AlienFTM

This is true. When I took my Group H, I had just bought my first motorbike, like many in the squadron right after our return from Northern Ireland. A Staff Sergeant in another troop had just passed his Qualified Testing Officer course. His troop all pestered him to test them on motorbikes. He refused, saying that it felt wrong passing somebody on a test he wasn't himself qualified on. I lent him my bike for a couple of weeks so he could himself be tested (by the squadron's other QTO I imagine), then he returned me the bike, along with my pass certificate.

I took my H test in a Scorpion in the summer of 76. We practised with instructor and second trainee in the turret positions and first trainee driving (obviously). We spent as much time if not more on the SPTA driver training area outside the back of our barracks, Aliwal Barracks Tidworth than we spent on the roads (though we did cabby out to Andover, Everleigh or Stonehenge for a bacon butty and a brew every morning). Day before our test, our instructor showed us the route he wanted us to take over the driver training area the following day (when he'd be replaced by our SQMS, the QTO) before moving on to the road element of the test. I went first and spent a good while attacking knife-edges, serious inclines up and down, etc before Eskimo Ness (the SQMS) asked when I was going to take him on the road. We joined the A338 and drove down to the (old) A303, turned left up the hill toward Thruxton then right toward the Wallops. Pulled over soon after turning off the old A303 and swapped. That was it. I recently discovered that I hadn't seen my driving licence for some time and it wasn't in the pocket where it belonged. Yesterday after much angst wrt original proof of identity documents, I got my new licence. I was quite concerned that I couldn't find a Group H qualification, I know it's unlikely I'll ever drive one again, but the barstewards were not taking it away from me without a fight. It's mine. Mine, I tell 'ee. Didn't help that I knew they had changed all the categories a decade or more back (I'd had the previous licence since I moved into my current home 22 years ago). Eventually, licence in one hand, user guide in the other, I found that group H has now become Group h, and there it was indeed, tucked away right at the end in the small print. That saved me a fight. Shame, I do enjoy shouting at incompetents down the phone.

General Sir John Hackett released his what-if The Third World War about 1978 when we were stationed in Paderborn. The book described how Soviet forces could not break into Paderborn and a serious bulge developed. This evoked discussion among the troops. One friend suggested it was down to our use of biological agents. This led to quizzical looks: we don't use biologicals. His response: "Have you met some of the women in the City Club?"

I wouldn't expect it to contain any nasties if it was last used before (IIRC) 1992. Our services have not used real nasties for a long, long time. CS was perfectly good enough fas a training aid. Unless like me it had little or no effect, you couldn't pretend you hadn't suffered the effects of CS. After the end of the Cold War, the Poles couldn't invite the British Army onto its training areas quickly enough. A 15/19H battle group was the first unit to train in Poland, and they became Light Dragoons end of 92. The battle group were shocked by some of the training area standing orders including: No use of nerve agent within (IIRC) 3km of a village. 48 hours notice required before the use of persistent nerve agent.

None of it was like that in my day. Between 1975 and 1989 I had ONE canister. It was a service canister. If the Commies had gome over the IGB we in the recce screen (we were the FLOT, the Forward Leading-edge of Own Troops, way out in front of the FEBA, Forward Edge of the Battle Area) expected in our first replen to get issued all new gas kit. All the REMFs might have had training kit: our Mean Time To Slaughter by Commies wasn't long enough for training kit.

Clansman provided a clip-on mike that fitted onto the front of the S6 over the breathe-out hole. ISTR the other end plugged into a DIN socket in the breastplate. But they were scarce as rocking-horse droppings. Being Regimental Signals Storeman I was never without and people never ceased to be amazed how clearly they could hear me whilst at NBC Red, even after I had returned to the turret.

You weren't in the village of Forst in the mid-80s by any chance? I have vivid memories of an exercise there in 1981 and thought it was a lovely place. Then a few years later I heard that an F16 had piled in to a village called Forst and couldn't help but remember.

You aren't joking are you? I can tell you are being deadly serious.

What was wrong with the issue long johns like? Apart from the aesthetics of the draggy arrse obviously. I got a pair of Damart long johns, but the magic plastic weave tended to shrink in the hot wash needed to get them cleanish after three weeks' killing commies.

In the day I always used to jump, but the knees are 20 years older now (and there is a consensus in the RAC that all crewmen have dodgy knees by age 35). But then it was always a Scorpion in my day ... or a Ferret ... or a Sultan ... or a Saracen. If I jumped off the top, I tended to catch the vehicle with a hand on the way down to steady my landing, rather than rolling away. When I did my freefall course they told us that landing a Double-L was equivalent to jumping 4'6". These days I struggle to jump off the desk.

As late as 1989, there was a stated MOD policy that the SA80 would never be adopted by certain units. I was a sergeant at RAPC Worthy Down, serving out my time. Apart from Recruit and Apprentice Training, Worthy Down consisted of the RAPC Computer Centre (whence the army was paid and where I worked), the Command Pay Office UKLF, Professional and Technical Training Wings and the Corps Depot. We had been designated one of the units that would never adopt SA80 to save the cost of a few rifles and we were to remain on SLR / SMG in perpetuity. Then somebody pointed out to the powers that while almost all of the departments listed had no need whatever to adopt SA80, their were a few things that had clearly escaped the corporate their minds. 1. Recruits and apprentices would very soon find themselves serving with units where there was only the SA80, for which they were to receive no recruit / apprentice training. 2. Computer Centre, CPO UKLF, PTW and Depot were almost exclusively manned by Sergeants and above and civil servants; recruits and apprentices did not get to stag on on guard duty until very late in their training. This meant that the Toms on guard came almost exclusively from TTW. TTW consisted of RAPC-badged personnel learning basic RAPC technical skills (calculating pay etc), non-RAPC-badged personnel in the process of transferring into the RAPC and attendees from the whole army on for example All-Arms Clerks courses. It didn't take a genius to work out that once the rest of the army stopped learning about SLR /SMG, there's be a fundamental dichotomy where most of the people on Worthy Down strength were untrained on any of the weapons available to them. At that time, the main real threat on the UK mainland was from terrorism, and we regularly trained to change from an admin to a combat role to protect some of the army's major assets. And guards were carrying live rounds. Training helped. By the time I walked out of the gates for the last time in July 1989, they had finally realised they were living in a dream world and Worthy Down WAS going eventually to receive SA80s. By 1988 there were six SA80s in the armoury, for the sole benefit of non-SLR-trained All-Arms clerks stagging on. In December 1988 I was invited to attend an SA80 conversion course at Pirbright, my last ever army course. In April 1989 I was asked to represent the RAPC at Corpsaam (all corps skill-at-arms meeting) at Ash near Aldershot. I was actually busy preparing my area of responsibility over to my replacement and the office was down staff (I do remember the WO2 had been invited to join the UN force in Angola or Namibia - I think the latter) and tried to swerve out of it. I told the 2IC of the computer centre that I was only prepared to participate in Corpsaam if I might take an SA80, because I had now been trained on it and this was my only chance ever to fire it. Since all the SA80s were earmarked for the guard, I was confident my request would be declined. The QM called my bluff. Didn't help. You know what they say: you can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. I was out of all competitions by Wednesday lunchtime and back at my desk Thursday morning. I guess I should have taken an SLR. Never mind. I have seen a similar thread on ARRSE. There are people there who claim to have taken SLR on Op Granby, then been attached to a unit with SA80 or vice versa and having to exchange part-way through the operation. Still Granby has a place in history. As far as I know a 16/5L Scorpion's kill of an Iraqi T55 is the only time a Scorpion ever got the chance to destroy an enemy tank in combat.

The commander's mike! I had entirely forgotten that it existed in a different form from that of the crewman. Shame on me, a Larkspur-trained Control Signaller at that.

Flashback to Osnabruck in the mid-80s. The bathroom sink drain had been getting slower and slower. One evening, Wor Lass decided to take executive action. When a full bottle of bleach did nothing, she tried a full bottle of Domestos. Big mistake. She wandered into the front room and said, in that innocent way women do when they know they cannot blame it on us, "Alien ... I think I have done something silly." She told me what she had done. I smelt chlorine. I leapt to the bedroom, grabbed my S6 from my Active Edge kit and it was on in the flash you'd expect after ten years' practice. I went into the bathroom and shut the door behind me, then opened the window. It was a hot summer night and apart from the respirator, I was wearing only cut-off jeans and flip-flops. I grabbed the plumber's mate, mounted the bath and attacked the sink with vigour. Then I looked up and out of the window ... to see my neighbour's wife walk by, looking in with an expression that screamed, "Whatever tickles your fancy." The blockage was cleared, all vestiges flushed away and the window left open for half an hour. then I carried out a sniff test and reduced the NBC state back to Green. Maybe you had to be there.

I am sure we have all seen Kelly's Heroes. In my case, it was only a couple of years before I joined up and it was a cult film. In 1978 I attended a Royal Armoured Corps Control Signaller, Armoured Fighting Vehicle class 1 course at Bovington. Needless to say, as a bunch of cavalrymen and tankies on a swan in Bovy, the Tank Museum was always a place to visit. I can still see one of the lads, espying a Firefly, grabbing the barrel and swinging himself up the glacis plate in the stylee of Oddball, complete with all the Donald Sutherland-isms. He was instantly spotted by a member of museum staff and given a load of verbal from the other side of the hall: apparently the museum was now a lot less tolerant than it had been when my companions had been Boy Brat Junior Bleeders of people climbing on "their" tanks. Not to mention the explosion there'd have been had an IG (Instructor, Gunnery) seen the event: he'd have been told in no uncertain terms how much damage he might do to the trunnions. I remember one troop leader / vehicle commander had his own method for mounting a CVR(T). He ran at it and jumped. Never once did he catch the float screen mounting plate and break his nose. Then there's the question of wet aluminium alloy armour and slipping in DMS boots ... As others have said, he was young and fit and we were all immortal.

Thanks.

When the internet was young, my favourite football-related message board was entirely open. I started to use the name Alien when somebody pointed out what Neil A spelt backwards. The FTM was added when we famously beat Newcastle in 1999 and cost Ruud Gullit his job. I had a number of other personae depending on the message content, including "Caption Competition Sub-editor", "Uncle Albert" (for when I was pulling up a sandbag and swinging the lamp) and so on. One lunchtime I was having a deep and meaningful conversation with a guy using a single persona. In between-times I was replying to other threads using other personae. Then I replied to this guy using the wrong persona. "Hoy, don't butt in: I am having a private conversation with Alien here." I had to confess my sins. His response: "I have just lost a dozen friends in the course of a lunchtime." It made me laugh.

Anything pre-1974 would certainly be pre-UN white. History lesson. The main drag from Nicosia to Larnaca passes south of the Turks' furthest advance in their eastern pincer around Nicosia.The direct route from Nicosia to Larnaca (B17 /E201) was cut by this advance between Pyrol and east of Louroujina. During my time in UNFICYP we always took the direct road and passed through a number of checkpoints. As you get closer to Larnaca (Live Maps suggests in the area of Avdhellero) there is a long straight north / south stretch which passes just east of a line of hills surmounted by Turkish-manned forts which delineate the border. In the middle of this straight, just north of the junction of the B17 and the B2, there is a right / left kink in the road. The stretch of B17 between the junction of the B2 and the first checkpoint was designated No Stopping. The road within North Cyprus was obviously out of bounds to civilian traffic: UN traffic was allowed to use it but we were checked in and out of North Cyprus. I am fairly confident at having identified the correct spot. At some point between the war in 1974 and B Sqn 15/19th Hussars' arrival as UNFICYP Force Reserve Squadron in September 1976, a "military" "jeep" was seen travelling this stretch and Turkish jets attacked it, with napalm. The "military jeep" was in fact a UN Australian Civilian Police contingent (AustCivPol) vehicle, obviously containing Australian civilian policemen. All three died horribly in the attack. One of our troop's first tasks on arrival in theatre was to visit some SMG ranges somewhere between Larnaca and Dhekelia to zero our SMGs. (Maybe Bazz can confirm 3rd Troop did likewise about that time?) We travelled in a Sherpa minibus and got the lecture about Greek / Turkish zones and no stopping. as we passed this kink in the road, there for all to see was a stone cairn topped with three UN blue helmets to commemorate the deaths of the three Aussies. We then got the lecture that it was this incident which led directly and immediately to the UN painting all its vehicles gloss white to avoid a repeat of this tragic accident. As it happens, we rolled up to the range and found that whatever logistical support it was we were supposed to have had, we didn't get. After getting off the bus and hanging around waiting (as is entirely normal in the armed forces), we got back on the bus and headed off back to Nicosia. We passed by the cairn in the no-stopping zone ... and stopped. The Sherpa had overheated. Still pink from our recent arrival, there was an air of tight sphincters as we sat and waited and watched for activity in the forts on the hilltops to our left. Then we saw a figure leave the fort and wondered just how deep we were in the brown stuff. The figure got ever closer until he hopped aboard, held out his hand and demanded ... "Ceegarette?" That this man had crossed into the Greek Zone in the vain hope of blagging a fag demonstrates quite amply the poor conditions of the Turkish conscripts manning the forts. In fact one of our lads handed him a packet and he yomped straight back up the hill as fast as he had come down it, driven no doubt by his major prize.

Maybe there was a Sterling pouch (as has been confirmed elsewhere), but in fourteen years (seven in a Recce Regiment where everybody had an SMG, so you'd think we'd be issued SMG mag pouches) almost exclusively with an SMG as my personal weapon, I never saw one. I personally wouldn't lose sleep looking for them: even if technically, they may be correct, you'd be laughed at by a generation of us who had to cram our SMG mags into SLR pouches. Numerous years I represented my regiment or my subsequent corps at Skill-At-Arms meetings and even there I never saw an SMG pouch.

Legionnaire is a seminal work. So much so that when the history I referred to earlier came to the De Gaulle putsch, all it could do was quote Simon Murray's book as the only recorded first-hand account of what was going on in the two Foreign Parachute Regiments.

Nice engines. For a while I read a lot about steam engines and living in the heart of the LSWR region, these three very similar Bullied Pacifics in particular. The Bullieds were designed by him when the War Office had demanded that wartime prioritisation meant that passenger engines were not a priority. So Bulleid declared his West country design an "Express freight" engine. Moot point. The other two were derived from the West Country, being lighter to save on steel and with design improvements. The story that always cracks me up goes something like this (it's been a good few years, so the memory isn't what it was). They used to stop at a light near the Nine Elms water tank. In order to line engines up with the filler, there were white painted markings on the wall so that when a driver stopped his engine in the right place, the wall told him he was right for the engine he was driving. Unfortunately, when mainline trains stopped as these lights, the First Class passengers used to complain that they appeared to be stopped right next to the WC, which was not on: after all they were First Class passengers. LSWR repainted the sign for West Country as BoB for Battle of Britain. ---ooo0ooo--- As to my tracks? It would be easy to say Scorpion after seven years in Recce (and Spit on Scimitar, even though I wear a T-shirt showing a Scimitar and declaring that RECCE DO IT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE), or choose any of the other CVR(T)s I served on. I'd say Ferret, but the title expressly demands TRACKED. The Tiger 1E was special, and I see the Chieftain as being its Cold War equivalent. See why I have avoided answering this question for so long?

I picked up my wife from Whiteley and hit the road to go home. Joined the M27 at J9 and flew past a lowloader (I had finished work for the day and it was my own time) before I'd reached the Hamble. Whilst concentrating on the traffic in the outside lane, half an eye clocked the lowloader in the inside lane. All I could take in before it was lost in the rear-view mirror and the rush-hour traffic was what looked like a Normandy white star on the side of an olive(?) Morris(?) Quad. There was something else behind it on the trailer but that was just a blur.

It was only after applying shaving foam in full view of his colleagues that Sergeant Snooks realised that his little lie to get into the WRAC would be exposed.

Diesel is so difficult to burn (outside of an engine obviously) that I understand that the Abrams' fuel tanks are actually designed to provide wet protection to crew and ammunition.

Could be. It does look familiar (which is why I was surprised I couldn't remember a division it belonged to). Our modern map-marking symbols are derived from these but not exactly the same. Looking at it now, I shouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this indicated a wheeled infantry (or recce) unit. Must get another slice of that delicious humble pie.

That's not how I was taught to remove a Ferret turret on day one. I was told, "Turn the turret through thirteen revolutions to the left and it will fall off." Simple really. A bit like me if I'd believed it.