AlienFTM

... in Civvy Street.

Yes I was sure there were two different settings required but that the wrench had one fixed setting. Thanks for putting me right.

Yes, it's a T34/85 with a 3-man turret and an 85mm gun, upgraded from the 2-man 76mm turret on the original T34 (hence T34/76). Russian main battle tank in the last year or two of the war, followed by the little-known, short-lived T44 of which there are very few photos) which seems to have been basically a T34/85 turret on what became the seminal T54 hull. Although all Soviet MBTs owe a lot to T34, it was T54 which first featured the inverted frying pan turret and the archetypal Russian medium tank hull. (Note that the designation T54/55 is not comparable with that of T34/85: the T54 was quickly upgunned and upgraded to become T55 and for ease of designation, T54 and T55 were lumped together as T54/55.) I also STR that this 85mm turret found it's way onto the KV heavy chassis to create the KV85. The KV series were superseded by the JS (Josef Stalin - hence also IS in some languages) series by the end of the war. Once the face-off of JS3 and Conqueror & M26 Pershing heavy tanks had passed, the Soviets reverted to a single series of MBTs of the Txx series. Note that the Soviets never destroyed a tank until the arms reduction talks toward the end of the Cold War. As a tank was superseded, it was replaced in the tank regiments and cascaded down to the tank battalion of the infantry regiments, then down ever further until it was exported to the Third World. In UNFICYP, as a recce regiment we had a standing challenge to spot the T34 belonging to the Turks in the Northern sector.

The Churchill servicing schedule instructed the driver to tighten the wheel nuts every day at first parade. There were an awful lot of wheel nuts on a Churchill. They were all rigorously serviced prior to D-Day - nobody wanted his tank to break down. They hit the beaches in Normandy and lots of them promptly lost wheels as the nuts sheared - over-servicing. On CVR(T)s we were issued a torque wrench and ISTR there was only one or two settings. No problems.

Take a strong cable to drag that thing through the bocage in search of mines!

And available for public viewing in a museum on the beach at Pendine.

Certainly both the US and the Russians used 6-pounders, but called them 57mm. The Soviets retained the 57mm gun itself for a long time, mounting them in a twin turret on ZSU 57/2, very similar to the even more successful ZSU 23/4. I'd guess we ditched the 6pdr quite early because the 17pdr was even better and made for a better tank main armament in the Comet and early Cents. The 6pdr simply became obsolete before its time. 17pdr didn't do much better, being succeeded by the 20pdr, the 105mm and the 120mm. Some countries played with a 140mm but generally found that the ballistic friction drop-off was excessive and didn't gain anything over 120. Then of course we must remember (I read many years ago) that six months'worth of wartime development takes 20 years in peacetime.

Try asking the Regimental Depot / Home Headquarters (cavalry) of the regiment or corps in question. In the case of amalgamated regiments, you'd have to find the current depot. For instance, I am fairly sure (but I could be wrong) you can get a 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars decal as often applied to the nightsight cover on a CVR(T) from Home Headquarters The Light Dragoons in Newcastle, whereas a 13th/18th Royal Hussars decal, if one existed, might be bought from Home Headquarters The Light Dragoons in Barnsley.

15/19H (3 Armd Div Armd Recce Regt) had (IIRC) 10 Saracens from deployment to BAOR late 1977 until we were issued Sultan in it must have been 1979. Seven times ACV (3 for RHQ; 2 each for the medium recce sabre squadrons) and three times ambulance (1 each HQ and the two medium recce squadrons. The close recce squadron IIRC got none of this infrastructure because it spent its life deployed by troops attached to the other five combat units in the division - 3 times Inf Bn and 2 times Armd Regt). I started this thread about to say we fitted Clansman to the Saracens for about six months before receiving Sultans, but on reflection, we fitted Larkspur to the Sultans for about six months before receiving Clansman. Sorry. No help at all.

DPM is DISPERSED Pattern Material. A disruptive pattern consists of jagged shapes to break up the overall shape. ISTR that Denison smocks featured a disruptive pattern. What the rest of the army has worn since the late 60s is a dispersed pattern. Disruptive camouflage is best represented by ships painted with big sharp triangles that break up their shape. One camouflage I consider to be disruptive by definition is the underside of early Second World War RAF aircraft, painted half black, half white. A dispersed pattern consists of swirls to break up the pattern. See a combat jacket for details.

I may be wrong. I think what you want is a 7 Armoured Brigade sign, not a 7 Armd Div. AFAIK 7 Armd Bde has remained continuously on the OrBat ever since the 1940s apart from the brief flirtation with Task Forces in the late 70s, whereas there is no such animal as 7 Armd Div any more. ISTR the difference in the two logos was subtle (the colour of the rodent perhaps?).

15/19H overpainted our yellow bridge plates in grey on all our vehicles (mainly CVR(T)s, a handful of Ferrets and some Bs) during that period. I really cannot remember the year, but certainly between 1978 and 1981. We regularly received Scorpoled (rolling modification programme) Scorpions: I cannot recall ever having to repaint a yellow bridge plate in grey after the one big bang of repainting. Come to think of it, the repaint was to apply IRR paint and I am fairly sure the bridge plate repaint was contemporaneous but I could be wrong. Would the date we got IRR paint help date the repaint better?

It was all them years in Command Troop made me soft mate. But all that mixing with Colonels ensured I could do it with style, panache and élan. (woohoo: discovers that Chrome's spell-checker identifies elan as wrong and offers to correct it to élan.)

No mate. I was a bleep. Didn't get my hands dirty on D&M tasks. You broke your CVR(T)? I'll keep my radios on net. (Of course I did help if the driver asked nicely. Often amounted to, "Brew?") I have just had this awful flashback to the denims you used to keep soaked in OMD75. EUUUUURGH. Plus whatever troop I was in, we kept our roadwheels serviced. I do understand that the gap between roadwheels 1 and 2 on the T54/55 was designed specifically to enable the crew to pull this sort of stunt and continue the advance after a minestrike.

At Tankfest my favourite display was a T59 tucked away at the end of a line of immaculately presented tanks. Sunday afternoon and apparently I was the first person over the two days to ID it correctly (though I didn't spot that the gun was now an in-service L7 replacement). The (formerly East) German owner was dead chuffed. It was scruffy and bent, with no markings at all, but just right in my view.

Group H commander available Southampton here, always on the lookout for a local cabby.

Queue burst into song. Good call. Is there anyone home?

ROFL. Good drills.

Must be an ex-15/19H Scorpion. Our barracks in Paderborn was within the city limits. My fiancee was Paymaster's nanny. Paymaster never got crashed out on Active Edge, being the Paymaster he was rear party. She always knew when there'd been an Active Edge though. As she took the Paymaster's daughter to play group, she'd pass a line of broken down CVR(T)s, invariably with one at the second set of lights all of 100m from the camp. Still, so long as the vehicle made it out of camp, it wasn't such a gripping as not getting it out of camp.

Shoulder to shoulder beside you marra.

Last couple of weeks of the B Sqn 15/19H UNFICYP tour of Cyprus 76 - 77, one evening one of the MT drivers managed to roll a Rover. Young lad in FHQ manning the command net, as soon as he heard this, could not help but broadcast "Hello all stations this is 2. Somebody rolled a Rover over, over." The VP suggested he expected a reply, but of course he didn't get any. Those of us manning the radios in the out-stations at Larnaca, Ayios Nicolaos and Skouriotissa simply cracked up. The Cypriot police tried to charge the driver with speeding at 115mph in an airportable. That week, 4 Troop was in Larnaca. Our new troop leader, fresh out of the factory, had a buddy just posted to the Cyprus Armoured Car Squadron (C Sqn 15/19H) and decided on the middle Sunday that he wanted to take tea with his buddy in Episkopi. There could be no authorisation to use the troop Land Rover for this purpose and if the Work Ticket showed the journey, he'd be in trouble. The mileage on the work ticket had to add up to the mileage on the Land Rover, so he had the troop VMA (every troop in an out-station had a residential Vehicle Mechanic (Armoured Vehicles) - VMA - to keep the Ferrets running) disconnect the speedo so as not to clock up miles. The troop MT driver (attached like the VMA) refused to be a party to this, so as troop leader's Ferret driver I was invited to drive. I had no hang-ups. Besides, it was a day out, see new places, meet new people (or old friends for those who had colleagues in C Sqn). Half a dozen of us drove to Limassol. Right outside the entrance to the harbour was a fish restaurant, so we went in and asked for half a dozen portions of fish and chips. Guy looked blank: never heard of fish and chips. We explained. He offered us each a platter of all sorts of various fish (well Limassol did have a thriving fishing port, entrance next door, but sadly no deep-sea fish) including squid and octopus, and some veg. Wasn't the same as fish and chips though. We took tea with C Sqn, very civilised, then headed back late into the evening. Near Kophinou, where the A5 to Larnaca branches off from the A1 between Limassol and Nicosia, there was a restaurant. We stopped for an evening meal. I always remembered describing mine as sirloin of dog with green salad tossed in OM13. For good measure, back in Tidworth I found myself admitted into the Medical Reception station at Tidworth with suspected dysentery. I have always blamed that restaurant. So we got back to Larnaca and at this point Rommel (the troop leader) had the VM reattach the speedo and me refill the petrol tank. At this point he clicked that while the odometer might not display the his trip to Epi, the fuel record would show that his Land Rover had returned a ridiculously low mileage per gallon. The final Squadron newspaper of the tour (B Squadron's nickname was - and remains in the Light Dragoons - the Guards, hence the newspaper's name, The Guard-UN) showed some interesting statistics regarding Land Rover speeds and MPGs that month. ---ooo0ooo--- btw, wrt the fire mission mp3. I found it interesting to hear the US take. So similar yet so different. In our man's army, the voice procedure for a fire mission was different from other VP, mainly because you make an error, you drop short and kill the wrong people, hence the RA's nickname, the Dropshorts. Everything gets repeated back. Format: Where it is. Its bearing from you (in mils). What it is. What you want doing to it. When do you want it doing. Thus it might go (based on one I initiated): Hello Golf 11 this is Tango 24 fire mission over. Golf 11 fire mission over. Tango 24 fire mission grid 243678 six three zero zero Company of mechanised infantry digging in on hillside Destroy When ready. Golf 11 fire mission grid 243678 six three zero zero Company of mechanised infantry digging in on hillside Destroy When ready out Hello Tango 24 this is Golf 11 not observed send corrections over. (The RA troop realises they have nobody in a position to observe the fall of shot - can you do it please?) Tango 24 not observed send corrections out. (Pause while the Battery Commander does his sums and issues orders) Hello Tango 24 this is Golf 11 one gun adjusting shot over (They would normally fire three rounds of HE - no Willy Peter (white phosphorus as used in the clip) allowed any more by Geneva Convention - and the observer corrects based on the mean point of impact of the three rounds. But ammo is short, so only one gun will be adjusting, don't wait for the other two and hope you identify the correct round in the middle of the battle) (Oh and the round is in the air.) Tango 24 one gun adjusting shot out (Awaits the fall of shot - depends how far back the battery is) Hello Golf 11 this is Tango 24 right 50 add 50 on target fire for effect over. (Remember Golf 11 doesn't know where you are, you didn't tell him so he cannot get his grid references muddles and dump his load on you by mistake - a difference in protocol that causes grief whenever Brits ask US assets for support. All he has is your bearing from the target. So, based on YOUR bearing from the target only, not HIS bearing from the target, he calculates the corrections and passes them to the guns. Because of the size of the target and the closeness of the first shot, the observer tells him that after this correction he is quite happy with the aim: go ahead and snot them.) Golf 11 right 50 add 50 on target fire for effect fire mission Uniform Tango niner seven four one over. Tango 24 fire mission Uniform Tango 9741 out (the fire mission was saved by the RA so that they could repeat it if requested) (Pause) Hello Tango 24 this is Golf 11 shot over Tango 24 shot out ("Stand back and admire") Hello Tango 24 this is Golf 11 rounds complete over. Hello Golf 11 this is Tango 24 rounds complete repeat over Golf 11 repeat out (I have fired all the ammunition I consider necessary to achieve your goal. I hear what you say, but I'd like another salvo to make sure please.) Hello Golf 11 this is Tango 24 stop loading over. Golf 11 stop loading out (OK you were right, I don't need any more. Note that "stop loading" - don't bother loading any more but feel free to fire what's in the guns - is entirely different from "check firing" - you're dropping short or whatever, STOP FFS)

We were still using three-oh Browning-equipped Mark 1s in the early 80s and ditto Mark 2s in 1977. We had the vehicles, the guns and the ammo, why put effort into changing?

In 1980 I commanded a Mark 1 Rebro in an Armd Recce Regt. We normally drove the Ferrets to the exercise area, but I do remember entraining, probably for Ex Spearpoint / Crusader 80 (actually the prologue, Ex Javelin) at Paderborn Nord sidings in September. Ferrets were a piece of cake to entrain, being so small, Unlike Saracen ACVs, six wheels, bitch to reverse and an inch clearance on either side of the flat. Sultan was a dream compared with Saracen. Anyway, I guided on my driver, Dave, we chocked up got our kit for the journey and went to put the cover over the open commander's position. Dave had placed an issue flask full of hot coffee on the wing. I caught it and it fell and broke in the way glass flasks did. Damn. Dry journey to the 4 Armd Div area. So yes, they certainly still had a flask on the CES, but I also remember using our own flasks, bought from the NAAFI. As for signal pistols. In Command Troop we had a lot of kit. I distinctly remember a Carl Gustav per ACV which we fired once. And I mean once. There were a dozen of us and we got one PRAC round each for the morning shoot. After lunch they discovered we only had eleven HEAT rounds for the afternoon's shoot so I ceded my go to let someone else have a bash. I didn't fancy being recognised as proficient and being dicked to carry one. I am pretty sure there were Bren LMGs, for local defence like the Charlie Gs. In reality we didn't clutter up the ACVs and all this kit stayed locked up in camp. Every Friday we'd clean all the weapons. Everybody had an SMG to clean. The CO, Adjutant, RSM never turned up, so crews did their commanders' kit. This meant I never had a Charlie G or an LMG to clean, though we did have a three-oh Browning. My memory is screaming "YES we had a signal pistol on the Ferret CES, but cleaning was so trivial (especially since it never went out) that it has not left much of a mark on my memory.

Our barracks in Paderborn was also home to Task Force Echo HQ and Signals Troop (when the Task Force system was dropped and we reverted to Armoured Brigades, ISTR it became 33 Armd Bde HQ & Signal Sqn). We didn't fraternise all that much, but I do remember a siggy telling me that the first thing they ever did after setting up was to transmit "-................................-" (or "da 32 dits dah" in his speak) which could be translated as "this is his sh!t" (with the spaces in the right place) as a means of testing the link with a simple known message of no tactical value.

Adrenalin. Adrenalin is brown. Or so my experiences of adrenalin have suggested. ;o)