AlienFTM

I can look forward in my role as office fire warden to another change of fire extinguishers then. And keeping the thread on topic. The second time I was struck by lightning (the first being whilst in the shower aged about 11 in the Andes of Central Colombia), I was commanding a Spartan in 1981. The exercise had been swelteringly hot and the exercise area around Bielefeld was thick with dust. I was chasing my section commander along a road when I watched the Western Horizon turn black and in minutes we went from blistering heat to torrential rain. As I urged my driver (who was sadly killed by a sniper in 2007 while manning an OP in Baghdad) not to spare the horse-powers, there was the most unnerving clanging in my ears. I eased the velcro strips to pull the earpieces into the bonedome and off my ears, then realised the clanging was from OUTSIDE of my helmet. Nobody in my experience had ever heard a CVR(T) engine fire alarm go off before then. I ordered Swanny to pull over and stop, remotely operated the engine fire extinguisher (handy to my right hand on the blukhead between cabin and engine) and we baled out. We were drenched in seconds (we didn't stay dry driving and commanding anyway) before Two Two Alpha backed up and his gunner (who was watching backwards in accordance with good convoy drill on roads) informed me that he had seen lightning strike the vehicle.

Oh and to answer the question, your Grandfather's unit would be 238 Field Company RE. He would wear the RE capbadge and his loyalties would lie with this unit. It might be moved between divisions, brigades, etc, but he would always be a Royal Engineer and proud of it.

Probably easiest to start at the top. The largest formation you will find in the field is an Army Group, comprising a number of field Armies (as opposed to the term Army as a generic cover-all for land forces). Thus NATO's Central Army Group (CentAG) in West Germany during the Cold War included the British Army of the Rhine (a field army) in its Order of Battle (OrBat). There will also be troops specific to the Army Group HQ. An Army consists of a number of Corps (again a differant term in the field from the administrative concept of for example The Royal Armoured Corps). BAOR consisted of a single corps (1 (Br) Corps) - though in The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett, he described early on how he would have turned this into two corps for greater flexibility. The Cold War was an exercise in fielding maximum combat troops with minimum overhead and fielding BAOR as a single corps was one example. There will also be Army troops. A Corps comprises a number of Divisions. In the late 1970s, 1 (BR) Corps comprised four armoured divisions, numbered, not surprisingly, 1, 2, 3 and 4. 3 Armoured Division was last in at the end of 1977; 2 Armd Div was first out at the end of 1982. Note that the use of the title "Armoured" describes the current role of the division. This may include Royal Artillery (RA), Royal Engineer (RE) and other assets to be allocated within the corps as required. For example, to cross a river, there may be Royal Engineers heavy bridging equipment attached to the lead division. A division comprises a number of brigades. (During the late 1970s, they played with replacing Brigades with Task Forces. No real difference except that there were fewer HQ troops. For example a Task Force HQ was serviced by an HQ and Signals Troop, whereas a brigade was serviced by an HQ and Signals Squadron.) The are many divisional troops providing assets across the division, including RA, RE, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), Royal Military Police(RMP), ordnance and logistic units. It is at this level that I personally would expect to see your Grandfather's 238 Field Company RE (note that for many years now, the RE have used Squadrons in their nomenclature rather than companies), though in the absence of a brigade identifier being specified, they may have been divisional troops. That is as far as you need to know for your answer, but I'll carry the piece on down for completeness' sake. The division will also have a reconnaissance regiment as divisional troops (latterly, they are styled "Formation Recce"). During the BAOR period discussed earlier, the OrBat of an Armd Div comprised three infantry battalions, two armoured and one recce regiment, split across the brigades (Task Forces) as required. A Brigade consists of a number of major units (armour and infantry) with support from all the other arms discussed already. In BAOR, the Brigade's recce element would comprise a Medium Recce Squadron from the Armd Recce Regt. The major units form the backbones of battlegroups (which is what we see deployed to the sandpits). Armoured regiments and Infantry battalions are functionally equivalent; the difference is that an infantry "regiment" comprises numerous battalions, which all wear the same cap-badge and are administered as one but they rarely if ever appear side by side in the field. Battlegroups will swap a squadron (armour) for a company (infantry) or more as required to create a better-balanced major unit under unified command in the field. The battlegroup will also have a recce element assigned from the recce regt along with artillery, engineer and all the other assets as required.

Whenever I see one of these I cannot help but think: Pvt. Joker: How can you shoot innocent women and children like that? Helicopter gunner: It's easy. You just don't lead them as much.

The length of antenna you require is determined by the frequency range covered by the set. 1/4 wavelength is an inverse function of frequency. Transmitting antennae need to be tuned to the transmitted signal and ought to be close to but less than 1/4 of the shortest frequency to be used, The antenna tuning unit can be adjusted to electonically match the exact frequency. Clansman VHF sets, working in the military VHF band, 30-76MHz, use two metres of rod. Larkspur, working 36-60Mhz, use eight feet of rod. As to length of coax between set and antenna base, ISTR it had to be shielded to avoid it radiating. Actual length was otherwise not critical with Larkspur and we used whatever coax did the job. With Clansman ISTR the correct length of coax as provided had to be used, a bit like USB cabling.

Have you ever read the small print on a ticket for a gig (I am particularly thinking Pink Floyd here)? it says something like: You are expressly forbidden from taking photographs. Any photographs you take become the proboperty of (the company). By purchasing this ticket you revoke any rights to your own image and (the company) reserves the right to use your image which has been recorded in any film taken at the event, in any film footage (the company) itself makes of the event. Of course Pink Floyd are not themselves without sin. They frequently used soundbites lifted from the radio for example. They were taken to court by one hick local radio presenter who insisted that the sound of his voice in a two-second clip on Wish You Were Here absolutely made the whole album and sued for his equal share of the royalties. It was thrown out.

1. Baz. I am not in the least surprised your lass threw a fit at the state of your denims first time she saw them dirty. I always remember you as an oil/grease magnet whilst wearing denims. 2. Nice to see the authentic fire extinguisher on the Ferret. I still cannot believe the needs of Health and Safety to make every fire extinguisher on the planet red overrides the needs of military personnel not to make themselves targets.

Funny you should talk about this. When I married, my new wife discovered that as a CVR(T) crewman, my normal working dress was a green Baby-Gro. The oil and grease she had to wash out was rather different from what she then found herslef washing out of the children's Baby-Gros. She still refers to overalls as Baby-Gros.

The front radiator grill is an excellent place to stow your water can, usual or not. The Bernoulli effect sucking air over the can creates a strong cooling effect, producing refreshingly cool drinking water whatever the ambient temperature. In cool but non-freezing temperatures, our Series 3 Land Rover FFRs could easily produce solid ice in this way.

Germans have long favoured stereoscopic rangefinders. You frequently see Second World War pictures of observers with Y-shaped rangefinders. Have a look at the turret bulges on the front sides of Leopard 1: stereoscopic rengefinders.

The inside of the Tiger is authentic apart from a handful of modifications to satisfy Health and Safety.

T34 Calliope MLRS. We had pictures of this on the forum last year.

I was there when 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars took delivery of our brand new, first production run Sultans in 1979 and fitted them with Larkspur. At the recent Light Dragoons Regimental Association weekend, I made a bee-line for Command Troop's Sultans, set up as Battle Group HQ. I recognised the water tank underneath the commander's cupola. I reckon everything else had changed in the intervening 29 years. Of all the things I wanted to photograph, this was the one place they wouldnt let me. (Bowman is still very hush-hush. I could tell you about the operating system that the laptops run off ... but then I'd have to kill you.)

... and the myth that eating carrots helps you see in the dark was born, to disguise this fact.

As somebody whose day job in the 1970s was to drive a Ferret (and they paid me to do it!) I have never cared about licensing issues. Although everyone who had not already had, received Ferret training before our UNFICYP tour in 76-77, I had already driven Ferrets quite legally on ops in NI courtesy of the Group B licence that came automatically (if you'll pardon the pun) from having passed my car test before enlisting. However, istr reading on this forum (but I could be wrong ... I usually am) that since the licensing changes, a Mark 1 Ferret continues to fall within the Group B licence (or whatever an automatic car is nowadays) by virtue of not having a turrent and weighing less than a Mark 2, Mark 4 or Mark 5, whereas the latter all need some sort of extension.

I have a Nice To Have. My algorithm when I visit this site is to go to New Posts and open the forum containing the first unread thread. I then scan all the unread threads in that forum and, having read the interesting ones, I mark the forum read. It means I can clear, for example, all the Wrecker Gallery pictures (which are not my scene, sorry guys) in a couple of clicks. Then when I go back to New Posts, the list is shortened much more quickly and efficiently than by reading each in turn (and it seems with the new forum, having to visit every page to make HMVF recognise that I have read it). Except sometimes there are a few people on and they are holding discussions in a particular thread that I have closed three times already. Would it be possible to reorder the New Posts so that the oldest posts are at the top and the recently-marked-read threads don't keep coming back to haunt us? You really are very kind people. Must watch where I lick.

This ought to be the link: http://www.HMVFTV.com/watch/6ab36c2904d3ba857305/Watch

I hope you vehicle enthusiasts don't all take this the wrong way. I do admire you all for your dedication. The one thing that spoils your displays of vehicles is your sheer bloody-minded determination to get everything perfect. F'rinstance, at the Regimental Association weekend, I saw a line-up of CVR(T)s. At first glance I didn't detect the cuckoo. There lined up between a Samson and a Samaritan (IIRC) was a Scorpion, 02 FD 21. That's right, somebody had taken the trouble to get an example of a vehicle that many of us old comrades had done our time on. (I have a short clip of it being reversed off the display area at the end of the afternoon, in which my old RSM all but walks into me. I'll see if I cannot upload it for you delectation. The Geordie voice taking the Micky out of all and sundry with the running commentary is ... me) The problem was that all the current vehicles were, frankly grubby, because that's how they are (and always have been) whereas the Scorpion had been lovingly resprayed and oiled up to make it shine. There were also a Panther and something similar (a Piranha?) on display. I couldn't get over a Ferret replacement that weighed 7.5 tons. I had a good laugh with the Sergeant showing me round when I passed comment on the camouflage effect of the bright red gloss H&S-conforming fire extinguishers attached on the outside. He told me, would you believe, that they have developed camouflage bags to put them in to conform with standards with compromising their cam. What a waste of everybody's time and effort.

I have never seen Father Christmas, but ... hang on!

There has developed a whole string of them (which I only heard of a year or two back, and I can only remember two of them (besides, being squaddie humour they are probably unsuitable for a family website): Black with no sugar is a Whoopie (Goldberg, black, nun, geddit?) White with no sugar is a Julie (Andrews: see how it works now?)

At the end of our UNFICYP tour, Force Reserve Squadron had a medal parade in our Mark 2s, driving past a Para battalion who were Britcon. We were instructed to repaint our gloss white Ferrets. The gloss white paint was really messy. It had been applied straight over the top of olive/black cam sometime in the year and a bit between the end of the war and then. Having painted the white, the number plates looked bad so I started to touch up the black number plate base. I sat on the glacis with the can resting on the open driver's hatch. Boy did I feel stupid when I knocked the can and it landed upside down on my driver's seat. I was late into the NAAFI bar that night. If must have been because we were B Sqn 15/19H, since clearly nobody else had tidies up the paint job on our Ferrets. Our nickname wasn't "The Guards" for nothing. Funny I should say that. On Sunday the Regimental Associations of 15/19H, 13/18H and The Light Dragoons attended a church service in Robertson Barracks, Swanton Morley, escorted by B and C Sqns The Light Dragoons and the Guidon, to the music of the Band of the Parachute Regiment. (Neither of the cavalry bands was available and the Paras were closest. First time I ever saw a girly girl wearing a maroon beret.) The order of events included: 1100: Regimental Association to parade outside the Guard Room for a photo. 1115: March to the church service. So about 1050 there were lots of us hanging around the Guard Room. I looked at the crowd, most of them older, some much so, than my 53 years and jokingly commented. "I hope nobody shouts, 'Tallest on the right, shortest on the left, in single rank SIZE' cos it'll be a mess." At this point, B Sqn marched up to the Guard Room. I have to point out that when 15/19H and 13/18H amalgamated to create the LD, apart from a regimental belt worn over the left shoulder, a new cap badge and a few extra Yorkies, LD were simply 15/19H by another name, including the squadron nicknames. So this B Squadron were "The Guards" and traditionally the squadron has always been the smartest on dress and drill. Imagine my surprise when the Squadron Sergeant Major shouted, "'Tallest on the right, shortest on the left, in single rank SIZE!" More surprised were the wives-of, who had never seen this drill before. They were confused by "From the right NUMBER" (we have discussed all this before in a thread on, IIRC, stretcher-bearers) and it took a lot of explaining. But it was a jolly good weekend, definitely to be repeated.

With respect, the very first reply, by Bodge, said, "Number 1 looks like a T34 wearing a concrete overcoat!" Assuming that to be wrong, I was guessing at a KV1 because it looked so much like a T34/76 barrel and mantlet, that KV1 was the only thing I could think of that was similar.

Is that Lizard Point Cornwall or Lizard Point, Co Durham? These things are important you know. The world's first ever reliable electically-powered lighthouse was (and remains, courtesy of NT) at Lizard Point, Marsden, just south of the end of the Great North Run. To avoid confusion with the other Lizard Point, it it known as Souter Point Lighthouse, even though this feature is a few hundred metres further south. Its foghorn is renowned, being audible over many, many miles. Ask someone who used to roam that coastline as a yoof. Pardon? ;o)

If not a T34, perhaps a KV1? The barrel and mantlet could be either.

I have read a book about Special Operations (SBS I think). It tells how the Allies needed a senior French Officer to legitimise Operation Torch but after we sank their navy, they didn't trust us, so we had to send an RN submarine on an op to effectively kidnap him without him realising he was being kidnapped, making the entire journey to be on board a US submarine so that the French officer did not turn down the RN.