AlienFTM

I remember watching a news report from the Balkans about 1996. The picture showed a number plate 02FDxx and I sat up quickly bcause I recognised the number as belonging to a Scorpion. Camera pulls back, engine decks, mantlet ... Rarden muzzle?!?!? Having turned to family and IDed the Scorpion from its number plate I was in high esteem until I had to admit I was wrong. I was perplexed because I KNEW that 02FDxx belonged to a Scorpion, but this vehicle had a Rarden 30 milly. And the turret looked like it had been got at by headhunters. Next day a TA ex-cavalryman explained to me that Scorpion had been retired and replaced by the hybrid Sabre. Back to the news. The reporter spoke to a cavalry major and after a few seconds I realised that the Major P****y Light Dragoon being interviewed had been Lt P****y 15/19H when I was a lance corporal in the early 80s. So yes, Light Dragoons had Sabres in the Balkans about 1996.

Not sure I understand exactly what you are saying. Hope this covers it. There was an issued windscreen with wiper which was designed to fit into the driver's hatch opening. It did not seal against rain particularly well as I recall. I am sure in 15/19H we replaced this with a single sheet of Perspex that was "permanently" taped in with black duct tape but stting here reading what I write, I am doubting myself. We certainly did this with the side hatches, which was easier if your particular ferret had square side hatches rather than the angled ones.

Certainly the mount for a Three-Oh on a base Mark 1 sat very high. We never took our Three-Ohs on exercise because they were 60 years old and exposure to the elements would do nothing to increase their longevity. But we did take the Three-Ohs to Hohne Ranges once (along with the mounts - and the FSCs - obviously). I have Range 7 in my head but it was 30 years ago, so what? A couple of troops of Scorpions were lobbing HESH downrange and we were invited to back up a couple of Command Troop FSCs into the space between them on the firing point and have a cabby on the Three-Oh. So there we were in the commander's position looking backward, our stance more reminiscent of Battle of the Bulge than regimental SOPs - we were RIGHT out of the vehicle in order to get a grip on the beast on account of the high gun mount.. Range safety rules are there for a reason. NOBODY goes forward of the gun trunnions (if Scorpion drivers were to sit in on a static shoot, they had to climb in through the turret and clamber into the driver's seat. After all, the GPMG actually made getting into the driver's seat difficult, so there was no question "Am I in front of the trunnions?" - of course you were.)with the FSC pointing backward and space in the commander's position limited, there was nothing to be gained by drivers mounting the vehicle while commanders shot. My cabby came. I was given a couple of belts of .30" and the IG (Instructor, Gunnery) took me through the drills (which was a novelty: we'd had Three-Ohs in the Mark 2s in UNFICYP in case there was trouble, but come the day we needed it, few had actually been Three-Oh trained), showed me the left- and right-of-arc markers, we went to ACTION, changed the green flag to red, he gave me a target and off I went (he couldn't really give me a fire order because it was a one-man job. When a FSC commander decides he's taking on an MG nest full of Commies, he doesn't shout to himself "COAX, TRAVERSE STEADY RIGHT ON 400 MAGGIE IN TREE LINE - 400 ON - LOADED FIRE - FIRING NOW" he just gets on with it. So I was told to engage a target representative of an MQ position, open up at range 400 metres, carry on. Short ranging burst. OOOH there's a kick. Correct. fresh burst: OOOH still a big kick. My mean point of aim was indeed on the MG nest, but the slack in the mount, the vicious recoil and the relatively light weight of a Mark 1 Ferret meant that the group was appalling. At this point the radio squawked and the Range Safety Officer was whinging about somebody firing out of arc. It turned out the firing position and the weapon mounting were so bad for a Three-Oh on a Mark 1 Ferret, that it was basically impossible not to fire out of arc on one side or another. We never bothered taking the Three-Ohs even to Hohne after that.

If you want to look cavalry (or RTR), 1970s. Lightweights. Tailored tight enough not to look baggy and tailored well (ie strong seams because you'll be climbing on and off your Ferret and correctly fitting into the crotch. Oh what a joy to have a very good-looking Hungarian seamstress working for QM of 15/19H who took her tailoring VERY seriously.) Never combat trousers. Prior to the 1985 release, combat trousers had a draggy arrse somewhere round the knees even when wearing braces and waistline someone near the nipples. Once you have paid good money to get your cheap Lightweights tailored, spend a little more to have the creases sewn in (seamstress simply runs the sewing machine down the existing creases - stopping at the trousers or it would cut them in half). It is then possible to iron your lightweights down the main seams and the result is immaculate. Beret shaped "tanky"-style, aka 2-way stretch. The book says that the beret band is level all round and one inch above the eyebrows, with the badge central over the left eye; all the material pulled across over the right ear. Tanky-style says beret band resting on the eyebrows, badge central and the material pulled as evenly as possible to both sides (this is very difficult unless you cut out the beret's lining). Note that unless you have a much bigger beret than you'd normally need, the back of the beret band will go over the crown rather than round the back. It needs to be extremely well-shaped because if the wind gets behind it, it will lift your beret off. Never comes off when you are mounted and wearing a headset ... Don't use a Kangol issue beret. Look for a Compton-Webb. Alternatively buy a beret from Victor's of Aldershot (if he is still going). Significantly too much material in a Kangol and badly-cut. FAR better cut in a Compton-Webb. Victor's is the Rolls Royce, but was a private purchase, not for issue. Never wear a KF shirt. See if you can get an aertex OG shirt (not the same as the later GS shirt). No 2 dress shirt is okay. Must have pockets and epaulettes to be worn on top. These were not issued until about 1980, but NAAFI sold very good imitations (may have been Tootal) which were tolerated by the hierarchy. Depending on your RAC regiment, ALWAYS wear the correct scarf (until about 1980) or polo-neck (thereafter). Never wear webbing on the vehicle. Sling it in the bottom somewhere unless you find somewhere really accessible and suitable to park it (CVR(T) turret crews always slung their webbing over their respective hatches.) May - September ("shirtsleeve order") or representing somewhere warmer than Europe, combat jacket and scarf only up top, sleeves rolled up neatly. Most of all, look smart. Baggy is not cavalry. Cavalry do it with flair and elan.

It just shows how STUPID the police are. SOLDIERS wear combats: terrorists wear NIGHTSHIRTS! I wonder if we can track down the exact day that common sense left the country?

You could ask on the ARRSE RAC Forum. One of the regulars is Benghazi Bandit who was 11H postwar. He'll be able to do something for you.

Any that went to 1RTR will then have belonged to A Sqn 15/19H who took over from 1RTR at Aliwal Bks, Tidworth in May 1976.

I thought it a coincidence that the same question just popped up on the ARRSE RAC Forum. Glad I didn't decide to repeat myself there.

In the late 1970s we expected that when "they" made a move on the IGB, first thing we would do on our CVR(T)s was reverse the tracks (even if they were rubber-shod) to improve grip. Probably early in the Cold War. By my time, we expected that the engineers would deploy ADMs to initiate primary demolitions on bridges in a hurry so that they could concentrate on preparing clean reserve demolitions at their leisure, on bridges and choke points that were to be used by our troops whilst straighening the line during the Soviet advance, then detonated in the face of the lead Soviet battlegroup. Sat on radio stag in the back of Zero Alpha one evening in the company of the RSO, I was so bored that I was reading the Slidex book. (It was a book used to convert radio traffic into a series of bigrams that looked something like: 17 HA WA YT HE LA DS SU ND ER LA ND FC) As well as words there were aconyms. We only ever used sheet 1 when working to our battle group because it was the only sheet everybody had, though we in Command Troop had full sets in case higher formation sent us a Slidex message down. In fact to work with higher formation we always used BID anyway. So there I was bo-o-o-o-ored as bored gets, struggling desperately to stay awake on the dead stag. Then I stumbled across ADM. "Sir, what's an ADM?" Sir hastily put down whatever he was doing, turned to me and said,"Don't EVER use that acronym (or any other nuclear-related actonym) on the air. It's an atomic demolition munition. Every major bridge built in West Germany since the War has been built with an ADM chamber so that we can primary demolish them. If the Commies hear or decode the word ADM or anything nuclear, they may assume we are in the process of escalation and may strike pre-emptively." I often wondered, even though the acronym appeared in the Slidex wallet, whether this was a WAH, until last year when QI featured ADMs and chickens. (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Atomic_demolition_munitions)

During my time on the FLOT (77 - 82), our SOP was to engage the tank with the antenna first.

15/19H took the first NATO battlegroup into Poland after WarPac pulled out (so it must have been some time between 1989 when the wall came down and 1992 when they merged to become Light Dragoons). I am told that my erstwhile colleagues were mortified to discover that entire river systems had been landscaped to exactly match rivers in West Germany so that troops could practise driving through the river that, cometh the day, they would traverse for real. Two other eye-openers left over from the Soviet days were on Exercise Area Standing Orders: Use of nerve agent was only permitted on the exercise area if permission had been applied for 48 hours earlier and approved. No use of persistent nerve agent at any time within 2 kilometers (IIRC) of a village.

We had 77FM51 on our books (B Sqn 15/19H) in 1975 (I drove our OC in it in 1976). Believe me, it was a LOT older than 1976. In facts the words "junk" and "heap" come to mind. Only B Vehicle I ever signed for and boy was I glad to get back on armour.

If you're behind armour, why not go for a drive-by?

Didn't occur to me first time I read this post. 15/19H Omagh posting saw us operating as infantry (off a cavalry OrBat, which made it busy. ISTR Omagh had always been a cavalry posting (it predated the Troubles) but the infantry took it over at the start of the troubles, only to pass it back quickly to the RAC because the infantry were so overstretched. The RAC did the same role off a smaller OrBat. But yes, I too crewed a FSC with an SLR as my personal weapon. Have to say though that the rural role operating out of Omagh meant that we didn't tend to climb in and out every five minutes. Until I read this, I'd never given it a thought.

Triangle is the Tac sign for "A" Squadron (Company, battery etc) Square ditto B Squadron Circle ditto C Squadron Diamond HQ Squadron I assume the D10 is the callsign but the system used post-dates my experience, changing in 1982. Under the current system 10 is perfectly reasonable for an A Sqn (or battery since this is an ACPRA) command vehicle. However the system must have changed again between 1982 and 1991 because what I learned was that the alpha prefix was daily changing. Must have been a bitch re-stencilling the callsign every midnight. It does tie up with Bravo 20, except that Bravo was specifically an arm indicator for airborne forces under the old pre-1982 system, so it would seem to me that SAS felt the need to hang on to their old arm indicator even though it was supposed to have been dropped. Certainly, Delta was not an RA arm indicator under the old system, their primary being Golf (for guns) and their alternate was Whiskey.

As described to us back in the day. Selection for Russian conscripts: Tallest on the left, shortest on the right, in single rank SIZE. From the right NUMBER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 100,000 last man SIR! (So now you have a single line of 100,000 conscripts with the dwarves in the low numbers and the giants in the thousands.) Numbers 1 - 50,000, you are assigned to the infantry. Remainder stand fast. To your duties FALL OUT. Numbers 50,001 - 75,000, you are assigned to armour. Ditto. And so on. At the end of all this, the right people were selected who could fit into a BMP, then those who would fit into a T62. Choice? You wanted choice? Why do you think it's called conscription? So yes, we were told that Russian (and presumably Soviet since they shared the technology) infantry battalions were selected by size.

IMCO the army would have been wise to leave the ACPRAs in the sandpit before ANY other vehicle. Maybe some bright spark recovered this one and brought it back himself?

Every time I see that picture I remember an ex in July 1979 (ex name escapes my memory). We Active Edged out of camp as usual but the sabre troops went off the the ammo dump in Sennelager and bombed up a full load of 76 and 7.62 link before the whole of 3 Armd Div exercised in an eastward direction for a week. Then at the end of the first week we divisional moved back to near Paderborn and exercised west for a week. Wednesday morning I came off radio stag at 0600 and was in such a good mood (already hot and dry and bright) that I cooked the full monty for both Ferret crews before waking them. Ate, set off toward scratcher for some zeds and got intercepted. We were tasked with delivering a noduff message to HQ 16/5L who were IIRC our orange forces for the fortnight. Got back to our own RHQ, got volunteered for another task. Radio stags, moves, etc and it was Thursday, head not having touched the scratcher. Same routine Thursday. Darkness fell. The engineers put in a river crossing, (probably exactly like we have here but I never saw it, I only followed orders and crossed it) and the whole div was going to cross it in the night. Many, many grid squares were earmarked for waiting areas. He hopped from one to the next, getting closer and closer to the crossing (unbeknownst to me). Having been awake 36 hours I'd just put head to side of Ferret and zed. We reached a waiting area. My commander had me prime all the pyro (mainly smoke grenades). "Why?" "We are about to cross the river. On the other side, we'll be sharp." "Splutter." Command Troop didn't normally go sharp. That's what sabre troops were for, to advance to contact. So we rolled quietly into the village, a river on our left-hand side, the other side of the river being sharp. In complete blackout, commander guided me down a slipway, then I found the Ferret going back up onto the bridge. As soon as we levelled, he had me select neutral, handbrake and foot hard on the footbrake. There was a street light on the other side of the river. It started to move. convinced I was somehow falling off the bridge which didn't ought to be moving, I stood ever harder on the footbrake and prayed. Clunk. The ferry had reached the other side. Nobody had told be it was a ferry: I thought the engineers had built a bridge. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. So anyway, dawn Friday arose and it was now 48 hours since I'd so cockily made breakfast for the rebro crews. We continued the advance (this was the last day of the exercise and by tradition we were pushing the Commie hoardes back over the IGB). We kept meeting up with Command Troop and I kept getting dicked for a radio stag. Then mid-afternoon, sat near the back of Zero Bravo, we heard those treasured words, "Hello all stations this is Zero, Exercise Ends ..." Before I had even assimilated what had been said, Jackie Broon, Bravo's driver had lobbed an orange smoke grenade under the back door of the Saracen. The breeze took the smoke inside the back, mucg confused shouting and coughing. The smoke came out of the commander's, and then the driver's hatches, promptly followed by Lugsy, the commander, who happened to be operating while the RSO fell out of the back. Great. Two and a half days without sleep. Head down. "Sergeant L, take your Ferret down to the railhead and help the RSM supervise loading the trains." Off we went. We stood all night while the sabre squadrons entrained. We watched the trains set off with the dawn. We were issued spare jerry cans so that the regiment's seven Ferrets could travel baclk to Paders by road. I made it 80 hours with no sleep. What an evocative picture this is.

It isn't an ACV (Armoured Command Vehicle) - it's an ACPRA (Armoured Command Post Royal Artillery). Look at the height of it. We were issued these by mistake on deployment to BAOR in 1978 and must be the worst armoured vehicle I ever served on. Being a non-runner isn't all that different from being a runner if you want to know the truth. Straight out of the vehicle depot at Monchenstrapback, we never got any of the three issued to us over about 20 mph. Driving a Ferret behind them was so-o-o-o-o boring. I was so glad when they were taken away and replaced by ACVs. Certainly it is nowhere near any list (real or fictional) of kit I might consider owning, but I am sure it will float somebody's boat for its rarity value and the challenges of making it go.

People on out site got excited several times last year when an "armoured car" fronted up. Turned out to be Panther. They all looked crestfallen when ex-squaddie me acted entirely nonchalant and told them I'd sat in a fully equipped example and had the full guided tour in 2008. From something I read on our intranet recently, we are helping the MOD equip them with GPSA. If I tell you any more, I'll have to kill you.

No-o-o it was universal. The issued petrol cookers were filthy and camping gas cookers were so much more efficient. I did once use the issue thermos. We were off on exercise and for once we loaded the Ferrets onto a train alongside the CVR(T)s. For once my driver and I were organised and we prepared a flask of coffee for the train journey. Drove on, chocked up, strapped down, collected kit to take on the train, put the flask on the side bin, catch it with the arm, sickening crunch, warm flask on the outside. Damn. Take the hit for a broken item of equipment and in future we used a NAAFI-purchased flask. Red IIRC.

I am looking at that aerial photo and see the 85mm turret with a single hatch. Memory is screaming at me that there were T34/85s with twin hatches. Am I wrong as usual? ---ooo0ooo--- In 1976 in Cyprus we had a standing competition wherein the first crew to spot the (apparently only) T34/85 behind the Turkish Cypriot lines would get a crate. It wasn't claimed during our tour. By the time of the CFE Treaty ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_Forces_in_Europe ) it is my understanding that no Russian tank had ever been willingly scrapped. As old models were replaced in the armoured regiments of armoured divisions, they were cascaded down to the tank battalions of motor rifle divisions, then lower echelons, then sold off to communist regimes around the world. I am therefore sure that less than 25 years after CFE, there are T34/85s to be had somewhere in the world if you are that desperate (I am not). 25 years ; where did the years go? I was just thinking last night that there will now be non-retread Light Dragoons who have done 17 years' service

Probably. 17pdr / 20 pdr, not a lot of difference externally. Off to find out when the Danes replaced Cent with Leo.

While the Task Force was cabbying around in the South Atlantic in 1982, I was cabbying around the Tank Ranges at Oxbol in Denmark and 15/19H were exercising and live firing alongside a Danish tank regiment. My memory told me the Danes' very old Centurions had 17pdr guns. I am quite sure they did not have 105s (guns were not big - long - enough for a bore evacuator). but as always, I stand ready to be proved wrong.

Memory (could be flawed) suggests to me that 16 Light AD were at Dortmund about 1978 along with an awful lot of RA assets including 3RHA whose J Bty provided Swingfire support for 15/19H. I am sure 16 LAD were also 3 Armd Div assets because they popped up on OrBats that I saw, but as divisional Recce Regt, we never saw AD assets. Memory suggests that at some time between 1978 and 1982, 16 LAD were replaced by 12 LAD. Which ties in with your post.