AlienFTM

I thought they looked like container lids too.

Seems he was an infantryman being trained in mine warfare, I see references to: S-mine at the top - IIRC a nasty anti-personnel mine that on detonation spat handfuls of shrapnel out at about 1m high Teller mine - anti-tank mine shaped like a dinner plate (from the German Teller = plate) Bar mine - anti-tank mine shaped like (but not the same dimensions as) a railway sleeper. Regal mine - never heard of it. References to anti-handling devices, colours, ignitors etc. In the last months of the war, 15/19H and a battalion of Cheshires formed one of Britain's first battlegroups as the concept finally cottoned on. Battlegroups were used on an ad-hoc by the Germans throughout the war and certainly established as a concept by the Americans in their Regimental Combat Teams. It's a long shot in suggesting the originator fought from Normandy to the Baltic alongside 15/19H but who knows?

If the individual vehicle's last role was Hong Kong Police, maybe it would be easier and cheaper to kit it out thus, in which case it would be an interesting and unusual variation. But having served on Saracens, I'd struggle to recommend anything other than green.

WRT named vehicles. It was common in the Royal Armoured Corps during the Second World War to name all tanks in sabre squadrons with a name beginning with the squadron letter. Anybody familiar with the old Airfix M4 Sherman will remember the name CHARGER. Unfortunately, it also came with an A Squadron triangle (C Sqn = circle, B Sqn = square, HQ Sqn = diamond). I never saw this practice applied in the 1970s and 80s, but apparently when 15/19H reverted to tanks from recce in the late 80s, some bright spark decided to re-introduce the practice. I tell a lie. In Tidworth in 1976, A Squadron's command Saracen bore the name GARFORTH VC in commemoration of the last recipient of a VC for actions performed on horseback. (See this day in history, 24 Aug, 2 - 3 Sep 1914)

In the mid-70s I bought and read Hitler's Last Offensive by Peter Elstob (ex-3RTR, part of the relief column: oh yes, contrary to what Hollywood tells you, The Ardennes Offensive wasn't just about Americans getting cheesed in the Schnee Eiffel). In it, he explained the meaning and popular use in 1944 of SNAFU, FUMTU and TARFU. On first read, I didn't get the impression that the acronums had been new in 1944. A later addition (maybe about the time og Op Granby) was FUBAR.

Start / Programs / Accessories / Notepad Type in your message. Press and hold the Ctrl key and press A to select All your text. Press and hold Ctrl and press C to Copy it to your Windows clipboard (a temporary storage space). Press and hold Alt and press the Tab key (left-right arrows above the left-hand Caps Lock key) repeatedly until the little window in the screen tells you you are back in HMVF (IF you opened Notepad with HMVF already open, it will probably only take a single Tab click). Create your new message, Click the mouse in the window where you propose to type your text. Press and hold Ctrl and press V to paste the contents of your clipboard into the message field. Sorted.

Fire it right-handed. Not as arrogant as it might at first sound: I was quite capable of shooting an SLR or an SMG (the latter only whilst wearing a respirator to catch the hot ejected empty cases) equally well with right or wrong (left) hand.

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters Side 1 Track Eight Song 4 by Bob Calvert THE GREMLIN I focused the magnifying glass that brought the downfall of Icarus. Balloons were easy; a simple pin. Or a knife in the case of the zeppelin. That blade was the cause of many a prang in the early days of stick and string. I am the gremlin. I was there. Making mischief in the air and always will be wherever man flies in the face of Creation's plan. Side 2 Track Seven Song 4 THE GREMLIN (Part Two) Death to engines in the air chaos take the human wing death to jet and turbo prop death to stick and death to string ruin to the fuselage destruction to the aerolon death to the pilot and his breed whose daring still goes on and on no mercy for the rudder bar no mercy for the tail plane a singe for the handle-bar mustache cremation for the bone-domed brain death to rockets into space chaos take the human egg death to telescopic sight death to radar and fire to flag ruin to portholes filled with stars destruction to the airlock's catch death to the spaceman and his craft its ugly landing legs despatch. No mercy for the hot-air balloons no mercy for the thread and kite holes for the gliders canvas skin cramp for the bird man at his height. See http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html

Ptarmigan. There's a name from the past, and thinking about it, in all probability from HQ TFE. It threatens to come together. But I wouldn't bet my shirt on it.

There was a question a few days ago about a badge on a vehicle, attributed to Second Army and mentioning First Army. This map helps to see the two armies, apparently side by side but not in fact. Across the bottom third of the map. passing just south of Brussels in a line marked by XXXXX. This indicates a boundary line (blue = friendly) and XXXXX indicates that it is an Army Group Boundary. On the LHS is a rectangle, numbered 21, superscripted XXXXX, subscripted MONTGOMERY and marked BR on its LHS. This indicates 21 (British) Army Group commanded by Monty. If this box had a flagpole, the base of the flagpole would indicate the locate of Army Gp HQ, but this is not a tactical map. Above the Army Gp boundary is another boundary, marked XXXX. This is an Army boundary. Boxes indicate that on the left was First (Canadian) Army commanded by Crerar and on the right, Second (British) Army under Dempsey. Note that First British Army deployed to North West Africa on Op Torch and linked up with Eight Army advancing from Noth East Africa so the identification of each Army's nationality is important in this case. At the top of the picture, Zangen's 15th Army (shown in red) does not need qualifying because it is explained in the legend. On a bigger, or finer detail map, you might have seen Army Corps (XXX), Divisions (XX), Brigades (X), Regiments/Battalions (''), Squadrons/Companies/Batteries ('), Troops/Platoons (oo) or Sections(o). Here endeth today's lesson in map-reading symbols.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia) I visited the IWM last year and, stumbling upon the Victoria Cross Room, was drawn to look for Garforth's medals. Cue big lump in throat when I found them. I think I got some dust in my contact lens too. I believe I read whilst at the Light Dragoons Association Weekend in July (15H being forebears of LD), that this was the last VC awarded to a cavalryman for deeds performed in a cavalry role, i.e. whilst serving on horseback.

If so, you'd better not tell the French FA who have been fielding a woman in their football team in the guise of Sylvain Wiltord!

Since nobody else appears to answered this over the course of the ten pages I have speed-read (my apologies if I am wrong) ... FV432 (British) is an entirely different beast from the M113 (American). They were just designed about the same time to do the same job and came up with similar products.

It's being well received in our office (by software engineers) so it cannot be all bad.

We certainly never used anything like that, simply because it was appropriate for our role, but we shared a barracks with a Task force (Brigade) HQ and Signals Troop and I do remember once being in conversation with a Scaleyback sometime either side of 1980 who mentioned using Yagis. This being a Yagi, I thought of TFE HQ & Signals Troop when I saw the pic.

In 93 I was working in consultancy out of a suitcase up in the Midlands. I took library books away with me. I swear my library scanned what books were being signed out and used this to order new books. Being the 50th anniversary of the Dams Raid, there were dozens of them. Suited me. I have a vague recollection that one raid they undertook (Tirpitz maybe?) ended up with Tait and his crew being interned in Sweden, or have I got the wrong man?

My ancestors were all coal miners in the Durham Coalfield (though searching my roots has taken me back to when people flocked from all over the British Isles to join the high-tech wave that was the Industrial Revolution and I have found ancestors from Ireland and Norfolk, so there'll be no bog-trotting jokes, ooarrr! My father went to join the Army at the start of the Second World War but was told to get back down the pit and dig for victory (reserved occupation). He did manage to serve in the Home Guard though. This was true for most of his and my mother's siblings. My mother's brother, my Uncle Jack, ran a Co-op store. He volunteered and found himself in The Border Regiment, fighting with 2 Borders and dying up the Irriwaddy in 1944. Remembered at the CWGC cemetery at Rangoon One uncle on my father's side served in HM Submarines (I discovered recently when I found his daughter, my cousin in Australia - I had known he was RN, but not submarines). Another served in the Merchant Navy. Sailed on the SS Hull out of Tyne Dock in 1943 and never came back. His name is on the Wall of Remembrance at Tower Hill.

Did he ever tell you about the tenth anniversary service for the Dams Raid at Lincoln Cathedral? I read that all the former 617 COs were sat in the front row and the collection plate came first to Gp Captain Tait who reached into his pocket and discovered to his horror that all he had was a £10 note. (This in 1953. In 1973, my first pay packet ran to some £7.00.) With good grace, he dropped the note onto the plate, causing consternation all round as the remaining COs put away what they had and tried not to appear tightfisted. The Bishop of Lincoln reckoned he had never seen a collection like it in his life.

Our CO had a ragtop FFR with a three-set installation and an operator in the back. If I tell you his operator was nicknamed Woodgnome on account of never coming out of his little hole on exercise, you can imagine how it was. Being Recce meant that we were always sharp. Even Command Troop of a Recce Regt tended to be forward of the main battlegroup positions. We were paranoid about our cam. We used an awful lot of cam net and hessian, even on a single Land Rover. When we moved, this all (apart from heesian over shiny surfaces and wheel arches) got rolled up onto the roof in such a way that upon arrival at the other end, it rolled straight back out. It had to be tied down tight so that it didn't unfurl in transit. This led to the canvas roof between the spars being depressed right down into Woodgnome's living space. If he had thought of a mod like this to give him some Lebensraum, he'd have been delighted.

By the late 70s / early 80s, Ferret had been around for about ... well ... ever. Any particular example had had scores of drivers. They didn't by any means spend their entire lives in combat. If it failed to start, it would invariably be easier to slave start it from the other car in the section than to crank it. The crank handle was an item which lurked in the bottom of the bin. (There isn't a mount for it on the glacis plate is there? It's the age you know. Memory is the first thing to go. Well, I cannot remember anything that went before memory.) I have crank-started the odd Ferret, and turning over the B60 isn't so difficult (but make sure you position yourself correctly so that when (if) it catches, the handle doesn't bit back and smack your kneecaps. But there is the matter of removing the access plug which has been painted over almost as many times as the car has been handed over. Not easy if the "wrong" end of the crank (used to remove the plug IIRC) has been stripped and, having been forced into the many layers of paint filling the hole in the plug. And so it goes on. And of course you know it is going to fail to start when it and you are cold and wet. ISTR last time I struggled to start a Ferret (short circuit in the braking system left the brakes lights on permanently) was on Ex Spearpoint 80. We were lucky that, being umpires and non-tactical, we had parked in the open, on a slope and I was able to push it enough to start rolling down the hill and my driver got one shot at turning it over, which he did.

... which is a good job cos after the batteries have gone flat whilst running an automatic rebroadcast net, starting a Ferret on the handle is not a fun job.

Not much help, but background. The RAC Regiment based in Omagh based a squadron on the border in Fermanagh. This squadron's HQ was based at St Angelo Airport, near Enniskillen. Troops were based in villages including Kinawley, Belcoo (where I was), Beleek and a couple of others (we had six sabre troops). (There had also, I believe, been a squadron based at Cookstown in East Tyrone, but by the time I caught the tail-end of the tour, it had gone. Although the RAC could perform the Infantry role in NI on a much smaller establishment than an (equivalent) infantry battalion, the pressure of so much work on so few heads had a negative impact. Also over time, mission creep occurred. Cookstown was sacrificed to balance the workload.) As I say, this is before my time but ... 15/19H handed over Omagh to 9/12L when we moved to Tidworth. 18 months later we handed over to them again in Tidworth as we moved to Paderborn. All such rotations occurred off what was known as The Arms Plot. The MOD and the General Staff worked out years in advance what units they needed and where, so that in theory everybody got a change of scenery and also, in those days, RAC regiments changed role between armour and recce periodically. (This has been scrapped. Wherever a regiment ended up, that's where they stay in the foreseeable future. Saves retraining a whole armoured regiment in the fine arts of recce - which remember to the rest of the world is a euphemism for Special Forces.) Omagh was a staging post. As regiments cycled out of the armour role based in BAOR, they did an 18 month tour of Omagh before cycling through Tidworth and learning the recce trade, then off to BAOR as a Recce Regt. We took over Aliwal Barracks in Tidworth from 1RTR and I have no reason to believe we had not previously taken over from them in Omagh. (Maybe Baz can confirm?) One thing that I noticed in Tidworth was that there was a store room, in the window of which was clearly visible a box marked 16/5L Canoing Club. The date you have given for this incident is IIRC verly close to three years before our Omagh tour started, which implies to me that 16/5L had not long been in situ, and that they handed over to 1RTR 18 months before they handed over to us. What does intrigue me is that they had Pigs. As I mentioned in another thread not so long ago, I never saw any evidence of Pigs while we were in Omagh. However, looking at the longer-term history, in 1971 the troubles were still fresh. 15/19H bad previously been based in Omagh in IIRC the late 1950s - early 60s, before Lisanelly Barracks had been handed over to an infantry batallion sometime in the 1960s (but not necessarily immediately after us). (Lisanelly was again, AIUI, again passed back to the infantry some time after our 74-76 tour when further mission creep meant that it made better sense to station an infantry battalion there.) So why did 16/5L have Pigs? I am guessing that the infantry had indeed been resident in Omagh when the troubles started, but when the four-month emergency tours started flying thick and fast, it made sense to somebody to park an RAC regiment in Omagh on a full tour, freeing up more infantry for a continuous stream of Op Banner tours to Belfast. (Although 15/19H served on Op Banner, technically the Omagh posting was not an Op Banner tour: Omagh was a permanent NI posting like Aldershot, Tidworth or Catterick. That's why we did 18 months and took families.) So the troubles kick off and the infantry need more rifles, so 16/5L, earmarked for retraining as recce, take over from the infantry in Omagh, along with their Pigs, which have been bought back from the Portuguese to whom we'd just sold them off because it was the most suitable vehicle for the role. Then at some point it becomes clear that the Pig is more suited for urban use than for the largely rural role of the Omagh garrison, so the RAC regiment in Omagh gets Saracens for troop carriers (plenty of these spare since the mechanised infantry are by now all on 432s) freeing up Pigs for use in the urban role, with some spare for upgrading to meet the new threat which hadn't been envisaged when they were sold. They may have been the best vehicle for the job, but they were far from perfect - that's why we had sold them off. Sorry. A lot of wind and it's largely surmise, but I hope it's interesting.

I thought the grousers didn't look quite like I remembered them. That explains it. And I did wonder how come there was space for grousers on the inside. All explained. Cheers.

Storage was a real issue. We had just a couple of small grenade bins on the outside of the turret, which were less than useless, and apart from the turret back bin and the back bin over the NBC pack hatch, just a couple of side bins inside the float screen. ISTR (Bazz probably remembers better) getting ammo boxes fitted in place of the grenade bins. This wasn't a trivial matter because we couldn't just hack and drill the aluminium armour: REME tasks because (as I think has been mentioned here before) the filings etc have a tendency to burn or some such. Fitting large ammo boxes as bins was the norm: we mounted them either side of the commander on our Command Troop Ferrets. On the Sultans we had giant XPM cages built to occupy the roof. When we ripped off the float screens, we immediately acquired Chieftain side bins which greatly improved the stowage situation. I have to say that a generation later, I greatly approve of the improvements. My desktop wallpaper shows a Light Dragoons Scimitar at sunset and with the exception of the Rarden cannon, it is barely recognisable as Scorpion's younger brother.

Remind me where this tank came from? What caught my eye were the grousers - track wideners to reduce ground pressure and the adverse effects of driving through mud. ISTR first fitted to M4A3E2 Cobra Kings, but thereafter retrofitted to earlier marks (like this). The Germans did the same thing, fitting wider Ostketten (East Tracks - tracks for the Eastern Front) to Mark 3s and Mark 4s. Panthers and Tigers had wide tracks designed in. Indeed Tiger had to switch to narrow tracks to fit on a train.