to see you and don't take no for an answer"). Two weeks of my life are missing.

How strange. When he and I crewed Zero Bravo, he had an SMG that I used to AABB at sunset daily. I guess over time he managed to acquire a 9 milly that saved him from having to take out an SMG. Funny how things change in even a short time. I spoke to him again at JC's funeral a couple of months ago. Still doing fine, though he is obviously older than we are and carries not an ounce of fat. Races horses. I doubt he's ever beaten one though.

You might ask here: http://www.arrse.co.uk/rac/ There are enough tankies hang around there, that I am quite certain you will meet old mukkers, and even if nobody can provide you a photo per se, they'll give you loads and loads of leads and besides, you'll have found your old mukkers. Just expect there to be plenty of banter between the chav cav and the donkey wallopers. And between the 9/12L and everybody else. You won't be disappointed.

Indeed, to quote your friend wiki, Only when you start specifying more finely is there any difference between that described by the French name and that by the British, by which point there are specific differences by definition.

Really? Did standards drop that far that quickly after I left? Having been RMP before 15/19H, I had been trained on the 9 milly as alternative personal weapon and it was a joke. Anyone who trained at RMPTC from 1976 may have seen me (mercifully without face to camera) on film stripping and assembling. Then having left 15/19H for RAPC in 1982, by 1984 I was shooting 9 milly (along with SLR and SMG) for the RAPC at Corpsam every year. I am sure if I walk about three paces to my half-right and check the back of the china cabinet I'll find at least one pistol award (I know there are SLR, SMG and LMG awards from down the years). Back on-topic. In 14 years I never carried as small arm in addition to a personal weapon. During the Omagh tour I only felt the need to set foot out of camp once. I didn't sign out a 9 milly and I don't remember Jock McK, who accompanied me, signing one out either. I do recall this was in the aftermath of a lad finding that his wife (who hadn't travelled on the accompanied tour) was being seen by a civvy, so he managed to steal the CO's 9 milly and go on an assassination mission back in rural Northumberland. It made the news just before I joined and I suspect his death (having turned the gun on himself) was partly the reason I was posted to 4 Tp. That and Archie B being medevacced and posted to Netley psychiatric hospital because his symptoms sounded like trench foot except that is wasn't supposed to hurt and they felt it was psychosomatic. Note that the lad (not sure of his name and internet searches down the years have consistently drawn a blank) stole the CO's 9 milly (not his own, which in the circumstances wouldn't have been so difficult to sign out openly if he had one), because the establishment of the NI RAC Regiment did not require 9 millies for everyone any more than any other RAC regiment's establishment did. Outside of combat zones, the issue of small arms to regular units was extremely limited. In the RAC, all ranks up to and including major were issued with SMG (I cleaned the squadron leader's often enough when I was his driver). That left the CO (and I suspect the 2IC, a senior major). Certainly the adjutant and the RSO both carried SMGs, and they were just as staff as the CO and 2IC.

According to the RAOC, the Cyprus Armoured Car Squadron weren't using Saladin in 1985. Bazz, who will no doubt be along shortly to correct my errata, once told me a lovely story about our squadron's return to Cyprus (after I had moved on). A Saladin broke down and a part indent was sent through the supply chain. It came back, unfulfilled, because depot knew that Saladin had been withdrawn from service, so no, you cannot have the part. Eventually they had to take a picture of the vehicle in question with a visibly-dated newspaper and forward this in support of the part indent. Well it makes me laugh.

Clearly you were there post-war. Did you ever see a cairn by the roadside on the no-stopping zone between north and south where it cut the main Nicosia - Larnaca drag, topped by three blue helmets. On our first journey down that road in September 1976 I was told that it commemorated three Australian Civilian Policemen (AustCivPol), based in Nicosia, whose green UN jeep was napalmed by Turkish jets during the recent war, believing them to be Cypriots. From that day forward, all UN vehicles have been painted gloss white to prevent a repeat. It's interesting that the official UN document (somebody from here has posted a link previously) states that the three casualties were from the Austrian Contingent (AusCon) who were centred on Larnaca during our tour. I cannot argue with the official UN statement, but I also remember what I was told on our Int briefing on day 1. Take your pick.

I don't see why a hit from a 76mm HESH round shouldn't kill a T55 or T62. I wouldn't like to say whether it could take out a T64 or a T72 and once more modern armour appeared, I doubt it. To my mind the biggest problem is getting a hit. At 533M/S, a HESH round would take three seconds to fly a mile, so hitting a moving target (that wasn't on rails and travelling in a straight line, unlike movers on the ranges) would be a lot harder than using a 30mm (wiki says some twice the muzzle velocity) or a 120mm (memory suggests a muzzle velocity on an L11 fitted to Chieftain and CR1 of 3200M/S: by the time the commander's brain has serviced the gunner's cry of "FIRING NOW!", braced for the recoil as he presses the trigger on the W of NOW to avoid his nose meeting the commander's sight coming the other way, blinked and refocused through the dust and smoke of the round leaving the barrel causing sight rash, the round has gone clean through the target literally faster than the blink of an eye and the fuel and ammo have barbecued the crew, now chasing the turret downrange). Of more interest is that crews on the ground in Helmand would love a vehicle that could keep up better than a CR2 - if we had any in theatre - and lob a medium-sized (say about 75mm) high explosive round into a compound where it would do far more damage than a 30mm, and far more immediately than waiting for a fire mission from the artillery some mile behind the lines or an airstrike if they can get the authorisation. Scorpion gunnery was almost an art rather than a science, real gunnery and none of this computerised point-and-click nonsense. Edit Scorpion didn't carry a designation CVR(T) FS for fire support for nothing.

As Storch is in German.

I am fairly sure 16/5L were 1 Armd Div Armd Recce Regt and that one of their Scorpions claimed a T55 destroyed, which may have been Scorpion's first, maybe even only combat kill.

No but I just read his wiki entry and it does make for an interesting read. Cheers

I think the armoured regiment had a troop FV438 Swingfire ATGM launchers. In the armoured recce regt, we had Mark 5 Ferrets, later Striker CVR(T) (but by then it was an RA asset attached to the battle group).

It is also possible to rebroadcast tactically as well as technically (as described above). Battle group HQ might be particularly interested in what one of its combat teams was doing and the CO might request the combat team's FHQ to "rebroadcast your net". This would allow the CO to have direct control if he felt it necessary. It didn't happen, because the combat team commander was in command, but the appearance of the colonel's voice on the net did tend to focus the minds of the sabre troops. Also, if a net was detected by the enemy (and they had a a lot of assets to do just that), apart from gleaning information (which is why so much traffic was in one code or another), they might decide to jam it, by broadcasting noise over the top, affecting comms and inhibiting the net. If jamming occurred, the net might try to work through it if possible, or HQ would issue a nickname (like a codeword but less so) to change to an alternate frequency. If this happened, it was good practice to quietly rebroadcast the new frequency over the old frequency after all stations had been advised that this was an automatic rebroadcast net, which in this instance would imply to operators that they ought to continue using difficult working procedures. The enemy would periodically stop broadcasting the jamming in order to listen in and see how effective the jamming was. If they heard stations apparently struggling to communicate, they might continue to waste resources trying to jam a now-redundant net.

Same at battle group level, except that the recce battle group was as sharp as the armd div got, so that the advance-backwards movement of the step-up had to be extremely well-timed so that main could step back before being overrun. We didn't have vehicles designated as main or step-up per se: we had two primary Saracens (later Sultans), Zero Alpha and Zero Bravo and an Int/NBC ACV, Zero Charlie. Usually, it was Alpha and Charlie that stepped back, taking the CO and half of the staff, including one of the rebro Ferrets with it, leaving either the 2IC or the Adjutant running the battle group from the back of Bravo right until the sabre troops were coming through the village and the crew of Bravo bombed out in extreme haste taking the 2IC's rover and the second rebro Ferret. It was theoretically possible if the step back was going to be tight, to move the whole location and just leave one rebro Ferret behind to rebroadcast the battle group command net to the medium recce FHQs to ensure comms were never lost between RHQ and FHQ. A single Ferret was very easy to bomb out in a hurry and a significantly smaller asset to risk losing. We discussed it, but we never did it. The RSM would have recced the new location in advance and would control the establishment of the new location. If it was a big step back, one or other of the rebro Ferrets might in theory be called upon to set up somewhere appropriate and do some work, but I never saw that happen. I always found this bomb-out moment rather adrenalin-enhanced, though never as much so as being sat in a turret.

In 1977? That was during the days of the Task Force, 3 Armd Div comprising TF Echo and TF Foxtrot and divisional troops, joining the Orbat on 1 Jan 78. When they reverted to brigades at the end of 1980 (after Ex Spearpoint) TF Echo became 33 Armd Bde, probably on 1 Jan 81. Cannot remember what TF Foxtrot had been / became. Google suggests it was probably 6 Armd Bde: http://british-army-units1945on.co.uk/RoyalSigsSqns200_209.aspx

Not exactly on topic but I have to mention it. If you read Wing Leader by Johnny Johnson, he describes one of his flight commanders, Cocky Dundas as having come from the volunteer reserve and he always wore non-matching shoulder titles and IIRC he was always taking flak for it. IMHO it's that sort of snippet that makes uniforms interesting.