AlienFTM

I get the impression from the Chinese Eye that the original was a 4RTR Ferret. Some Chinese bigwig awarded them an eye to watch over them and it has appeared like grafitti on anything owned by 4RTR ever since - including the permanent staff NAAFI bar at Catterick, still so titled in 1976, a year or two after 4RTR had been replaced by Scots DG as RAC Training Regiment. Interesting cage on the back. Ours were always mounted to lift up sideways (both ways, depending which set of butterfly nuts you removed) rather than backwards so that you could easily lift one engine deck or the other, e.g. when you needed, very frequently, to refuel. That basket doesn't look to me like it has lifted far enough to raise the endine deck far enough to get to the fuel filler.

So that he can be nominated driver and take you on the bike???

"Old Soldier" nothing. As a 25-year-old Ferret commander, I carried a ladder to climb onto a Mark 1 (height 4'9"). Yes, I could climb aboard, but since the ladder was liberated anyway, why have a dog and bark meself???

There used to be a "Spitfire Bridge" near Winchester, carrying the A272 over the Winchester by-pass, so-called because of a similar incident. (I dunno if this is in any way relevant, but after the Itchen and Woolston Supermarine factories were bombed out in September 1940, devastating Spitfire production - though luckily a start had already been made to disperse production around the country - and the work of these two factories was moved to Hursley Park, south of Winchester. This remained Supermarine's, and then Vickers' HQ until the 1950s when the site was sold to its incumbent, IBM UK, where I work today. Further, once built they were flown to Worthy Down, north of Winchester, which was a Royal Navy Air Station, HMS Kestrel - claimed sunk by Lord Haw-Haw in 1942. Hmm. It was from Worthy Down that I transferred to the Reserve in 1989.) When the M3 extension from Winchester to Southampton was built in the 1980s - 90s, Spitfire Bridge had to be demolished and rebuilt many times its previous size to cater. But it is still known as Spitfire Bridge.

Just yesterday(ish) the museum sent me the latest Tank Times, focusing on Tankfest. It features an aerial photo of the site and I have to say it appears that the building has totally subsumed the car park. I'd hate to think that following the demise of the Junior Leader Regiment RAC in the barracks over the road, they might have flattened the old barracks on the other side of the road to make a new car park. I am sure a lot of Boy Brats Alumni would have something to say. Even if it were the logical thing to do of course.

Unfortunately I suspect that "Trafo" is one of those ubiquitous German contractions like Gestapo, Schupo, Kripo, but I am damned if I can figure out what it's short for.

Browsing my weekly IT newsletter this morning, I could not help but wonder if the following is in any way related to the HMVF Website Disaster (which also appeared to cause downtime for the Army Rumour Service and apparently many other websites): http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/192510/microsoft-denies-fault-for-massive-sql-attack.html

About my last ever exercise with 15/19H. The OC (Squadron Leader) was sat in the back of my Sultan running the Combat Team Command Net. It was Friday morning and all going belly up. Scorpion after Scorpion was getting bogged and the OC was furious because as Recce, commanders ought to be able to appreciate the ground and simply not get bogged. The trains back to Paderborn were booked for mid-day and by God they were going to be there. The net, which ought to have been used for tactical control of the Combat Team, was clogging with pleas for REME assistance and SitReps wrt ongoing REME tasks. Eventually Two Niner threatened to bust the next commander to bog and anybody who wasn't at the railhead would be left to his own devices. He claimed that when 15/19H had been stationed in the area a decade or more back, it wasn't unheard of for a vehicle to be lost forever to these marshes, the cost to be deducted from the commander's salary for the rest of his natural life. But I always felt he was winding them up. If you were a member of http://www.arrse.co.uk and you could convince the Armoured Farmers that you were a friend, they'd let you view a secret thread (which currently runs to about 770 pages) which is full of stories of boggings and recoveries. One I read yesterday involved the REME deliberately bogging an ARV behind and at an angle (to give purchase) to a bogged MBT and laying railway sleepers so that the bogged ARV and another could pull out the bogged MBT which could get back into battle, while the REME recovered their ARV at their leisure. Currently, the Royal Armoured Corps has five Armoured regiments (where a whole squadron has been reclassed as "medium (or is it light?) armour" and equipped with Scimitars but only as many MBTs as we need to fight the wars we are currently fighting. Apparently regiments not currently on ops get one or two Panzers for driver training: the rest are cetrally pooled. The days of fielding 600 tanks to keep 3 Shock Army the other side of the IGB are long gone. We cannot afford to lose a single Challenger. There is nothing in reserve. Aside from five Armoured regiments, there are five Formation Recce regiments and one NBC regiment. If this makes you feel bad, consider that the US Army have not had a new Abrams since 1994. Their tank factories merely take the oldest Abrams, strip them down to nothing and rebuild them with all the latest modifications in a rolling programme similar to our own Bargepole (for Chieftains) and Scorpole (for Scorpions) in the 70s and 80s.

Remember that you stand more chance of success seeking forgiveness after the event than permission beforehand.

For me the thing that always shows me the difference between forces and enthusiasts is that for the former, it is not always a day out having fun in the sun. It may be a great job, but it is still just a job. It isn't about 20 miles in the rain, it's about three weeks in the rain. It may not always be cold and inclement (but even in summer during the period around sunrise when you haven't slept, it's cold) but when your Commanding Officer gets you on exercise and into the field by crashing you out at 0200, you are always tired. The photos you see of cavalrymen and tankies around their vehicles usually show them with beer in hand for a very good reason, to lighten the atmosphere. See them in their turrets and the eyes are like a panda's and the face says, "Cold, wet and miserable. How long until the next beer stop?" IMO of course.

The TWO "one-legged officers" in front of the parade appear to have been snapped in the middle of performing a right turn as the foot is driven into the ground facing in the new direction, so fast that the camera missed it. Or in fact bringing the trailing foot up (thigh parallel with the ground) prior to driving it home.

Wasn't one of the stars of Genevieve a De Dion? Or a meringue? Not a name you hear that often.

As somebody who drives these things, I bow to your superior knowledge (I didn't have a clue really).

Shirley there musht be shome mishtake Mish Moneypenny? After transferring out of the cavalry to a job that entitled me to wear trousers with a shiny patch on the butt-ocks, sadly my reputation preceded me. I was now a former Royal Armoured Corps Control Signaller AFV, and current Military Accountant, RAPC attached 12 Armoured Workshop REME. 12 Armd Wksp had never had anyone on strength who was trained to run a command vehicle: instead of shining my trousers, I spent every exercise for three years between 1982 and 1985 in the back of a Bedford RL Machy Wagon converted to be a radio truck. Eventually I worked out that with a Workshop HQ manned by people who did not know the UK/VRC321 intimately enough to marry it, it made snse that I work permanent nights so that at the midnight frequency change, I changed frequency, I retuned the dipole antenna, I changed all the codes and I didn't get awoken at 0030 with a plea to sort it all out. Actually it worked a treat, I would get up to be centrally messed with evening meal for my breakfast ready to go on stag at 1800, then I'd come off stag at 0600, ablute and get a centrally-messed breakfast for my "evening meal." It was very rare that I missed out on lunch, even if it was in the middle of my "night" because this man's army most definitely marched on its stomach. It also meant that I had a straight routine unaffected by radio stags at any time of day and night and everybody would be happy. I made it my point to be back on the 1 Armd Div Log Net after the frequency change ahead of HQ 1 Armd Div. On the one occasion GOC 1 Armd Div visited 12 Armd Wksp in barracks, he stood in the Orderly Room while I was next door in the Pay Office ripping into some REEM who was overdrawn AGAIN. He stuck his head around the door, looked at me and said, "I recognise that voice." (For those who don't know, I interpret Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Spender for my other half.) Cue mental shrug of shoulders and blank look from me. "You must spend your entire life on the Divisional Log Net bollicking my radio operators for being slack." Cue mental "oops I am in the General's bad books." He went on, "It's a good job somebody bothers to grip them. Slackers." Mind, he did a double-take when he realised an RAPC Corporal was gripping his Royal signals operators on the subject of Signals Communications in the Army. I do hope somebody explained my background to him.

Something that I drove 30 years ago had a ratchet-up handbrake (Scorpion?) which required a handful of cranks on a handbrake that looked remarkably like the lever you ask about, and the only thought I had about this thread was, "That lever reminds me of the handbrake of something I once drove." My guess is the wooden block is to stop the ratchet handbrake from smacking the bodywork during application. Or a meringue?

Which worked against it after the Falklands War when we struggled to maintain an airbridge until Stanley airport was upgraded to support the garrison. To get one Hercules'worth of payload into Stanley, it went like this. A Hercules tanker took off from Ascension, fully laden, chased by the Herc carrying payload. Then a Victor tanker took off to chase the Hercules tanker and mid-air refuel it. The Herc tanker then flew to a point where it could refuel the payload Herc sufficiently to make Stanley and return to this point on the return journey. The two tankers refuelled and returned to Ascension. The payload Herc landed at Stanley, did its business and set off home. The two tankers repeated the refuelling sequence to get the payload Herc back to Ascension. I have a vague idea the Navy parked a ship on permanent patrol beneath each refuelling point for years until Stanley could handle direct flights from Ascension, to catch any aircraft that night miss a refuelling session. "What does this have to do with the speed of a Victor?" I hear you ask. The stall speed of a Victor in level flight was higher than the maximum speed of a Herc. Refuelling a Herc from a Victor had to be carried out in a dive so that the Herc could squeeze out a few more knots and the Victor could keep from stalling. It was like Op Black Buck every day (week?) but more complicated. All those airmiles. Is it any wonder the Victors were immediately scrapped after the airbridge finished?

If it's any consolation, in my last consultancy role prior to joining my current employers, the team demographic was a lot younger than I and, while there was a social life, I found the youngsters' subjects of conversation bo-o-oring. Having an incredible knack to change any conversation to a subject of my choosing, I was christened Tangent Man. When somebody found his favourite topic disappearing over the horizon, I tended to get greeted with, "Turn right, Clyde." Right off on a tangent.

Nowadays maybe yes. But some of us are Cold War Warriors who spent our time, to quote Freddie Mercury "under the shadow of a mushroom cloud" and communications needed to be hardened to protect against EMP (and run an HF Guard Net that might just work through an atmosphere clogged with particles producing ionising radiation.

Last night I watched an old episode of QI on Dave (yes, for the non-digital people, there is a TV station called Dave). Stephen Fry asked, "Why does the House of Lords now not smell very slightly of wee" The answer was, "The hereditary peers often wore tweed, whose manufacture involved strengthening by soaking in wee. When tweed gets wet, therefore, it gives off an aroma of wee."

I happen to think that because there are a number of A Vehicle owners on the forum (and a number of the other vehicles might well have been used by the Royal Armoured Corps) we should have Troopers for Privates and Staff Sergeants for Colour Sergeants (at least we don't have Brigadier Generals). Of course those with German vehicles might demand ranks like SS Unterscharfuehrer, etc. Then there's the Russian kit. What a mess.

In good army tradition every one of them is sporting a porn tache. By the 1980s they were beginning to pass out of favour (maybe because of associations with the Village People?). I only shaved mine off after I had started in my current job so it must have been about 1998-99.

Doctor Who did it decades ago. The Tardis landed in a field in the middle of the Great War. Through a bank of fog and it was the American Civil war. Through another bank ... and so on. SPOILER I just read one of Arthur C Clarke's last books, entitled Time's Eye. It starts off in 2037 with a UN helicopter being shot down in AFG by an RPG and as this is going on the sun jumps across the sky. The survivors of the crash are met by British infantry ... from 1885. They set off to find out what's going on. The troops from 1885 know Lahore well; the aircrew from 2037 know Lahore was nuked 17 years earlier in a spat between India and Pakistan. When they get to Lahore, there is nothing there. No city, no glass-lined smoking hole, just virgin land. Eventually in their odyssey they meet up with Alexander the Great A Russian spacecraft returning from the International Space Station lands in Central Asia and the crew is met by Genghis Khan's army. Confused? So was I (or is that Eye?). Currently attacking the second in the trilogy.

Interesting parachute: LOTS of holes (concentric circles) to spill the air. Early parachutes had no such holes (their correct name escapes me) and as the parachute and payload descended, the build-up of air inside the parachute caused it to oscillate and air spilled from first one side and then the other. Then some bright spark cut a hole in the top to allow the excess air to escape and control the oscillations. When I did my free-fall course we used "Double-L"s which had two L-shapes cut out of the back of the parachute (one of the L's was back-to-front so that they were a mirror image). The air being propelled out of these holes gave the parachute a small forward vector making steering away from obstacles easier and made landing into the wind easier (because it's less cack-handed than landing backwards).

I don't think UXB came into use until about the 1970s. Hence my comment about frequent changes of TRL (three ransom letters).

Istr there was a Clansman installation kit on a separate CES for Land Rovers. If you can track that down it might save you an awful lot of grief.