AlienFTM

I was going to query the 3 Div sign, since I served in a battlegroup of 3 ARMOURED Division from 1978. lol

A 10 ton bridge classification when a V2 weighed 27,580lb! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket), never mind the trailer. HSE would have blown a fuze.

I watched a programme a few days ago describing the CWGChave an endless task like painting the Forth Road Bridge renweing the engraving on stones. I am sure there is a case. Back on topic. As for billetting, the point I didn't make was that units lived in tented camps all over the south of England. I'd expect that this included all invasion troops and that only garrison troops were billeted out if required. Far easier to control Operational Security.

I'd start by trying to get hold of his unit's war diary. From this I learned that a battalion of LI spent the weeks before D-Day encamped on Tot Hill on the northern outskirts of Southampton, which I pass every day. (If you travel the M27 westbound in the dark past Rownhams services, you'll see a red aircraft warning light on a hill just to the right of the motorway right after the services.) My cousin gave me her late father's memorabilia when she knew I was doing a family tree (and because I, unlike her, cared about things military). Among his things, I found a history of his unit (25 Light Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment Royal Artillery) which proclaimed that they were billeted pre-D-Day in Hursley Park near Winchester, which coincidentally is where I am sat right now while I do lunch.

I am entirely with Richard on this one. An IS Pack is an add-n for IS duties as he describes. I did NI, I know a lot of people who did NI and we recently had a big forum discussion about which units had served. There was a broad spectrum of units and types discussed but nothing remotely resembling IS Pack. It simply makes no sense as a British Army unit. I'd posit that where IS Pack is listed in a vehicle's record, the vehicle was withdrawn and sent to have the IS Pack fitted before reissue to another unit. I also worked in the RAPC Computer Centre for four years and saw the entire OrBat, but nothing resembled IS Pack.

They may be composed of up to five 155mm artillery rounds. This has been shown to be enough to defeat even the armour on Challenger and Abrams.

And all mod cons: Hot (from the BV) and cold (from the turret tank) running water; Airconditioning (from the NBC pack - I used to get strange looks wearing respirator in the sweltering summer heat so I could plug the NBC pack into it. What sort of perv wears his respirator when it isn't needed. Mmm I love the smell of CS in the morning) Toilet (remove the bung from the commander's seat. Recce - the place to be. And as my new T-shirt, due imminently, proclaims, Recce do it in front of everyone.

This effect is exactly that of the High Explosive Squash Head tank round used against all but the toughest targets. The round is constructed so that when it strikes the armour, the explosive is squashed into a cowpat which is detonated by the fuze in the base of the round. When the cowpat explodes, as we all know, the shock wave is perpendicular to the face of the explosive, i.e. through the armour across the area of the cowpat. When the chock of the explosion reaches the inside face of the armour, much of it reflects back on itself and the leading edge of the shock wave amplifies the trailing edge which is still incoming, causing metal fatigue and a cowpat shape similar that that of the explosive shears off inside and ricochets around inside, chopping up crew and causing secondaries. In the first Gulf War, a 16/5 Lancers Scorpion was credited with a T55 kill. I'd be very surprised if it were not a HESH round, HESH being the usual anti-tank round in the 76mm gun. Because the Germans and the Americans are so in love with the APFSDS ("Fin") round, which behaves better out of a smoothbore barrel, our Army, which can longer afford to make our own barrels, is to railroaded into dropping the HESH round, which needs a rifled bore to maintian accuracy over distance.

In contrast with the Falkland Islands air bridge prior to Stanley Airport being upgraded to support the post-war garrison. Hercules was the biggest troop carrier that could land. To get there, it needed to be refuelled by a Hercules tanker both ways. To get far enough to refuel the troop carrier between refuels, the tanker had to be refuelled both ways ... by a Victor. Shame the Victor stall speed was higher than the top speed of the Hercules. So the refuel of the Herc tanker was carried out in a dive to increase both the top speed of the tanker and the stall speed of the tanker until there was an overlap. Hats off.

All this petrol / diesel Centurion talk keeps reminding me of a passage we kept encountering on the Civil Service Linguist (Army) German course. ISTR it was a recording in German for a dictation / translation test. It kept whittering on about a unit (size not specified: ISTR the word was Einheit, translating exactly as unit) of Centurion tanks sat idling and burning a lot (it was specified but the value is now forgotten) of petrol. Among other things. Slightly off-topic, but ... It reminds me of a pic I found yesterday on our regimental Facebook group of one of my former comrades aboard a Saladin of the Cyprus Armoured Car Squadron in the 1980s after I had left. He joked that Ordnance did not believe any Saladins were still in service and they had to take a picture of themselves in front of a Saladin with a current newspaper with date visible before Ordnance would release spare parts to them. Good job the Commies (or the Turks) weren't coming.

CVR(T) in the 1970s?

Good news: I had it down on Sky+ to record. Bad news: it clashed with programmes desired by Her Who Must Be Obeyed. Good news: it WAS on again. Bad news: on Channel 4+1 so if you missed it the first time, you probably missed the second too ...

Tip. If you find a MOD Record on a brass plate, don't get excited. Many parts, big and small, get modified over time and records of MODifications are stamped onto the brass plate to cross out the mod after it has been carried out.

If he served in a county regiment, you might want to try the archives office at County Hall. I found War Diaries for the Durham Light Infantry at Durham Records Office whilst researching my family tree. Come to think of it, they may have been exclusively Second World War records, but you might be lucky and find Great War stuff too at your local records office.

pmsl Go away in short sharp and jerky movements observing a Regimental Pause of 2 - 3. You are not eight years old. In fact you were there when I joined. Can't you remember then? In the Cold War, my lasting memory is of ... getting cold.

It's open now. Like the Mermaid theatre, it never closed. The new building will be "officially" opened next year sometime. As an RAC alumnus and regular contributor the restoration fund, I expect an invite. DRAC even promised my name on the roll of honour for those who coughed up under the scheme. We shall see on that last bit. On Saturday, BBC South will be there to do an "Antiques Roadshow" style programme, free entrance and a chance to experience the trenches as the 90th anniversary of the Armistice comes around. I considered turning up in 15/19H blazer and tie with medals, but really didn't fancy having my arm tugged by an eight-year-old: "Mister, mister, what did you do in the Great War?"

25 years ago today the world was racing toward Armageddon by Mutual Assured Destrustion as the KGB concluded that Exercise Able Archer was a cover to mobilise NATO nuclear forces and launch a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Chairman Andropov, former head of the KGB had spent his year in the post twisting the KGB's arm to prove that NATO were about to launch such a strike and the Soviet Union was not to be caught unready as they had by Barbarossa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

As a wild guess I'd think it is about the same distance as Moenchengladbach to Paderborn. In maybe Nowember 1977 Command Troop 15/19H (newly Amrs-Plotted into Paderborn) had to collect Saracen ACVs and Ferret Scout Cars from the Vehicle Depot in Moenchenstrapback (as we called it). We drove for hours in weather like we have today in the back of a four tonner. It was afternoon by the time we got ther. We had to fit Larkspur radios and harness (brought with us) before we could drive back with legally-required crew intercom. It was very cold dark and wet and we were very tired by the time we got back. We did one exercise in the Saracen APCRAs we had been given by mistake instead of ACVs, then we had to repeat the round trip to Moenchenstrapback to collect three ACVs, but this time it was worse because we had to do the outbound journey in the APCRAs we were returning, remove the harness and fit it into the ACVs. We also used to take a four-tonner with us to Bavaria for Ex Snow Queen (supposedly to learn to ski, fight and survive in snow: in reality, two weeks of downhill, thank you). One year I had the pleasure of returning from Snow Queen in the back of of the four-tonner. Not fun either. He gets my sympathy.

.. and BANG, there goes the Vatican's Hovis contract. Oops, sorry wrong joke: "... give us this day our daily meat."

After a few teething troubles with the aircraft and some big procedural changes to Luftwaffe manning, servicing, etc, the G went on to become a marvellous aeroplane, also being built under licence in Japan as the F104J. Some raised concerns with the down-firing ejector seat in the F104, but this was universal (and universally hated) in early T tail jets, not just F104s, where it was feared the ejecting pilot would be cut in half by the tail plane. A more powerful ejector seat and upwards ejection was sorted.

Yes indeed. If you read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, you'll note that Jules Verne always used longitude east or west of Paris. Of course the Americans now use all their time based on US nautical data. Soon enough they'll feel brave enough to unilaterally move the datum point to the USA.

Captain Lockheed again: http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html Track Three (Voices in Background... fair ground callers): Roll up roll up...this is the plane you want. Wanna try a fast plane sir...fast plane. Knock the pilot out of the air...three goes one mark. Voice of Air Defence Minister: NEXT! Cut to voice of American Salesman (warm and friendly as a TV ad for cigarettes used to be) Salesman: Hi there. We understand you want to buy some airplanes G.A.D.M. (German Air Defence Minister, Franz Josef Strauss): That is correct. Salesman: Well we make airplanes. Good ones. Fast and reliable. Let me just show you this. Look at this picture. This is the F104. Or the Starfighter as we like to call her. Isn't she beautiful. Yep. She sure is beautiful. Designed by the same man who designed the famous U2. It's the finest fairweather fighter on the market. You won't find a better one at the price. Or any price for that matter G.A.D.M. (screaming in a Hitlerian rant): Very nice. But we need a plane for bombing, strafing, assault and battery, interception, ground support and reconnaissance. Not just a fairweather fighter. Salesman: Well that's O.K. We can make some modifications. It'll cost a little extra, but it's worth it. Just look at the shape of this beauty... Look I tell you what we'll do. We'll redesign the plane. Right. And instead of just calling it the F104. We'll call it the F104G. G.A.D.M.: G? Salesman: Yeah. G. G for Germany. G.A.D.M.: G for Germany eh. Salesman: Uh huh. G for Germany. G.A.D.M.: Hmmmmm. Marching song backwards. Fade out.

To quote Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters; http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html Side Two Track Two Song 1 HERO WITH A WING (Folk Rock) 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.

In the late 60s or early 70s the UK spent about three years on "British Standard Time," another name for British Summer Time. What grates with me is that the rest of the world have decided that GMT is whatever the time is in Greenwich, and if it happens not to be Time Zone Zulu, it must be GMT Daylight Saving Time. Screwed up? Not half.

I always seemed to be Guard Commander the night the clocks changed. In the Spring we'd get an extra hour on stag; in the Autumn we had an hour's less sleep. I always made a point of making an entry in the Occurrences Book (the top of each page inside described it as the Occurences Book): "0200 reset the Guard Room clock to (whatever time)." Saved any argument with the RSM afterward about what time subsequent events happened. In Paderborn, the Master Chef had the bright idea of introducing Brunch on a Saturday and a Sunday. Although we paid (by direct deduction at source) for three meals a day, seven days a week, it was extremely inefficient if only a handful of people on duty turned up for breakfast at the weekend. That said, Brunch was still divided into Breakfast and Lunch - the cooks simply stopped doing a full English Breakfast and removed the cereal and started doing more lunchy meals - and clock-change Sunday always saw somebody roll in for Breakfast at lunchtime or vice-versa. These people were probably lucky they were not on Guard as they'd probably have rolled up an hour late for Guard Mount. Extras, extras, read all about it.