AlienFTM

Tricia in cam ... mmm Sorry, did I type that out loud?

As a Mackem it would be insensitive of me to comment on this remark.

Whereas Newcastle play at the grammatically-incorrect St James Park.

I'll be there 15 minutes early to carry out a CTR (not because I don't know it perfectly well, but to see who you find). I used to get up home to watch Sunderland AFC play. First time I travelled in recent times, I met my nephew under the clock at KX then we awaited a third party, whom we didn't know but he seemed like a nice guy on the www. There we were in our red'n'whites. From the other end of the concourse, this guy beelines toward us. "Are you going to see Exeter?" Double-take as we each look down at our SAFC shirts. "You ought to be at Paddington mate." Then we see this guy looking around frantically. The sort of person I have been cursed over the years by being hung onto by. We both turned our backs, stared at the architecture and discussed it between nonchalant whistles. I turned round furtively to see if he had spotted us. To this day I don't know whether the woman he found was his mother or a Tom. We breathed relieved when they headed off together. (Mercifully, our contact turned out to be a thoroughly decent bloke - if loud - and it turned out our three companies each did business with both of the others.) I don't tend to meet under the clock, however easy it might be.

To pre-empt the question. SUIT (pronounced Zoot) is a Sight Unit (Infantry), Trilux. Issued to infantry (hence the name) to fit on the cover of an SLR and improve the overall standard of shooting within the infantry rifle section. (Just as today's infantry get a SUSAT - Sight Unit, Small Arms, Trilux for their SA80s.) ISTR SUIT was a quite compact add-on which gave 1.5* magnification (I stand to be corrected) and instead of aligning Eyeball, Mark 1, backsight, foresight and centre of the observed mass to get the weapon to fire on target, it was only necessary to align the stalactite-format down-pointing arrow and the target (the SUIT's rear lens meant that the alignment of the eyeball was not critical - I suppose like a camera with a screen to watch instead of an eyepiece. But I never needed a SUIT sight so I am guessing.) The down-pointing aiming arrow meant that while you were engaging a target at say 200m, half your sight picture was not obscured by the arrow, so you might see who was creeping up closer and therefore a more immediate threat. Trilux? Military-speak for glow-in-the-dark tritium. Used to pick out detail on the sight like the phospor to illuminate the numbers and hand on a watch dial. Also found in the Scorpion gunner's Quadrant Fire Control for semi-indirect fire of the 76. It is radioactive (being an essential component of Heavy Water), so that damage to a Trilux instrument led to an SOP of open the windows and clear the room.

See Richard's reply above. I had forgotten about the beehives on the engine decks (I had successfully wiped practically all trace of the ACPRA from my memory until I discoved this forum. ISTR that the beehives made a good, ergonomic somewhere to sit after a run in the German winter to thaw out frozen feet and Farmer Giles.

My daughter was also an Army Brat, born at Rinteln. Next month she'll be making me a grandfather.

Aaah lager. The trouble I have been in over the years for calling lager a woman's drink. (Look, when I were a lad, only women drunk lager and that has been my stance ever since, right?) Regiment moved to Paderborn in 1977. Armed with O-level German, I took the boys to Zum Braumeister, opposite the camp gates (and nearer to my block than then NAAFI, which it took me three weeks to find as a result). On realising that the Germans drink Pilsener Lager, I was desperate (after all, Newcastle Brown Dog didn't in those days even travel well to Northern Ireland and Tidworth, Hants (now Wilts) as my travels have taught me) not to drink Lager. Unfortunately German Dunkelbier (dark beer) is what they give pregnant women to get their iron count up. There are people still rib me about that one. A few years ago we had an Aussie contractor returning home. We went to the local pub. He ordered a bottle of Dog for me, with a small glass as demanded. ("Why do you drink Dog out of a small glass?" "Because you do. They even print the instructions on the back of the export model for heathens like you.") At this point a bricky, sat at the bar next to us, turned to him and said, "He's right. Doesn't bother me - I drink lager straight from the bottle." I think he was too shocked by my reply, "Aye, well lager is a woman's drink," to batter me. Or maybe it was my thousand yard stare. Lager, pet? Nee problem.

Part of the universal paece talks at the end of the war (I read in the papers over the weekend) was that borders were fixed in perpetuity unless both sides agreed (qv Czech Republic and Slovakia). People have to live with people they don't like. Otherwise we Mackems would want to be a separate country from the Mags up the road and the Smog Monsters down south. Where would it end otherwise? Anarchy.

The radiator blind is part of a tropicalisation kit to reverse the airflow through the engine so that it is sucked in above the centre wheel mudguard and blown out through the front grille. One of our dreaded Saracen APCRAs, that we kept for all of about a month until they issued us with ACVs in the depths of a freezing German winter, had said trop kit fitted. Entirely appropriate ... NOT.

lol fair question.

At the western end of the Moehne Dam is what the placque claims to be an Upkeep retrieved after the raid, except that it bears no resemblance to Upkeep. Since we have thrown in all the jargon, one last one. The callsign for Op Chastise was "Cooler" thus, "Hello all Cooler aircraft, blah blah blah."

They had their version of Upkeep designed within ten days of the raid and tried many other variations on the design, including using rockets to give it the speed to bounce, but never got it into service before the end of the war. RN tried to delay the Dams Raid because they wanted to use a smaller "Highball" to sink the Tripitz before the Germans devised an answer to the technique. (A raid on Tirpitz was the usual cover story or guess by the crews for Op Chastise.) Tirpitz was never moored anywhere suitable to be attacked with Highball. Had the Americans not nuked Japan, the RN hoped to use Highballs out of Mosquitos against the Japanese.

My Paymaster in 15/19H had spent time in hospital after an accident. His bed was next to that of a Lightning pilot. The latter told him how he had launched on a simulated intercept, grazed the bottom enigine on the deck, causing it to drop out, and ejected at low altitude, necessitating a trip to hospital for traction to undo the rigours of the Martin Baker compressing two inches from his spine. Just out of hospital, he was given a Lightning to fly from East Anglia to a squadron in RAFG. Caught out by a sudden thunderstorm over the North Sea, he had another meeting with Martin Baker and thereafter his back was never the same again.

My bold. The Russians wanted a land grab in 1945 in the same way the Italians invaded France in 1940.

Pronounced Luggershall, spelt Ludgershall.

Aah well you see it was an extra valid, correctly-spelt word. Would not have caused marks to be deducted.

There's a couple of postings of mine on there (same ID). I had some good fun populating a few then-empty garrison locations but have not been back for a few months.

They are. Spielberg used 432 chassis for several vehicles in SPR and BOB. Very sympathetic conversions too. So sympathetic that at last year's Tankfest at Bovvy, I embarrassed myself by suddenly and loudly noticing, hours after I had walked around one at very close quarters. "Hang on! It's missing a roadwheel!"

Hmmm. The 3RTR Forum on ARRSE would love to know this (2 merged with 3 under Options For Change, but just as when 15/19H merged with 13/18H to create the Light Dragoons, only to become 15/19H by another name, I understand that 2 RTR is the new 3RTR). Trouble is you need the secret handshake. You could establish comms via the RAC Forum if you wanted.

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree"? My American teacher taught me that song when I was in Colombia. The schoolhouse and all the houses in the mining complex were of a not entirely dissimilar design (if you squint dead hard).

Which ties in perfectly with my previous post, because the Russian (and American) 57mm gun was a copy of the 6pdr. Do I get a prize? lol

RAC were issued SMG as personal weapon. SLR was only issued: 1. either to support troops (variously called Assault Troop or Surveillance Troop during this period, one per sabre squadron. The Orbat for these support troops did not include Land Rovers.) 2. on tours of NI where the allocation of SLR / SMG approximated to that of the Infantry, though the smaller OrBat of the RAC regiment meant that while there were as many SMGs issued to Troop leaders and NCOs, there were fewer rifles on the OrBat. Memory suggests to me that in BAOR, no RAC Land Rover was intended to carry troops issued with SLR (unless attached REME modified theirs). I'd guess that outside of infantry (and maybe inside the infantry) it was more normal for an FFR to have SMG mounts than SLR mounts, simply because Land Rover crews were more likely to be Officers and NCOs than grunts, who would be in bigger cattle trucks (four tonners, APCs, etc). Where a sub-unit commander (a Major) was driven by a private rank, the private might have an SLR as personal weapon, but most Majors would choose a Lance Corporal to drive them, who could be expected to carry an SMG. Personally, I read absolutely nothing into SMG mounts in your vehicle. It is more likely than not IMCO.

14th Battalion of what?

Chris, If you look at the link in the original post, you'll see that in the RAC, vehicle names tend to begin with the squadron letter (though I notice that those in the RTR command element tend not to). This would therefore suggest that Casino (on top of green cam) came from C Squadron. However, the triangle around the callsign indicates that whilst in desert cam it was a part of A Squadron. Basically the callsign and the vehicle name are not contemporaneous.