AlienFTM

Gald to hear it. I would hate to have seen Sylvia squished under a K2.

My eyes rather glazed over reading this thread as it isn't really my scene. The Clarks, is this what people have recommended as an OM13 substitute? If so, it most certainly IS an awful lot thinner than any engine oil you've ever seen, because OM13 is NOT engine oil. Among other things it is used as lightweight gun-oil where, in civvy street, I used to use All-In-One. I do remember on my gunnery course being blindfolded and having to identify OM13, OMD75 and I think probably OEP220 so that I could service Scorpion weapon systems and not use the wrong oil.

That's a cue to go wa-a-ay off thread. I nominate Battle of the Bulge lol.

FWIW I found the book of Ice Cold In Alex for sale in one of the discount bookstores earlier this year. So it's still in print. The film is quite faithful to the book, though it misses out a fair bit of story at the beginning. Personally I found the book explained the storyline better because I had time to assimilate the journey.

Case proven I think. Maybe I (and Baz) are confused because also in the back of my mind is my (probably also flawed) recollection that the alignment of the 76 on a Saladin about its axis was not the same as that of the Scorpion (though I have never been able to work out through all these years, how else you could orientate the 76 other than how it is in Scorpion).

Those seven years were acutely memorable. Subsequent life in the Civvy Street Lancers is far less memorable.

Sybil didn't think Bert was taking seriously her suggestion they use rubber for protection.

I have to say that my memory agrees with that of Bazz. However it is obviously easy to ascertain one way or the other so I'll make myself comfortable on this fence.

Remember, NEAM has a website, whence I got the story of the crash of Vulcan XM610 on Wingate, a story which I just missed seeing happening and which still moves me nearly 40 years later.

I could only have been about 7 when a friend invited me to come with his family to the RAF Usworth open day. It was great for a lad of seven, loads of git big aeroplanes. The only one I can remember was a DC-3, in which you could get a half-hour's flight for about ten shillings (50p - a king's ransom pre-the rampant inflation and devaluation in the 60s that Harold Wilson said on TV would not affect the Pound in our pockets. I knew he was lying. Here was a politician and his lips were moving. Sorry - must get off politics). ISTR 607 Squadron were stationed there in the first part of the war (I remember the Sunderland Echo carrying a serialisation of a history of the squadron) but they moved to Ouston west of Newcastle because from Usworth they couldn't get high enough to effect an intercept in time, and the forward location reduced the effectiveness of the interceptions because there was no flexibility up and down the coast as to where to effect an interception. If I said ISTR the pub outside the airfield's gates (which must have been popular with fighter pilots) was the Three Tuns, would I get a star?

Until the IRA murdered a Colonel in Bielefeld in March 1980 (I was away from Paderborn sailing the Army's entry in the Tall Ships Race, the 55' Camper & Nicholson yawl Sabre), most prowler and gate guards only ever got a self-loading pick-helve for personal protection. Thereafter, the alert state immediately went through the roof and the prowler and gate guards took personal weapons (invariably small metal guns, though the TFE HQ & Sigs Troop sharing the barracks brought SLRs). For the first week, nobody gave them ammuntion though. Then somebody realised that a weapon without ammo was worse than having a pick-helve cos anyone mounting an attack would feel the need to shoot the guards to prevent them firing back. I came back from Gibraltar after handing Sabre over to the next crew and was plunged straight into a full daytime gate guard routine which heretofore had been mounted by the Regimental Provost. We were issued five rounds at the start of our stag (two hour tour of duty) which we loaded into a mag before applying a strip of Army masking tape (which is really black duct tape, but always has been and always will be referred to as masking tape) and we were expressly ordered not to remove the tape unless we were about to open fire in accordance with the Orders for the Use of Firearms in BAOR (there was a set of orders for opening fire in every theatre, tailored according to the security state, and to be carried by any serviceman in a situation where the use of firearms might be necessary. They were called Green Cards because at one time the orders issued in Northern Ireland were green, thoughI never saw a green card which actually was green). By checking the rounds out and back in every two hours, it was difficult for even the most incompetent soldier to lose a round irretrievably and incur a General Court Martial, but it would have been a nightmare had we had to open fire. I was informed halfway through my week on daytime gate guard that the latest promotions were to be published on Friday and I had better get half my kit into the tailor's for Lance Corporal tapes. Late Friday afternoon it came to pass that my name was listed on Regimental Part One Orders as promoted to Lance Corporal. I slipped away between stags and changed combat jackets. On my return, having read Orders, they all tried to accuse me of being improperly dressed and I owed them a pint but I had beaten them to the drop. I had stagged on for the last time. Except that the following week I found myself NCO I/C Marching Reliefs (the Guard Commander's 2I/C) and issuing the flaming rounds to the gate and prowler guards, a system that was still in need of fine tuning. Grrr.

Significantly simpler and cheaper to build, crew and maintain. A big plus for a nation that is Was) supposedly neutral but needed to suggest to the Soviet Union that it was not an easy target whilst still managing to implement a successful Socialist regime. These tanks were only designed to retreat - I mean advance backwards - from an invading army whose movements were restricted to avenues of advance known to the defenders (and AFAIK amplified by the widespread use of minefields). Knowing where the enemy was coming from, they did not need turret traverse to cover these avenues. Besides, if the Soviets ever crossed the border all would be lost anyway. IMCO it was all just a posture. In the last year or so I have come to the conclusion that the entire Cold War was an absolute waste of time on every side. Everybody thought the other side would attack and steamroller over, but nobody actually had the resources to do so.

My ophthalmologist did that for me. I decided to revert to contact lenses after a good few years back in glasses, then I developed astigmatism and far-sight, whilst deciding I wanted to go to continuous-wear lenses (put them in first of the month; throw them away end of the month; don't touch them in between). To solve all my issues I wear a distance lens in my right eye and a reading lens in my left. Whether driving, reading or whatever, the brain compensates for the eye that is out of focus from the information coming in the good eye. If I need to boost this, I simply favour the appropriate-range eye. There, Snapper, is that off-topic enough for you? lol

Not in dispute. My question relates to the OP's question relating to the mid-80s. I saw and heard nothing in that decade to suggest that that this was when the three-oh was replaced.

Memory suggests to me that the Airfix Command Post set provides a good number of DefStor, jerry- and larger cans, wriggly tin, etc

Our Mark 1s in 1982 still used three-ohs with canvas belt ammo and our Mark 2s in Cyprus in 1977 ditto. It was only a year or two back that I discovered Ferrets ever got GPMG. Ditto three-ohs which fired link ammo. Come to think about it the only place I can see us having Ferret 2 in the 80s was in Cyprus and I see no reason to convert them when we had the three-ohs, the ammo stocks and no dire need to switch to 7.62.

I have one of them but you are not getting it. There is an awful lot of stuff stored in it. Besides you'd have to change your name to ADAMSON 850 cos that's what it says on the front. This was normal practice. I remember Florry, bless him. He spent ages drawing his name and number on in soldier pen only to find that when he stood the case up (per the picture) it read ENITNEROLF 118. Useless fact. A DCI (Defence Council Instruction) was issued in the mid-80s advising that the suitcase was no longer going to be issued because the corner strengtheners were made of whale skin and the MOD had to been seen to be helping save the whale. The old cases were never withdrawn (the whales were already dead) but sometime about then, new recruits started being issued hold-alls instead.

And TBH, there is nothing to see. Seen a Sherman DD in the water? No difference. The Germans saw nothing: they missed nothing. And the driver's view from inside was even worse.

No you don't. Those things never made it to the front line that I ever saw. I swam a Scorpion in a purpose built tank at Ludgershall in 1977. The Squadron Leader (for whom I then drove a Land Rover) thought it would be fun so he bumped a crew and we had a cabby. We didn't even have the front mudguards, never mind propellor attachments and the experience was frankly underwhelming. ISTR spending my journey across the tank with both hands on one stick in a desperate attempt to get the thing to go straight, but not succeeding. A few years later, they realised that: there were no rivers in BAOR suitable for CVR(T) swimming due to the water entry / exit profile; withdrawing in contact with the 1st echelon of 3 Shock Army, we could never erect the float screens in time to swim it, especially since they would just swim in and go; every time we fired the 76 or the coax, there would be shards expelled from the muzzle which attacked the front of the float screen like cinder burns on the hearth rug. Many years later when Poland allowed 15/19H battlegroup to be the first troops to enter Poland from the west since 1939, they were mortified to discover that training areas had been built over the rivers and the entire river system landscaped to match that of the Weser and other BAOR stop lines. When the Soviets trained, they literally crossed the water exactly as it would be for real driving in, across and out without breaking step. Ever wondered why so many Soviet vehicles have two small rear hatches either side? A hydrojet propulsion system.

You need a pair of John Lennons mate. I was issued two pairs of NBC glasses, a pair of John Lennons that had soft bendy metal sides and hooks over the ears like the National Health glasses I got aged about 7. But the respirator would seal over the top of them, they wouldn't fall off the nose due to the sweat from the exertion of running downrange and they saved you getting chips in the right lens of your own glasses because you had the gas port set to 4 and every round down caused the backsight to smack the lens. The other pair were legless ("Haven't touched a drop orificer") with a connector that plugged into one of a series of holes in the nose bridge of the S6 so that they were permanently mounted. . . . . . Okay. How many of you people with S6 respirators have just opened the respirator bag, looked inside the S6, found a set of little holes in the nose bridge and thought, "So THAT's what they are for"?

My first car was a Hillman Avenger. I never got mine to fly.

We used to work to the statue of King Charles in Charing Cross.

Airfix RAF Refuelling Set sounds appropriate.

ISTR reading that 1 SS Panzerdivision (LSSAH) advanced backward over the Seine thereafter with three tanks remaining.

Correct