AlienFTM

I have never been impressed by diesels or electrics but find it very difficult not to take a trip on any steam railway I see (preferable full-gauge). GWILI Railway near Camarthen now has its own Facebook group - what a great blend of 19th and 21st Century technologies is that?

Oooh spooky. I was just thinking of passing comment on the most unusual 3- or 4-ton truck I came across in my time and the pic above looks like it may be it. Having transferred out of the cavalry and into a shiny-arrse RAPC job, I expected a quiet life. Unfortunately my history as a RAC Control Signaller went before me. Posted to the Headquarters of 12 Armoured Workshop REME, I found myself nailed on to run the radios on exercise. 12 Armd Wksp were undergoing downsizing when I joined as 2 Armd Div, which it had supported, moved back to UKLF as strategic reserve, leaving one of its two brigades with a now-three-brigade 1 Armd Div. wef 1 Jan 1982, 12 Armd Wksp supported this brigade (which must have been 12 Armd Bde) instead of the whole of 2 Armd Div and thus halved in size. On exercise, the workshop split into two entirely disparate entities, a Main REME Group (MRG) providing second-level REME support to the brigade and a Forward Recovery Team (FRT) providing recovery support. I found myself on more exercises than I had with Command Troop of an Armoured Recce regiment, which was 1. difficult and 2. not what I'd gone in search of a quiet life with a young wife and a child born within days of arriving in my new posting. The MRG radio truck had been a Bedford RL Machy (Machinery) Wagon (like the RL in the pic), but now comprised a UK/VRC321 HF Clansman set to work the Div Logistic Net, a UK/PRC351 (IIRC - might have been a 349) VHF manpack with which to talk to the four other platoons whilst deployed and a field telephone exchange with which ditto. The manpack was coaxed to an antenna base on the roof. The exchange passed through a junction box in the cabin wall, to which the platoons ran their Don 10 links. The MRG would remain in place for up to a week (you didn't want to have to keep packing up Chieftains etc with packs removed and moving every six hours like I had previously with Battlegroup HQ) and on arrival in location, while the rest of the crew cammed up the RL, I set up a dipole antenna between two 12m or 8m masts (it WAS a long time ago) and established the link with Division. We ran a coax from the 321 out of a remote window to the mast. I took to doing permanent night stags so that it always fell to me to adjust the dipole at the midnight frequency change and code changes and get them right. It had the advantage of letting me sleep when there were menial tasks to be performed. Instead I could sit quietly and improve my lot. For example I drew a graph of HF Frequency against 1/4 wavelength (rounded down to the nearest foot) so that at frequency change, I simply read the length off the graph and counted the notches in the dipole to set it to 1/4 wavelength for optimum transmit efficiency. The REME did a good job of customising that Machy wagon into a command vehicle with home comforts. They also customised their MK TCV by adding six metal bunks so that we could sleep whilst not on stag. During the day, when everyone else was working, I had my pick. The MK in the pic above (34GB41) reminds me of the sort of vehicle 'Ackers and Grinders (A&G Platoon) worked from, complete with trailer. The MRG consisted of large numbers of MKs and various trailers, be they workshops or generators (which kept their TVs running nicely in the field, thank you, but if we ran a kettle, they complained that we were sucking their BFBS TV power dry). I remember on one occasion the QM getting really uptight because the number of trailers was getting perilously close to the number of hooks to tow them and the Germans did not like us towing two trailers behind one prime.

If you look at the glacis plate of the Bovington Panther you'll see that this particular vehicle was assembled by a REME Base Workshop that occupied the factory (at Kassel?) at the end of the war. The vehicle was used in comparison trials with Centurion. As I understand it, the results were remarkably close and only the Cent's less-complicated, less-expensive design saw it win through. Imagine if we had built Chieftain as an evolution of Panther instead of Centurion: our boys might be riding round in Emperor Tigers now. (And I'd have been furious at having joined a recce regiment instead of an armoured regiment.)

I took my RAC Control Signaller AFV Class 1 course in the Summer of 1978 and reroled from rebroadcast Ferret driver to ACV operator. I spent the 1979 Exercise season on Zero Bravo, Command Troop's second ACV, and we must have replaced Saracen with Sultan some time probably in the second half of that year. I remember Zero Alpha and Zero Bravo were supposedly identical and either one could and would take alternate command of the Battlegroup, but I also remember that one of them had a C13 High-Power to use to monitor the 3 Armd Div Command Net while the other used a C11/R210. Both were extremely high power sets, radiating a whole lot more than your average C13 that until recently had been fitted to all CVR(T)s to work the Combat Team (Squadron) Command Net. There were warning signs all over about high voltages, not to hold on to the outside of the vehicle or to step from vehicle to earth or vice versa whilst transmitting on HF, because the nature of HF meant that the vehicle itself provided an earth link to the antenna. The HF set was mounted in a cage, but I am struggling to remember its exact location. I am sure it was on the left-hand side but my memory suggests it was behind the Commander's seat. The more I sit and think about this, it comes to me that the operator sat facing left in a Saracen ACV, as opposed to right in a Sultan. That suddenly makes more sense because I was struggling to reconcile Commander's position, HP HF set cage and bench seat. It is far easier in my mind (there's plenty of room) to see Commander's position, HP HF cage and map board. Glad I cleared that one up. Memory is telling me that the ACV I thought of when I saw that VRN was Zero Charlie, the Int Cell ACV. Memory also tells me that Zero Charlie featured reverse-flow cooling (large pots on the engine decks, rubber matting forming a gap under the glacis plate and ducting around the driver's position). This would tally with a vehicle that had spent time in Libya or Egypt. I don't suppose your log shows that your vehicle was transferred from the vehicle depot at Northumberland Barracks, Moenchengladbach to HQ Squadron 15/19H in November - December 1977 (when 15/19H and 3 Armd Div deployed to BAOR to become active in theatre on 1 January 1978)?

He missed off the Farthing. IIRC only ceased to be legal tender in 1961, when I was at primary school.

Funnily enough on Saturday I was watching Sunderland snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (as usual) and became aware of a (propeller-driven) airliner that had probably just hopped from the Channel Islands. It was flying long, slow, regular circles about our house (at some distance I have to point out) except that on one circuit he passed close in front of, instead of behind, our house. Wor Lass and I had differing opinions as to whether the nose wheel was locked down or not. Didn't hear reports of an emergency at Southampton Airport. I KNOW I am old because I was in the Medical Centre the day the Dead Sea turned up on Sick Parade.

The remake of Dog Soldiers featured some nice hardware but sadly bore no resemblance to the original film.

That number sounded familiar to me, but this is an APC and every Saracen I used was an ACV, (Apart when I think about it from the troop Saracen APC in Omagh but we never took that out as we always used the 3/4 ton FFRs and Ferrets; and we had three squadron ambulances between in 1978-79.) Admin Squadron suggests to me that the vehicle went onto an RCT regimental rather than squadron strength (does this by any chance coincide with its use as an ambulance?). I am insufficiently familiar with the RCT's OrBat to expand on this. I do not recall any RCT Squadrons being in the OrBat of a 1980-ish BAOR Armoured Division, so I believe they must have been Corps troops. Thinking about it, I now vaguely recall that there was an RCT unit at Bielefeld which ISTR was HQ 1 (BR) Corps, which would tend to substantiate that. On reflection I cannot remember ever seeing an RCT Regiment anywhere apart from 17(?) Port and Maritime Regiment round the corner from me at Marchwood. So my guess for Admin Squadron is that you have missed a detail and it is Admin Squadron of some other regiment. There was, I think an RCT regiment based at Muhlheim an der Ruhr in 1980 when I did my Linguist German course. The army's Higher Education Centre shared a barracks with this RCT unit. Then again, the RCT unit may well have just been a squadron. Whatever, it was outside the Corps area and therefore surely Army Troops. A VHF conversion suggests to me that the vehicle was converted from using a C13 to a C42 LARKSPUR VHF set, rather than a Clansman conversion. In 1979 we replaced our Saracen ACVs with Sultan, taking the Larkspur sets and putting them into Sultan, then in 1980 we were issued Clansman and so at no time did we ever fit Clansman in Saracen. A little voice in the back of my head is whispering that we had to get Sultan before we got Clansman because there was a radio suppression issue with Saracen. But you know how wrong I can be. Glad to hear you want the Three-Oh mount. To me, GPMGs in Ferrets and Saracens are an anachronism (even if technically this is not so). Probably not a lot of use. Sorry.

I reread your post. It isn't a problem logging off Windows at all is it? It's a problem logging off HMVF, right? Why do you have an issue logging off HMVF? Would you rather not log back in automatically as you are now? Cookies are not necessarily a bad thing. Used for their proper purpose they simply save you having to log back on every time. Do you use Spybot S&D Free Version to protect your machine against spyware etc? I can recommend a better way of using it so that you do not keep deleting all your cookies, but you are still safe from attack. I presume you regularly scan your machine using S&D and when it finds problems, you click Fix (or something - I am not going to run S&D for half an hour to check), which seems entirely reasonable. When the scan is complete, instead of clicking Fix, click Immunize in the left-hand margin. Watch the count top right of unprotected items increase until the process stops, then click Immunize again, this time above the count of unprotected items. Once this is done, you are protected against all the hundreds of thousands of malware items in the field, but your cookies are all safe. If you have a router between your PC(s) and your telephone socket, it almost certainly has a built-in Network Address Translation (NAT) firewall integral to the whole concept of a router. This hardware firewall will protect you against ANYTHING inbound to your computer. The only thing an NAT firewall will not protect by default is outgoing traffic. Since Zone Alarm Free protects your outbound traffic (for example if your machine has been taken over to be used as an e-mail zombie to spread spam around the net), it is entirely adequate as a complement to your NAT firewall. If you are behind a router and you are using firewall software, anti-virus software or anti-spyware software which is not free, e.g. Zone Alarm Free version, AVG Free version or Avast or Spybot S&D respectively, you are wasting money. I have Zone Alarm Free, AVG Free and Spybot S&D for years and nothing has ever got through. The likes of Symantec just want your paranoia to encourage you to buy their software. Of course if you are NOT connected to the internet by a router with NAT firewall (for example by 56K or broadband modem), then you absolutely MUST buy decent prophylactic software. My company has an agreement with Symantec which allows us to use the products we have on our work machines on our home machines, but IMHO Symantec products are resource hogs which restrict your machine. When we had a brief falling-out with Symantec (now resolved) we used the full Zone Alarm firewall with the same use-on-private-machines agreement. If it's good enough for them, it would be good enough for me. However at the end of the day, if using subscription packages makes you feel safer, it is not my place to change your mind against your own will.

I vaguely remember seeing this problem when I bought a "Windows98 compatible" scanner. I installed the drivers and started getting the problem. It turned out that the "Windows98 Compatible" driver wasn't really compatible. I have also seen this problem with internet connections, i.e. modems and broadband routers. The short-term solution was, when the screen went black and before the Windows splash screen re-appeared, press the power button and hard power-off. When the screen is black and not at the Windows logo, there are no Windows files open to be corrupted by a hard power-off. Note that if a simple press of the power switch does not kill your PC, you can ALWAYS force a hard power-off by pressing and holding the power switch for five seconds (not recommended if it's going to corrupt data). Long term solution. (This all assumes Windows XP. My understanding is that Vista will not tolerate drivers that have not been approved by Microsoft, but I am a mainframe engineer which means as far as Windows is concerned I am simply a user.) 1. Did the problem start after you installed new hardware? If so, go online and visit the manufacturer's website to search for an updated driver. 2. Did the problem start after you installed a new driver? If you created a system restore point prior to that, you could roll the system back. Otherwise try reinstalling the driver. 3. Don't know what changed? Go into Control Panel (I have always used Classic View Control Panel so I have no way of describing Control Panel for Teletubbies, as I perceive everything Windows for XP because of that hillock on the desktop. No I definitely said hillock.) Click on System to display the System Properties window. Click on the Hardware tab. Click on Device Manager. Open the little "+" against each device in turn and look for a yellow warning triangle against any device. If you find one, this could very well be the problem. Right-click the device and select Update Driver. This will present the Hardware Update Wizard. Never having been in there and not wishing to break my own ThinkPad to find out, I have no idea what happens after this. Follow the instructions: they are meant to idiot-proof. 4. Still no joy? Print off this message because you will probably need to reboot in a few minutes and you'll be able to continue these instructions on the other side of the reboot. Start up Internet Explorer (spit: but AFAIK it's the only browser that Windows Update - spit - supports). Click on Tools, then Windows Update. Click on Custom. It will take a few minutes to check for the latest updates for your computer. I'd expect to find at the very least Windows XP Service Pack 2 already installed and unless like my company you have a valid reason not to, likewise Service Pack 3. If you are offered an install of a Service Pack, go back into Control Panel, click on the System Restore tab, change the settings if necessary and click OK. If something screws your install, you can then simply roll back to this restore point. Then install the Service Pack(s). You'll have to restart the computer after it's installed. Go back to Windows Update and review Other Updates. When it lists, in the left-hand margin, click Hardware Updates. Take a look at the list of updates available and decide which looks like a candidate for having broken your machine. (Driver updates can require a leap of faith. If the machine is not broke, why fix it?) Click on the check box next to the item, then click review and install updates at the top of the page. I recommend if you are going to do these, do them one at a time so that if something goes wrong you know which one it was. If after all this your problem has not gone away, consider upgrading Windows to Version 7 which is due out any day. (I don't recommend Vista. In a news feed today I received this: http://www.itpro.co.uk/615247/microsoft-admits-vista-was-less-good There is however a gotcha here too, because whenever you up-system, you may find that hardware components are not compatible. Visit this Microsoft page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1B544E90-7659-4BD9-9E51-2497C146AF15&displaylang=en which will check your system's compatibility with Windows 7. If it warns you of incompatibilities, do not brush this aside. I once failed to believe a list of warnings about Windows 2000, installed it anyway and wrecked the machine. Let me know how you get on.

In 1981 I found myself commanding a 15/19H Surveillance Troop Spartan (long story) in lieu of a dead Scorpion. One vivid memory I have is a night move which involved climbing a steep hill on what we might call an A road (this was in BAOR). It was pitch black apart from the head and tail light from our own vehicle and those of our section commander in front. Then I became aware of an orange glow to my right. I looked across and realised that the exhaust on our Spartan was glowing bright. I couldn't fault the driver for being in the wrong gear: if I'd felt he'd needed a word, he'd have got it. Engine must just have been doing a lot of work to get up the hill. ---ooo0ooo--- Bazz, do you remember Swanny? He was driving. Sadly in the last Regimental Journal, I saw his obituary and it rocked me to the core: he was seven years younger than I. Transferred out (to the Paras) about 1984, had a full career then became a Security Contractor in Baghdad. Shot by a sniper whilst manning a security post or something.

Don't forget: http://whorepresents.com/

Providing you are never afraid of smacking the GCP hard to change gear. Being timid on the Saracen gear change is a recipe for a false neutral which, in my experience, will push your left knee into your chin and take a LOT of stamping on the GCP to reselect the gear. (Don't ask me why. I only took the driving course because we had them as ACVs and there was a course going. A week driving round the Paderborn ring road with interesting coffee breaks. Great way to spend a week away from the vehicle park.) Other than that, the Saracen is just about as good a ride as a Ferret, which on ARRSE earlier this week I declared to be the cabbiest ride in town. At least the steering wheel is that right way up on a Saracen.

I thought it must be something like that. Cheers.

1. I have a suspicion that the Sultan 00GE17 might have belonged to 15/19H between 1979 and 1984, either as 0C, the Command Troop Int Cell ACV or as one of the FHQ ACVs (2A, 2B, 3A, 3B). 2. I surprised to see 03FD20 on a Scimitar. I have never before seen a vehicle in the range 02FDxx - 03FDxx that wasn't a Scorpion, whose numbers ran into 04FDxx, after which followed the Scimitars. Is this a Scorpion hull that was rebuilt as a Scimitar? I have never heard of this happening before. I do remember being caught out during a Balkans War when I saw a 02FDxx registration on the news, told the family it was a Scorpion, then the camera panned out to show what looked like a Scimitar that had fallen victim to headhunters, at which point I learned about Sabre. This certainly doesn't look to me like a Sabre (but I cannot be certain) and surely, if they are all now in private hands, this picture would not belong in this thread? Probably wrong as usual.

Apart from various Cyprus interludes, 15/19H spent 1976 - 77 on Salisbury Plain. I can tell you that even after the driest summer since records began, all our vehicles quickly looked like that, but it was chalk dust finer than the finest talc which stuck to everything, an inch or more thick in places. Worse, there was a hosepipe ban and we never got to wash down our CVR(T)s.

Stop me if I have told you this one before. While B Sqn 15/19H were in UNFICYP, Sep 1976 - Mar 1977, A Sqn partook in a KAPE Tour to Keep the Army in the Public Eye. 15/19H were popularly known as The Geordie Hussars for obvious reasons and it was a long way from Tidworth where we were stationed to our Home Headquarters and their base for the tour at Fenham Barracks, Newcastle. For some reason it was decided they would drive their Foxes up the A1 rather than entrain them at Ludgershall and detrain them at Morpeth (which is what B Sqn did in July 1977 for Ex Trident with Scorpions and Mark 5 Ferrets). We in B Sqn (The Guards) got a copy of The Tab (regimental newspaper) whilst in UNFICYP which depicted a Windies (A Sqn) Fox at speed with Basil Brush in the commander's seat and much hilarity in the article, which didn't really mean much to us, just like our squadron newspaper in Cyrus (The Guard-UN) would have meant nothing to them. I later got the details. A significant subset of Windies had driven up the A1 at great speed, leaving a number of breakdowns which meant that the LAD REME bringing up the rear arrived a lot later than the main body. The main body arrived at Fenham Barracks late on Friday afternoon. The SSM promptly leapt out and disappeared into HHQ for a comfort break leaving the group in the charge of the young officer who was titular OC KAPE Tour (although as we all know, the SSM held the real power). The SSM emerged from his comfort break to find OC KAPE Tour standing alone on the vehicle park watching a trail of dust heading down the road to St James' Park. "Where is everybody, sir?" "Well I told them they'd all done well to get the Foxes up here and they could take the weekend off at home before the KAPE Tour starts on Monday. I told them to take their Foxes home and show the family what it was all about." Windies had taken no second telling, knowing that the SSM would have a differing opinion on this proposal and were off before OC could change his mind. OC and SSM spent the weekend driving the length and breadth of the North East of England rounding up Foxes from council estates.

Here's my two penn'orth. I am guessing that the markings are related to being a part of 4RTR but I admit it's something of a leap of faith. I am also guessing (the OP did not say) that the Ferret went back a long way with 4RTR. Prior to about 1976, the Armoured Regiment had its own organic recce troop. Post 1976, recce troops for the two armoured regiments and three infantry battalions per division were provided by the divisional Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment's Close Recce Squadron, equipped with Scimitars. (So I am dating this before 1976.) The post-1976 Recce Troop comprised eight Scimitars. How about this Ferret was part of 4RTR's Recce Troop, vehicle number 8. My Control Signaller skills post-date the use of Ferrets as Recce vehicles by a number of years (in the Scimitar-equipped Close Recce era) - and I was in Armoured Recce myself, not Armour - so I can only guess at the OrBat and Callsign designations of the Close Recce Troop of the Armoured Regiment before my time. I am not suggesting that RT8 is a callsign from that period. I shan't even try to guess how it would work. In my time the eighth recce vehicle of a recce troop attached to an armour or infantry unit might be one of 61G, 62G, 63G, 64G or 65G, depending which troop of the Div Close Recce Sqn was attached. However RT8 would be a useful way for crews to spot which vehicle was which rather than trying to remember eight different VRNs. Of course if the markings post-date 1976, I am completely wrong. Post 1976, I'd expect the Armoured Regiment to have the following Ferrets: RSM LO 2 times Rebro - these four in Command Troop. One per sabre squadron (3) for the SSM. Total seven. So I really cannot make RT8 mean anything sensible post-1976. I had been prepared to guess that RT might have stood for Radio Troop, i.e. been a Rebro Ferret, but I cannot think why there'd be 8 of them.

There is a programme, Luftwaffe 1946 or something crops up on satellite which looks at how this jet coupled with a nuke to turn NYC to slag could have made the war interesting.

No mate, but all my time in sabre troops was spent either in second or fourth and whichever it was, you were one side or the other. Besides, I did point out that it was a two-way street. Things got relocated, then relocated back. If the owner gets it back, it isn't theft is it? It isn't like nicking a Chieftain off 3RTR for Sahagun is it? Oh, hang on, though. 3RTR DID get their Chieftain back (eventually) so I guess it IS like nicking a Chieftain off 3RTR. Then there were the bicycles, the jeep, the bus, the M113 we borrowed for Sahagun in UNFICYP 1976 ... Why? Guilty conscience? lol

For me the fact that Standing Orders had to be published insisting they be painted camouflage proves they not all were, and if I wanted to paint mine blue-grey, I most certainly would.

Reminds me of a picture I once saw on ARRSE (IIRC) where a guy had fitted a pair of Doctor Who curtains to the back of his Spartan so that when you looked "in" it was bigger on the inside than on the outside.

I only ever used Mark 2s in NI (briefly) and UNFICYP and we never needed extra stowage because of the nature of the job: we didn't spend enough time out of camp to need luxuries. In BAOR we had Mark 1s. IIRC we attached ammo boxes on the hull side by making holes in the ammo boxes so that they slipped over the tarpaulin mounting lugs. But I could be wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if we made lugs on the ammo boxes to fit inside any loops there may have been on the vehicle sides (it's all so-o-o long ago. Whatever, it may not have been quite that simple because everything was securely mounted, not just slip-on, so I suspect the LAD must have carried out some interesting mods. At least with the steel armour on Ferret, the LAD were a lot more amenable to drilling etc, unlike the aluminium alloy of CVR(T).

To quote what a very good friend (now Gutersloh Garrison Sergeant Major) told me recently. "I have lightweight trousers older than some of the soldiers in my garrison." Fact is, regardless of what might be decreed, in 15/19H, combat trousers were only ever worn for guard duty in camp. At all other times (including NI tours) we wore lightweights. My friend's recent quote suggests to me that even after the issue of CS95, even now he'd rather wear lightweights than combats. I have seen pictures from tours well into the 80s where they still wore lightweights. I was attached to 42 Royal Marine Commando as part of my NIRRT training in 1976. They too wore lightweights in preference to and disregard of any official diktat. I do remember on our UN tour of 1976 - 77 we were issued OG trousers to supplement our lightweights so that we could wear a clean pair every day even when our kit went into (and came back from) the dhobi twice a week. I transferred out of the cavalry. I quickly learned that even though I was now officially a shiny-arrse, I could expect to be volunteered for a dirty duty at any time, even when I became a Sergeant in the Computer Centre. Stuff dress regulations: I always wore boots and lightweights rather than barrack dress and shoes, just in case I got rubber-dicked for a dirty task. Funnily enough, once I started dressing in lightweights, they stopped volunteering me. Rule number 1: whatever rules the Army makes on dress codes for uniformity, squaddy will do what he pleases to individualise his uniform, both at an individual and at a regimental level.

I cannot remember whether I quoted this on the original thread: HERO WITH A WING (Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters) I see myself a hero while one wing falls away and the dial approaches zero in a spiralling display. My past life flashes feverishly, and lives I did not lead, like the time I was a hero, of a weird, outlandish breed. One arm of flesh-and muscle and one of feathered scale I was a hero with a wing that was of no avail. I could only fly in circles like a corkscrew in the sky, my one wing flapping frantically while birds just glided by. I launched myself from mountains and from the highest trees although I could get nowhere and just landed on my knees. But still I was a hero, with one wing more than most. Almost half an Angel; a whirling holy ghost. My father was an eagle with two wings wide as sails my mother was the west wind witch with grasping finger nails. She lured him from his aerie with her twittering device. She kept him in a golden cage and fed him field mice.