AlienFTM

This is in danger of dropping off. Run out of ideas? Shall I tell you?

My gut instinct is that it is a fuel tank for a flame-throwing tank. But I doubt it.

It's been a long time, but I would have thought that with the CB plugged into the A set, you will get whatever function you ask for from the harness. ISTR options included Work A / Monitor B, Work B / Monitor A, Work one set or the other or I/C only. With two sets selected, working set in the left ear, monitored set in the right. With I/C selected (was it a separate switch?) it came up in the right ear. When I transferred out I soon had a hearing test. I was told I was 85% deaf in my right ear. Best part of three years later they came round and ran the tests again just before my next posting and told me my right ear was now fine. I came to the conclusion that seven years of live I/C in my right ear as we cabbied across the countryside, wind whistling through the live boom mike had done for the ear. Three years of not having it whistle and everything was fine. Still makes a good excuse for not hearing her indoors though.

depends what you are re-enacting. I remember once reading a story from a bloke who got run over by a Centurion (in the Korean War) in soft mud and because he had his mess tins, one in each kidney pouch, flat side next to his body, they spread the weight of the Cent just enough to stop it squashing his kidneys and breaking his back. ISTR Individual Rations were designed to fit inside the two mess tins and stowed thus inside the kidney pouches. In armour or recce you would eat Composite Rations (4-man or 10-man packs) off a plate, everything being stowed in a vehicle bin. Some units could get very precious about everybody stowing everything in exactly the same place so that if you picked up the wrong webbing, at least you'd still be able to find everything. But I am sure it was an SOP at the unit or even sub-unit level. In 15/19H nobody ever told me how or where to pack my webbing. Transferred out, was attached to a REME unit and had REME soldiers dictating to all and sundry how to pack webbing. But they never argued with me because I wasn't afraid to answer back. There was a complete tranche of new equipment planned for the 1980s, but a lot of it did not reach units until much later. I left in 1989 and never saw a new pattern helmet.

My gut instinct is that the history was wiped when it was rebuilt. The VRN definitely belongs in the mid-70s.

I knew you would. I just have to get the enthusiasm to dig it out (it isn't deep), fetch it in to work, sweet-talk Reprographics into digitising it for me, then I can mail you a copy. Send me your e-mail addy in a PM. ;o)

I have to confess mate that anything beginning 02FD, 03FD or 04FD sounds like it ought to have been one of our Scorpions. After all with the amount of Scorpoling going on, we must have got through a fair proportion of them.

I was going to refer to Hobart's first attempt at a 1944 funny to clear mines but by the time I have read the thread it's already far too late. It was mounted on the front of a Churchill and looked like this but a lot bigger. Trouble was it would only detonate about three mines before it had to be replaced. Then they came up with the Crab. Hardly a new invention then, but ingenious. Pleased to report we didn't need them in the Troudos Mountains in 1976/7. Edited after revisiting the picture. Note how the RHG officer is demonstrating a Royal Armoured Corps sartorial idiosyncrasy by wearing his beret in a two-way stretch. Prior to universal adoption of a bonedome (in the 1980s?) it was normal for RAC crewmen to wear their beret with the badge all but central above the eyes and the material pulled down on both sides. This enabled the radio headset to sit better on the beret. I lost all my pics except that I recently rediscovered a squadron photograph from Omagh in 1976. It must be close to A3 and I have never got round to getting it scanned. Most of our squadron (less officers) wore their berets in a two-way stretch. If I get it scanned I can post it here.

My bold. That's probably the nearest we have had to the right answer. But it's entirely wrong.

Not what the horse's mouth told me.

nope

I suspect so. Jane relayed hubby's comments and I think the other boat (now missing from that location, that he had served on) might have been Oberon, doyenne of the class. He simply referred to them as O Boats, as they are wont to. Never thought to look up Oberon Class on the www. I wonder if the next page has the answer on?

TBH I saw the number and was highly suspicious that it belonged to us in Paderborn as a Scorpion. But there is absolutely nothing to back it up.

If the other sub was also an O class (like this one, according to my mate's husband), yes. But it would be offset on the same side, unless the engine was built back to front or upside down. Oops. Was that a clue??? Oh and don't bother trying net searching: "this" O class series does not appear in any obvious net searches, only the pre-war UK and the USN O classes.

nope

nope

You mean an impasse: something you cannot get past? Shirley you cannot want somebody who can read your mind?

I thought of that, because ball signals can likewise be displayed on boats but I only ever saw balls used in this code.

nope

nope

nope

Map-marking symbols for displaying areas contaminated by poison gas?

Wrong by using the word "weight" but the thinking is very close. And no it isn't a weapons system (apart from the fact that a submarine IS a weapons system).

nope

nope