AlienFTM

Hear hear. Stood just inside Cambrai Barracks, Catterick in late 1975, our squad watched this vehicle come down the main road from the tank park and pass just the other side of the barrier. "Take a good look," said our Corporal. "That's a Vixen. You'll never see another one of them: the project has been cancelled." They kept one on at Catterick because it was a better Fox driver trainer than a Fox. First time I stagged on (doing a two hour tour of guard duty) over at the tank park, we were straight into the hangars. They were supposed to locked at night, but if we bubbled the person to blame, we'd have nowhere to get out of the cold North Yorkshire Moors autumn gales. I cannot believe when I first discovered the Army Rumour Service website a couple of years ago, they were STILL only just firming up on a replacement for the Ferret. Vixen ticked all the boxes. I suppose when you have a Cold War to fight and four armoured divisions to supply, you have to make cuts somewhere. I wonder what the excuse is for fighting two HOT wars with about 1/4 the field strength and STILL cutting back? Grrr.

Settings: Working: Ab: Work A set in left ear and Monitor B set in right ear Ba: Work B set in left ear and monitor A set in right ear ICa: Work crew intercommunication in left ear and monitor A set in right ear O/R: I presume it is override but do not remember this setting. Probably in my role I simply never used it. Beneath is the gain (volume) for the working set (left ear) Monitor: Off or On (that was rocket science) Live IC: Working set in the left ear. Crew intercom is in the right ear with the mike live to talk on I/C (great if you are a driver, your hands are full and you need to pull the sticks, or you are a gunner with a hand each on elevation and traverse handwheels) +M: as for Live IC, and also monitor the second set in the right ear. Note that with Live I/C active, if the operator presses the pressel, he will transmit on the working set and hear himself speak (potentially blocking radio traffic from other others: he will stop hearing them when he presses the pressel). Pressing the pressel will ALWAYS activate the working circuit, whether it is A, B of I/C. As before the control below works the gain in that ear. Harness and Audio indicate where to plug leads into the side. Note that there are two audio sockets. About my last day ever in the hot seat in a Sultan, I was controlling the B Sqn 15/19H Combat Team Command Net and it was hectic. I was buried in a Staff User Headgear trying to retain control while the Combat Team went to Hell in a handbasket. The Squadron Leader wandered across from his Land Rover and listened in by a handset plugged in beside my SUH. Eventually I gave up with the chaos on the net and started a standard bollicking. "Hello all stations this is 2 you are jamming each other other by talking over one another. Listen before you speak. Minimise, minimise out." The reply was totally unexpected: "Hello 2 this 0 (Battlegroup Control station, my old Command Troop, to whom I answered andwith whom I was in contact on the alternative set which ought to be being monitored in my right ear). There is nothing wrong with this net and it is my net to control. Do you have a problem?" Hearing Zero in my left ear was all wrong. I looked down at my hand holding the pressel. I turned and looked at the junction box (see pic) and found the Squadron Leader had his hand on the Working set switch, having just switched me onto the wrong means from right underneath me. He got a thousand yard stare. (I was days away from transferring out to a desk job in the RAPC, he couldn't hurt me.) I growled at him. He returned my box to the state it had been in before he interfered and hurried back to his Land Rover, whence he got speaking to Zero as had been his wont when he had interfered in my bollicking of his squadron for him. Moral: In signals, as well as think before you speak, think before you change settings on radio junction boxes.

Don't be fooled by the use of "U2/TR1" and "RAF Alconbury" in the same breath. Though RAF owned, the base was entirely USAF, a Tactical Reconaissance Wing IIRC. I remember the American pad brats tended to get upset by base signs proclaiming RAF Alconbury and regularly painted out RAF to replace with USAF. As for Canberra and B47 ... I really thought B47 was the last American superbomber from Boeing before the BUFF, B52 = Big Ugly Fat Fellow(tidied up in case there are ladies present). But there were Canberras about too, because I vaguely recall while I was in BAOR - must have been early 80s, one fell on an estate (Oxmoor IIRC) on the outskirts of Huntingdon just a couple of miles from Alconbury, and I did occasionally see them overhead when we were visiting.

Was it me or did the Spitfire lurch sideways when whoever put the film together realised the right wingtip was going to hit the wall?

On a nautical chart ISTR you don't need a scale because in the latitudinal axis, one second of arc = one nautical mile, so there is a ready-made scale down the side of the chart already.

My father-in-law lives pratically at the end of the runway at RAF Alconbury. Best I ever saw was in the late 80s, a pair of A10s took off in a noteworthy formation tight enough to make RAF aircrew proud. F-I-L and I then jumped into his car and set off to Peterborough. He was chemical adviser to Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, so as usual he had his radio tuned in to the Fire Service Operations Net in case they called him out. We had hardly got moving when a squawk came in for appliances to attend RAF Alconbury. ISTR that one of these two A10s had developed a problem and turned straight round to perform an emergancy landing, but fell off the runway and I think the undercarriage collapsed. In those Cold War days, there was great concern that the aircraft might be carrying a full weapons load. Entirely coincidentally, the village was plunged into a powercut that afternoon and Mother-In-Law's plans for tea were scuppered. We took the unusual step of driving to a chippy in Huntingdon for fish suppers all round. We stood in the queue with the local news on the TV. Just as a report of the crash at the RAF base came on, a pair of Americans walked in in combats. Oh how they blushed and tried to shrink into a corner.

That was my understanding too. (Though I have this nagging question whether the figure was exactly 2000 yards or not. Cannot be bothered to go away and Google it.)

Funny. My yacht training taught me that plane sailing was the phenomenon of getting the yacht to surf on the front of the wave. A monohull yacht's theoretical maximum speed is a function of hull length, achievable where the waterline of the yacht describes a sine wave from bow to stern. The wave created by the boat's movement through the water takes the form of a sine wave. The faster you go, the longer the wave. When the yacht is travelling faster than this calculable "hull speed", the back of the yacht is out of the water in the negative part of the wave and handling becomes extremely difficult. If the yacht is at or near hull speed and the speed of the waves underneath the yacht is close to this speed and in the same direction, the yacht rises out of the water (and you can hear a layer of air roaring and bubbling between yacht and water) and the yacht surfs the wave. This motion is exhilirating and extremly comfortable with no wave action slapping the boat about, hence the term Plane Sailing passing into non-nautical use to describe a comfortable ride. Bigger the boat, bigger the exhileration (because you are goingfaster). Best I ever experienced was on Sabre, the Army's entry in the 1980 Tall Ships Race, across the Bay of Biscay. I see no way of deriving this expression from navigation using a Mercator projection. But I am sure you'll show me. Lol

Depends what period your 434 is representing. Pre-about 1980, it would have a Larkspur radio harness, in which case the headgear would be the driver's normal beret and badge with a headset over the top. Very comfortable. When Scorpion was on the horizon, due to budgetary restraints, the RAC were given a choice by the MOD, "We can afford CVR(T) or Clansman: which do you want?" Scorpion had been built to take Clansman from the start. (It was very tight fitting a C13 / C42 setup in the turret of a Scorpion.) So pre-Clansman Scorpions came with a number of hybrid converter radio boxes and leads so that the crew got (as far as possible) Clansman features out of a Larkspur harness. We were issued bonedomes but it was quite normal for these all to be U/S so that we fell back to using Larkspur headsets over berets. In the early Clansman era, you'll be looking at a one-piece bonedome with velcro straps allegedly meant to hold the earpieces off the head to stop them crushing the skull ... not very successfully. You could acquire a HIB headset (Headset, Infantry and B Vehicle) or a Staff User Headgear, either of which is more comfortable than the bonedome, but I find it hard to envisage a time when this would be representative in a 434. For example, I am pretty sure that in our Command Troop, only Sultan drivers had to suffer the pain of the bonedome. Both these headsets would be worn over the usual regimental beret. I suspect Sultan commanders were expected to wear bonedomes in the turret, but we had Staff User Headgear in the back for the Battlegroup or Comabt Team command staff and I don't imagine our commanders suffering the pain of the bonedome when these were available. Ferret crews wore Staff User Headgear: I was Regimental Signals Storeman in camp and there was no way I was going to suffer any more discomfort in the field than I needed to. In the late clansman Era, i.e. through to today, the headgear appears to be two-piece so that you can wear the headset without the bonedome (though the bonedome would be required whilst driving), which I imagine is a lot more comfortable than the old bonedome.

I think it may be down to differing profiles at differing altitudes. I remember Morris used to boast (once a long time ago) that the Minor could do 100mph, 100mpg and cost under £100. It may have been true (if you squinted hard enough) but not all at once and extremely disingenuous. That's why nowadays the car manufacturers are obliged to quote such statistics in a strict set of circumstances. Maybe the Starfighter speed quote excluded the SR-71 (it would be great if I could find my source again). Maybe the quote about the hich altitude intercept referred to an incident where the SR-71 crew assumed they were immune and just felt bad about being jumped.

Cannot find anything to confirm it. My search did lead me to this: http://www.geocities.com/dansimpson99/sr71/ which opens: I have tried but cannot put my hands on a site (because a recent rebuild of my machine has wiped history and stuff: it's almost certainly off a link from this page: http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html somewhere) that refutes some of this (because it is written by Starfighter people). The F104, they claim, remains faster than the SR-71 but cannot hold the airspeed record because its poor duration prevents it from completing the required course whilst setting an airspeed record. F104s passed out of US Military use a long time ago, but the demand to see Starfighters continues. Apparently SR-71 pilots get upset when F104 pilots walk up behind them and ask, "How does it feel to be flying the SECOND fastest aircraft in the show?" Likewise, apparently, SR-71 crews would never admit to being bounced FROM ABOVE by F104 pilots. Another link comments that the F22 Raptor beats the F104 on all counts, but only just in some cases, it was a government-funded project (unlike F104 that the government didn't want) and after all, it's had forty more years of technological advancement. Yet another link suggests that the F104's poor Vietnam combat record was simply because when the F104 flew, the MiGs all went home to save their skins. I wish I had the time to plough through all these links again - must do it sometime - some good reading.

It might be a good start though and reduce the work to be done by a human by translating as many of the awkward words up front - save having to look them up.

I was taught Civil Service Linguist (Army) German in 1980. Was moechten Sie das ich uebersetze?

I am sure we can bump this thread in a month's time. I know it feels like autumn. lol

Lol last Airfix Scorpion I built was January 1976 and with a very definite purpose in mind. I was on my Scorpion Gunnery Course at Catterick. We spent a lot of time in the Field Miniature Range (FMR). To simulate firing Scorpion in those HEath Robinson days, we had a Scorpion in a hangar and attached a modified .22" rifle to the turret, linked to the barrel of the main armament and adjusted to align with the gunners sight at a sandpit about 15 yards away. In the sandpit were rubber block targets representing tanks, about the size a real tank would appear between 800m and 1500m away. There was also a mover rail, a bit like a ski drag-lift dragging rubber targets around the sandpit in a triangle so that at various points you could shoot at a sideways mover or oblique movers toward or away, which all had different drills from static targets because a HESH round would be in the air nearly three seconds whilst flying 1500 metres. (Of course the .22" round was in the air for just the blink of an eye. The gunnery instructor was well-versed in adjusting the point of aim of the .22" off so that the round fell off the mark on the graticule pattern in the sight that had been the gunner's aiming mark as it would have been had it been a HESH in the air for three seconds.) "So why did you build an Airfix Scorpion?" I hear you screaming. Because the rubber targets were about the same size as the Airfix Scorpion, I thought it would be a laugh to build the Scorpion, attach a hook made from sprue to the front, then when we went into the FMR and prepped for firing, I'd slip the Scorpion onto one of the drop-wires in place of a rubber target. I have to say that, hit by a ,22" round, bits of Scorpion flew all over the hangar.

It looks exactly tight to me: grubby and lived-in. TBH I haven't got a clue about this vehicle: before I found this post I had never even heard of the beast. WRT interior decorating. I once read about a crew taking delivery of a brand spanking new vehicle (pretty sure it was in the North African desert, a Sherman or maybe a Grant) and they were disgusted to find the interior painted with a nice thick shiny coat of gloss white, which they then spent days chipping off, because if they could chip it off, you can be sure that first time it took a hit (with either a kinetic or an explosive round), the paint would flake off on the inside and shred the crew. It may have been due to this phenomenon that some bright spark invented the HESH round. HESH (HESH-T for the pedants, because the round includes a trace element) is a high-explosive round designed to destroy armour. The casing is constructed in such a way that as the thin-walled tip strikes the armour, it deforms into a cowpat. The detonator is toward the rear of the round, and does not detonate until the cowpatting is complete. The force from an explosion is perpendicular to the surface of the explosive (which in the HEAT round is otherwise concave to concentrate the explosion into a point). When the HESH round explodes, it sends a shock wave through the armour. If the explosion does not penetrate the armour (which would of course kill the crew and potentially detonate the ammunition). If it does not penetrate, when the shock wave reaches the inside of the armour plate, it reflects back on itself. The leading edge of the shock wave meets the trailing edge of the shock wave and amplifies itself. This leads to massive instant metal fatigue on the inside of the armour, breaking off a scab the shape and size of the explosive cowpat on the outside. This scab, with its massive energy, flies around inside the vehicle like letting off a hand grenade. End of vehicle and crew. There are numerous reasons why HESH is superior to HEAT: HESH is not particularly sensitive to the attack angle at which it strikes the armour and will function perpendicular to the armour even at high angles. A HEAT round has the detonator on the tip, causing the shaped charge to explode at exactly the right distance to focus the explosion on the armour and create what is generally described as a narrow plasma beam to punch through the armour and cause similar destruction within, but by entirely different means. But HEAT is extremely sensitive to the attack angle at which it strikes the armour and if not close to perpendicular, may fail to explode. HEAT is the preferred round in man-portable weapons and popular in Bundeswehr Leopards. HESH is still essentially a high explosive round. Detonated against any target other than armour, its effects are very much like a normal Shell (high explosive) round, making it the perfect dual-purpose round and carried almost to the exclusion of everything else on Scorpion. As already shown. HEAT, 1. may not explode at all; 2, is extremely concentrated in its effects. Unfortunately, post-Cold War cost restraints mean that goverments are looking to use a single (Rheinmetall) barrel on Leopard, Abrams and Challenger. The preferred tank-destroying round of the MBT is the Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot round (APFSDS or Fin for short), the only round suitable for attacking composite Chobham-like armour. Unfortunately, Fin has been shown to perform far better out of a smooth-bore barrel than a rifled barrel. I understand (but stand to be corrected) that the Fin round for Challenger is actually designed to counter-rotate in the barrel so that when the sabot is discarded, there is no spin in the finned round and it flies straight and true. Again in these cost-cutting times, it makes far more sense to share the cost of ammunition production with the USA and Germany. Though this does of course beg the question, "Where do we get our ammunition (and barrels) if the Germans kick off against us a third time?" HESH range and accuracy are severely inhibited by being fired from a smooth-bore gun and it would seem that its days are numbered. Which is a pity because when the infantry need an instant artillery strike on a target, a handful of direct-fire HESH rounds from the accompanying tank troop will usually be quicker and more accurate than calling up a fire mission from the artillery some miles away. In the 1970s, we tried not to paint the inside of our Scorpions (see where we came in). If we were absolutely compelled to paint the inside, we used silver, because of its non-flake constituency. HTH

At the Light Dragoons Association Weekend, I couldn't help but notice that all the vehicles, even though prepared for display, were grubby, just like they were when I served. But the Scorpion, provided by a civvy to complete the display (see clip on HMVF TV), shone like new. Actually I discovered last week that that particular Scorpion, 02 FD 21, is famous. Wor Lass asked if we could call in at Hobbycraft, so while she was mooching, as usual I had a wander round the train sets and plastic models. No intention of buying, just more interesting than her card. Having brought up the subject of the Aifix Command Post Set recently, I stumbled upon the Airfix RAF Airfield set, featuring, IIRC, a Land Rover, a Scorpion and a Harrier. Imagine my surprise when I realised the Scorpion depicted on the box was 02 FD 21. It then begged the question, did RAF Regiment use Army-registered Scorpions? I am sure somebody here has a formerly-Air Force-registered Spartan. Back on topic. My first season on Scorpion was the long, hot, dry summer of 76 on Salisbury Plain. We were embargoed from washing down to save water. The thickness of chalky dust that collected on a Scorpion was unfeasible, being an inch thick in most places.

In 1984 I was stationed in Osnabruck. The married quarters estate started right outside one of the camp gates, so I would lunch at home. One afternoon I got back to the office only to learn that up the street behind me had come a vehicle with a loud-hailer instructing everybody to evacuate to the (I think it was Church Army) recreation centre just inside Imphal Barracks' main gates. It made no difference to me except to pick up wife plus two when all was clear. It turned out that somebody had found an unexploded RAF bomb just across the main road from us, maybe a hundred metres or two away. It was dealt with and removed. It also turned out that the woman upstairs had heard the (not exactly brilliant) loudspeaker and. newly posted in, assumed it was something to do with local (German) elections and went back to her siesta. A couple of weeks later, we heard word that they had found a second unexploded bomb right outside the Estate Warden's office. Fed up with the flak after the recent incident, they just picked up the bomb and disposed of it. The estate office was run by a long-retired ex-infantry warrant officer who thought he was still sergeant major and that everyone ought to jump to his tune. I personally asked myself whether somebody had planted the bomb outside his office deliberately just to irk him.

Curiously just today I found a picture of a 15/15H Centurion from the mid-60s bearing First Troop B Sqn tactical sign and the name BISHOP AUCKLAND on the side. Seems it was from a KAPE tour to the town. I'd post it here but it's on a private Facebook group.

When I transferred from Royal Armoured Corps to Shiny-Bottomed .... I mean Royal Army Pay Corps ... one of the first things we did was roll up at 0800 hours every Monday for a session with a lovely WRAC corporal. We were required to touch-type at 15 words per minute. I quickly discovered I could type with about four fingers looking at the keyboard more quickly than I could touch-type looking at the screen. After a few lessons, we started taking tests. I made 17 wpm and was told I no longer needed to attend. But she was such a lovely girl. Thursday night is Hop night for the Army around the world (because Friday and Saturday are weekend and there are therefore even higher priorities). The Computer Centre (to which I was posted three years later) and the Command Pay Office UKLF were both on the same site, and each was 50% civilian-manned. As a result, there was a Civil Service Club on site and the Worthy Down Hop took place there. We hardened former combat troops always ensured we got drunk cheaply in the NAAFI before wandering up to the Civil Service Club. I have fond memories of W/Cpl Bain ensuring she danced with me. Shame that: 1. I was so drunk I danced lying down; 2. My wife was about seven months pregnant. The only typing problem I have is that I have a shiny new (ish) black keyboard and right above my terminal is a flourescent light cluster. Although I know where all the keys are and I mentally type ahead, the reflection of the lights on the keys means I guess where the keys are and if I get a finger one key out of place, I'll type a whole paragraph without looking up, then when I do look up, it's nonsense. Which is why you often see Y for T, P for O, S for D and so on. It's worse when I only make the occasional mistake because, even though I have been an ISO9001 accredited proof-reader, the occasional one slips through because I am confident of what I have typed and I miss the typo. Colleagues hate my pedantry over spellings, grammar and syntax (being a linguist makes it even worse).

I really ought to be certain on this answer, but I only BELIEVE they are Royal Armoured Corps colours. Which, let's face it, is hardly surprising. ISTR that everything at the RAC Centre, Bovington carries this badge. We didn't need these in the field. We used: Red: indicates a vehicle (on the ranges) is at Action i.e. firing, about to fire or not yet guns clear after firing. Yellow: on the ranges, indicates a misfire. After going through various immediate actions, having failed to clear the misfire, the commander will order, "MISFIRE WAIT 15 MINUTES." (On a 76mm main armament misfire: it varies.) Green: on the ranges, indicates that the guns are clear and the vehicle is safe. One or other (ISTR there is a combination to indicate a stoppage on the MG) of these flags IS to be flown at all times while on the firing point. Green and Blue: on the road, they two flags indicate lead and tail vehicle in a packet (but I cannot remember which is lead vehicle and which is tail). During road moves, packets normally consist of five to eight vehicles, though a troop of four is also a logical packet. More than eight vehicles will be split into two packets. Ideally at least the lead and tail vehicles will be in radio contact with each other and the convoy commander to maintain spacing between vehicles and to ensure a gap between packets to allow other traffic to pass.

Does it recognise recognise? I really REALLY hate the abominal contradiction-in-terms that is US English. How can it be English if it is American? And why must I qualify English as UK English. It's JUST ENGLISH. And why do software packages come with a "US English" language package but not a real English package? Grrr.

I found that while I was prototyping my reply to the OP. I suspect Notepad does something unusual with the end-of-line character. Don't care (sorry) but HMVF never drops under me even when typing a long one.

In June 1976 15/19H were in Tidworth, back from Omagh and training in earnest in our new recce role. C Sqn were away in Cyprus. B Sqn were on Scorpion training to be Medium Recce. A Sqn were on Fox, training to be close Recce. We (B Sqn) found ourselves on a day trip to visit the frigate, HMS Arrow, which had been twinned with the regiment. We came back to Tidworth in late afternoon where, standing in the cookhouse queue, we learned there had been a death in A Sqn. There was a driver training area ("The Dustbowl") right outside the back gates of Aliwal Barracks, whence the Plain extended for many miles. An instructor was out with two trainee Fox drivers. The dustbowl included all the most difficult features a military vehicle driver might encounter, including some unfeasibly steep slopes. One driver attempted this slope. As he neared the top he needed to change down. He smacked the GCP (Gear Change Pedal) to engage the preselected next-lower gear, but not hard enough and he suffered the dreaded false neutral. Fox immediately started to roll back. It would have rolled out quite safely, so commander pressed pressel and told him over the IC, "Don't hit the brake." Unfortunately, he spoke too quickly for the Larkspur IC to warm up and the driver heard, "Hit the brake." Which he did. This would have Fox stopped dead, but being on such a steep slope, it rolled over the back, end over end. Commander tried to get the other trainee driver (in the gunner's seat) to duck his head inside, but he tried to jump. He didn't make it. Not pretty.

Confucius he say "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission."