AlienFTM

I was thinking about this over the weekend, along with the thread about nicknames and the Army referring to the SAS as THEM. If you read CHIEFTAINS (by IIRC Bob Forrest-Webb), about the outbreak of WW3 from the viewpoint of 14th/20th Hussars (an armoured regiment), the author is clearly very knowledgeable - maybe even serving with 14/20H - I cannot remember the question ever being asked. He devotes maybe half a chapter to "Stay behind" teams, sat quietly in camouflaged bunkers while the Commies head for Calais, then springing back to life and wreaking havoc among the second echelon and supply lines. These stay behind teams were expected to consist of recce troops and SAS.* 15/19H never (during my time in BAOR) worked with SAS as stay behind teams. If they did, I did NOT need to know. But our role was to provide the recce screen for 3 Armd Div which was entirely separate from the rest of 1 (Br) Corps. If there were to be mixed Recce / SAS stay behind teams, 16/5L would be the regiment to provide the recce element. But again I had no need to know. * Contrary to popular belief, recce is the closest role to SF, not Para. For example, in German, Special Forces are Fernaufklärungstrüppe or long range recce troops. If you ever watched GI Jane, you would know that on passing out she was posted to a CLOSE RECONNAISSANCE TEAM. If you have read "Only The Enemy In Front" a history of the Recce Corps, you will find the raison d'etre behind its formation and IIRC actually uses the term super-human. If you have ever read Armour Volume 2: The Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, you will find pretty much the same words. Whereas Para are a blunt object for dropping behind enemy lines, recce and SF are all about finesse.

Indeed but LR was (is) available out of the box either 24v fitted for radio (FFR) or 12v, not (GS). Armoured vehicles are expected to carry radio, HGVs etc are already 24v and part way there and few other B vehicles carry radios out of the box (apart from Cars, Staff, 4x2 which these days may come with a receiver in the dash board, but they didn't in my day). I stand by my guess at Land Rover.

I cannot ever remember the term FFR attached to anything but a Land Rover, so that's my guess. Do I get a prize?

Rowlocks. I was 3/4-way through crafting a reply when I hit a wrong key due to having ThinkPad on lap instead of in docking station and a real keyboard and lost it. [sulk] Maybe when this thread takes off I'll try again, but not now.

I meant to say that when my Mark 2 showed these symptoms (see previous post in thread), this was diagnosed for me and aa A Mech and I spent 6 hours undoing about two bolts from underneath to remove starter motor (without a pack lift cos we were in an outstation miles from home) while a new one was shipped out from Nicosia, then another six hours putting the new one in via the reverse route only to find (obviously) that this was not the problem.h

You could try getting us started on bikes. Baz did you ever get round to painting Barry's 'chine on the side of yer bike marra?

In the early 1920s the Newcastle Brewery invented Newcastle Brown Ale. In a society where maybe 3% proof was normal for a beer until maybe 20 years ago, Newcastle Brown weighed in at 4.7%. It still does, but sadly the lager-drinking clture has led to young men thinking that lager = beer and strength is everything. Where I come from, lager is and always has been a woman's drink. In the North-east of England, Newcastle Brown is also known as Mother's Milk. You get the drift? Lunatic's Broth. Jorney Inter Sace and so on. Urban myth has it that Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary has (had) a wing solely for the purpose of drying out drunken Geordies with a Brown Ale habit. As an excuse to nip out and have a swift bottle of Brown Ale (another urban myth has it that it is available on tap in Newcastle) is to take the dog for a walk (down to the pub). Thus it became known as Walk The Dog, or simply Dog or Brown Dog for emphasis. ;o)

You are supposed to sit in the seat, belted in and winched right up until your thighs are trapped under the periscopes giving you an all round view without exposing yourself unnecessarily to enemy sniper fire. You are supposed to then keep about five feet square of map in map case folded into something the size of a large shoe box inside the vehicle so that the map is not visible by enemy aircraft flying overhead. And turn the map every few minutes as you pass out of the few square miles visible on the map. If the vehicle rolls, you are supposed to to drop the seat instantly by simply pulling on a handle, which may or may not work if you can find it under layers of clothing to keep you warm and protected aainst NBC attack. You are supposed to also keep code boards and books to hand so that you can instantly transcribe and decode messages instantly. Or you could drop the seat and stand on it.

Absolutely right. Probably the main reason we didn't was because we were training for something far more deadly than a car crash ...

RA(V) would almost certainly have worn full combats on exercise, though they would stand out in our (Recce) battlegroup because when not in overalls, we wore combat jacket and olive green lightweight trousers. I would not be surprised if gun crews wore coveralls, lightweight in the way armoured vehicle crews did. Combats were very expensive; lightweights ("green jeans") were cheap as chips, so wearing the latter in the field kept clothing budgets down. We only EVER wore combat trousers on guard. you would also need Boots, DMS and beret (navy blue) with RA cap badge. I'd be very surprised if RA did not wear a 58 pattern web belt over combats or overalls at all times because that's how the RA were (in Recce we didn't because it was something to catch on the vehicle while escaping in a hurry). Khaki Flannel (KF) Shirt and Jersey Heavy Wool under the combat jacket. Be careful with the Woolly Pulley: in 1975 there would be no epauletts, which did not come in until a year or two later. You could get away with a green beret and RA cap badge if the individual had served with the Royal Marines, done the courses and earned the right, in which case there would be badge implications, probably an RM dagger on the sleeve. Likewise a maroon beret and wings if the individual had served with the Parachute Regiment or an Airborne RA Regiment (which I seem to recall a few years later was 4 Field Regiment but I could be wrong). In 1975, I would not like to say that the new camouflage rank badges on green squares had come into service. Certainly my memory says that all NCOs wore blacked out standard chevrons. (I also saw rank badges inked out with navy blue Quink in Northern Ireland). For me the short answer is an emphatic NO. In the mid-70s, although NI was a purely Infantry role (with all the support arms of course) and manning was severely stretched, the shortfall was entirely made up by putting Regular Royal Armoured Corps regiments into the NI Arms Plot. (Which is exactly how come my regiment was in NI from 74 to 76.) During this period, the role of the Territorial Army and Volunteer Reserve (TAVR) was solely the massive reinforcement of BAOR in the event of 3 Shock Army coming over the IGB. The Regulars were only expected to hold for 48 hours until relieved by the TAVR; the decimated Regular Army would withdraw to the UK and start to train a new conscript army in the hope that the Commies did not get to the English Channel in three weeks. (We never expected them to take that long.) The only TA unit to serve in NI (AFAIK) was the Ulster Defence Regiment (an Infantry regiment). the largest regiment on the Army's OrBat comprising six battalions of 500 men (and women) whose sole purpose was the defence of their homeland. Don't be sorry - blame your parents ;o) At that time the TA - as I touched on earlier at the time it was the TAVR - would deploy to BAOR for two weeks every autumn to exercise with the Armoured Division they would expect to fight alongside and participate in the annual divisional Field Training Exercise (FTX). If you want to get a feel for the problems of shipping a TA regiment to BAOR from the UK, you could do worse than buy a copy of the recent Armoured Farmer - A Tankie's Tales by my friend Malcolm Cleverley, ISBN 1-84683-029-X (yes it's a plug I helped with the final edit) in which he describes how 3 Royal Tank Regiment deployed to BAOR from UKLF as part of a major exercise in the 1970s. It gave those of us on the IGB no confidence that we would be reinforced before we were overrun. To give you an idea, 16th/5th Lancers were a sister Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment based in Wolfenbuettel, right on the IGB near Braunschweig around this time. Their combat lifetime was estimated at around 20 minutes from the Commies crossing the IGB. The general consensus was that they were there simply as a tripwire .

If you read too much Andy McNab, Chris Ryan, Bill Parris et al, you will believe that (in the former two cases) "The Regiment" means 22 SAS or (in the latter case) the RAF Regiment and that the rest of the world agrees with their sentiments. These are the narrow views of people who really ought to know better and think "their Regiment"is "The Regiment". In fact to them it is true and understandable. I am currently reading "Greed" by "Chris Ryan" aka a ghost writer who 1. doesn't have a clue and 2. did not think when late on he changed a reference to MI5 to MI6, he ought to go through and change occurrences of "Five" to "Six" to match. He quotes "MI5" or "MI6" agents referring to SAS as "The Regiment" whereas ONLY 22 SAS refer to 22 SAS as "the Regiment" (despite, as I say, whatever McNab and Ryan try to tell you. However, I spend I lot of time on the ARRSE RAC forum for obvious reasons and we regularly get visitors asking, "I want to drive a tank. Which is the best regiment?" This ALWAYS kicks off a slagging match, particularly between chav cav - I mean RTR and cavalry and between the whole of the RAC and 9/12L Phantom Recce Regt, so phantom that many believe it only exists on paper so that the government can claim bounties for them. Recently, one such argument was abrubtly stopped when it was pointed out that whichever regiment you join, THAT is the best regiment. End of. FACT. Then there is the question of combat and support arms. Needless to say, combat troops (like the Recce Regt at the pinnacle, obviously) look down on blanket stackers, but even among support arms, "Ours is better then yours" gets the reply "Ours is bigger than yours" and so on. There is a thread on ARRSE here: http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=2995/highlight=nicknames.html which will list you nicknames of ALL regiments and corps. Since in the case of each arm the majority post derogatory names for the few, there are many, many more derogatory names than pleasant ones for every regiment or corps. WRT SAS. To SBS they are either Stores and Supplies. Saturday and Sunday or Spring and Summer (the latter especially of the two TA SAS regiments). See? No matter how renowned the regiment, they still get the treatment and sneared on by other "better" regiments. These days to the green army, SAS are simply referred to as THEM. Edited because I found the link.

CVR(T)s were always designed to be street legal, with lap belts for all crew. But never in seven years did I ever see one worn. Mind I am not sure when it became a requirement to WEAR them, They just dragged and got in the way.

I knew one guy who called them Rissoles Arrseholes Omelettes and Chips. They merged, as stated above, with Rickshaws Camels and Taxicabs and Andy Capp's Commandos.

Some Larkspur configuration options: 1. UNFICYP (Mark 2s plus 1* Mark 1 for the SSM): Either a SR/C42 (new, pseudo-Clansman nomenclature: cannot remember the traditional Larksput nomenclature Tx/Rx C42 rings a bell) or a C13 "A" set and a B47 B set. The A set was necessary to provide crew intercom but because our regiment came over from UKLF where the Armd Recce Regt ran its Squadron Command net on HF, we did not have enough C42s to issue on a scale of 1/vehicle in Cyprus. Section second vehicles therefore took a C13 to provide IC and a B47 to talk to section commander, whose C42 had the range to retain comms with HQ. Crews with C13 used to tune into The Voice of Peace, the Med's answer to Radio Caroline and have piped music while out on patrol. Better than listening to white noise because there was nobody to talk to on the HF. A sets were much bigger than B sets, especially with their separate power supply. The B set mounted on top of the A set. I suspect the UKLF Armd Recce Regt Ferrets used the same configuration. There was a Mark 1 for the SSM and a handful of Mark 5s for the Swingfire ATGM Troop. 2. Rebroadcast vehicle in a BAOR Armd Recce Regt. Two times C42, one mounted on top of the other. This was an extremely tightly-packed configuration. In the 1970s - 80s, the Divisional Armd Recce Regt was stretched across the entire Divisional frontage and pushed Larkspur to its limit. Troops had to cover the FLOT (Forward Leading-edge of Own Troops), end of. Squadron FHQs had to locate themselves as far back as feasible where they could retain comms with their entire frontage. RHQ had to deploy where it could retain comms with both FHQs and Div HQ. You couldn't tell Div to come forward and you couldn't tell FHQ to come back, so it there was a comms back, a rebro Ferret was deployed to extend radio range by rebroadcasting either the Divisional Command Net or the Battlegroup Command Net (usually the latter because GOCs didn't like being told to modify their voice procedure to cater for a rebroadcast net). The single Ferret crew would locate itself where they had good comms both ways. The rebro crew would send a code instructing RHQ to change the frequency on its set working the battlegroup, then set a couple of switches so that as one set received a signal on one frequency, the other set automatically retransmitted (rebroadcast) it on. Only once did I ever get to initiate a rebro for real using the immortal broadcast, "Hello all stations this is 98A. This is an automatic rebroadcast net. Out" Come to think of it, I was not even using my normal callsign 98A, because we were on an umpire net and I was using the entirely one-off callsign 4H6. What a great job. Call the rebroadcast then sit and read a book until RHQ called you back.

1. We usually had a real Battery Commander attached to our battlegroup HQ in BAOR. He tended to travel in a 3/4ton FFR LR. Sometimes we had a virtual BC attached. In Combat Team FHQ we were supposed to have a Golf callsign somewhere between BC and FOO attached but he always seemed to be a virtual Golf callsign so I made it up when I needed a fire mission and FHQ always obliged with the right answers so we could have a nice chat while bringing virtual hell down upon our virtual target. I think if we ever had an attached Golf callsign at FHQ, he would likewise be in a 3/4 ton FFR. 2. The cam over the wheel looks good. What I did as Squadron Leader's driver was attach a roll of hessian above the windscreen and when stationary, unrolled it down over the wheel. (Ditto lights and other windows as I have described numerous times recently.) Then one cam net over the lot. 3. If you kit it out with Larkspur radio harness, the antenna boxes (containing Larkspur ATUs rather than clansman TUAAMs) are open on the rearward facing side because the Antenna Tuning Unit requires manual intervention when retuning the radio, unlike the clansman Tuning Unit Automatic Antenna Matching. Larkspur was a REAL operator's radio. ;o)

In 14 years I only ever carried a pistol on pistol shoots at Skill-At-Arms meetings, in which case the holster goes on the left-hand side for for a right-handed shooter. If you have followed my advice above, the holster can go between the left-hand ammo pouch and the buckle. I never saw any rank below Major carry a pistol unless I have forgotten a Captain and Quartermaster in the field. You are unlikely to see a field officer far enough forward to need to eat dirt, but, having removed pistol from holster, it would be less uncomfortable for him to lie on his empty holster than for mere mortals to lie on loaded ammo pouches or respirator bags. I have vague memories that officers of sufficient rank to carry a pistol would wear it in a holster on an otherwise bare belt, wearing full webbing (on another belt) over the top, so that weapon was always to hand even if webbing was not. There are tales of QMs having wooden Browning replicas made so that they did not even need to sign out real 9mm, risk losing it on exercise, then have to clean it at EndEx.

In 1976-7 we twice tried to get range time to carry out shoot-to-kill tests on the SMGs and to fire the three-ohs in the Ferret turrets. Both times they were called off after we got there. The second time, our section carried out our patrol of our sector of the green line as usual before short-cutting to the range which was nearer the end of the patrol than the beginning. As troop leader's driver I was leading as usual. We came around a corner and a Cypriot farmer pulled his tractor into the road in front of me. A swift right-left on the wheel and I sailed by him, right wheels on the dust bank. A few seconds later Troopie called me to a halt. Rather than wait for a chance to pass safely, the nig* driver of the second Ferret had tried the same manoeuvre and failed. He clipped the front end of the (ages old) tractor and the cast centre section of the body simply broke. The two halves of the tractor were only held together by the drive train encased within the cracked section. It was a good job there was an awful lot of dust, cos there was an awful lot of oil. Not a scratch on the Ferret. * Nig: New In Green; a British Army acronym for a Cherry Boy or, as they say in the USA, FNGs (Flipping New Guys). Not in any way to be confused with a similar-sounding now-generally-considered-racist term with didn't apply anyway cos he was as Anglo-Saxon as me.

I once floated a Scorpion in a tank in Ludgershall in 1977. The squadron leader (I was his driver at the time) wanted to experience it (we had just cobverted to Recce from tanks so he had never had the pleasure). Being his driver and being a qualified CVR(T) driver myself, he blagged us a Scorpion and off we went. ISTR entry to the water was at a quite steep angle, maybe 45 degrees. However a couple of years later they ripped off the float screens from all CVR(T)s 1. because they were far to fragile and 2. because all the rivers in Germany, while they provided good defensive lines due to their generally north-south alignment, they also had banks too steep to enable us to get into the water anyway. Since our role was to withdraw in contact over the reserve demolitions which we ourselves protected, demolishing them as we went, there was no tactical need anyway. After the wall came down ISTR 15/19H provided the first NATO battlegroup to exercise in the newly-friendly Poland and I am told were mortified to discover that the Commies had diverted and landscaped entire rivers to match exactly those in West Germany so that 1st echelon troops could practise crossing river obstacles without reducing speed.

1. The first Ferret (a Mark 2) I ever drove was in NI, signed out to a man who could easily have been twice my weight, putting him around 20 stone. He was huge. Then we wore bulky ex-Vietnam flak jackets on patrol in NI. The driver's hatch was sealed (it would pop out in an emergency) and all access was via the turret. He lived to drive his Ferrets. 2. Ferret is the best ride you will ever have, and that INCLUDES women (sorry ladies). Mark 2s in NI. Mark 2s in UNFICYP. Mark 1s in BAOR. Ferrets: gotta love 'em.

PMSL Sadly, I vaguely remember your commander at that time and I have a vague idea I saw his name in the In Memoriam of the Journal either this year or last. We are getting old marra. I starting wearing contacts in 1980 and my first exercise wearing them was Spearpoint when I was commanding a rebro Ferret. Helluva shock when the first grain of dust got behind one and I had to learn to shade me eyes. I think I went out and bought sunglasses to wear over them.

What grates on me is when e.g. Soldier Soldier show(ed) an entire unit in combats straight out of the stores. Nobody I know would wear combats until they had faded almost to destruction. Of course in the cavalry style and panache have always rated far higher than practicality.

I used to attach a Gore-tex rainproof smock to either down strap on the back of the yoke using the Straps, Utility and putting the top loop through the entrenching tool buckle at the top so it was easily accesible like you often historicallt see blankets in an inverted U outside the webbing. Modified because Gore-tex is not spelt kevlar

One Barry Merchant, there's only one Barry Merchant ... Still biking marra? Drop me a line. Cannot stop to talk: me daughter is getting married tomorrow. Boggles.

I got symptoms not dissimilar to these in Cyprus when one of the batteries shifted and shorted against the battery box. Left me running on 12 volts: not enough to start it and dim lights.

If you have a respirator pouch, wear it on the LHS between the left ammo pouch and the kidney pouches just next to the ammo pouch. Makes it possible to get your respirator out and on in nine seconds. Wear your water bottle on the RHS to balance the webbing. With everything in sequence, pack them all as close together as possible (whilst retaining symmetry, bearing in mind the different widths of respirator bag and water bottle pouch - see above). This allows you to get the ammo pounches as far round the side as you can get them, so that when you need to get down on your belly and put down fire, you aren't lying there with ammo pouches digging in yer belly and yer arrse up in the air. You have to be comfortable to shoot straight. Infantry and REMFs tend to adjust the yoke straps short to lift the belt off the hips and avoid blisters when running. In the cavalry we wore them long to give us some freedom of movement. We didn't run into battle. We didn't carry our weapons into battle: our weapons carried us into battle.