AlienFTM

He's wrapped some Det Cord around a telegraph pole and is now running out fuze wire to take around the corner to detonate it in safety? ps before I saw the fuller picture I was going to guess that he was a Sergeant Major out measuring the length of a parade march with his pace stick. Apparently the Guards GSM does this early in the morning in London when planning Trooping The Colour.

1 was definitely the Dambusters. Wallace talking to Gibson about retrieving bits from the sand at Reculver(?) after a test drop.

Don't tell him, Pike!!!

Correct. A couple of years ago JC did an hour long programme for the BBC about a Major at Arnhem who won a VC for his actions including the destruction of a number of Tigers (though sources suggest this may have been an oft-repeated mistake because they fitted side skirts to Mark 4s from the G onwards which deliberately gave them a very similar profile to a Tiger) with a PIAT, suffering numerous (flesh) wounds from returned MG fire in the process in order to protect his men. At the end of the programme he asked himself the onbvious question, "Why did you choose to profile this particular VC when there were numerous better-documented VCs awarded?" His reply was that the Major was indeed his father-in-law but sadly he died before JC ever met him. I suspect it was this that got JC to appear in Who Do You Think You Are? or vice versa.

Now that I have worked out what we're talking about! 1. Tabbed browsing is new to IE7, but it's old hat to anyone who, as far as possible, has done away with it. It has been a feature of Firefox for about ever. Firefox is free, has a smaller footprint, blah, blah. Two problems: 1.1. you need IE to run Windows Update (a deliberate ploy by Microsoft to try and maintain a monopoly on the browser market). 1.2. Because many, many lazy web page writers create sloppy web pages using tools which work adequately with IE but don't bother to study and comform with ISO browser standards, or to test their web pages using other available and better browsers, their web pages only work properly with IE, which allows such poor work to go through. But that's enough of me and my soap box. And please note that HMVF works fine for me in Firefox, so no criticism implied here. 2. WRT to your own problem. If you want to go back to the page before HMVF, instead of left-clicking on the Back arrow top left, right-click on it and select the last but one page (which will appear second on the list beneath the HMVF page). Because HMVF is redirecting to another domain, when you left-click to go back one, it is repeatedly taking you back to the page which is then redirecting you forward to where you've just come from. Of course I may have misunderstood you symptoms and be talking utter rowlocks.

My beloved wood-furnished SLR had a very light wood finish, probably more like pine with some yellow in than beech in colour. Straight out of preservation, the finish was definitely matt. However, this furniture was much cleaner than any other wood-furnished SLR I ever saw: usually the wood was quite dark after much handling by dirty oilt hands and resting on the ground. TBH, I wouldn't get too precious about it. If you want a touch of authenticity to set your SLR apart from the crowd, see if you cannot find a picture of an SLR in service showing a butt number. When an armoury had maybe hundreds of otherwise similar SLRs (or any other type of weapon), which were otherwise only readily distinguishable from the bulk of the weapons there by their serial number, which is neither easy to read in the gloom of an armoury which of necessity has no windows, nor easy to remember, each weapon would have a butt number painted on (usually on the butt, hence the name (though for instance the SMG had no surface on the butt suitable, so, IIRC the butt number was painted on the top of the magazine housing). Thus an individual need only ask for his weapon by butt number and, with weapons stored sequentially by butt number, the arms storeman could find it in a second. With BAOR on permanent four hours' notice to move out of camp, fully equipped, throughout the Cold War, issuing the entire contents of an armoury in a hurry was vital. Typically (in my experience) a butt number would be two digits. I think this would work in the infantry if the rifles were stored by company: you might just get away with two digits. They might also be marked by company: for example maybe A14. Once there are three characters involved, it could be three digits anyway, giving 1000 butt numbers, more than enough for a whole battalion. There must have been as many styles of butt numbers as there were units, so I strongly recommend doing some study of contemporary pictures. Butt numbers were often applied roughly to weapons and painted over when the weapon changed units or any of a number of other reasons. While SLR was only my personal weapon for a couple of short periods over 20 years ago, my memory suggests that typically an SLR butt number would be painted on a black square (obviously not necessary on black plastic, but probably necessary to make a white number stand out on a light wooden stock) in the middle of the left-hand side of the butt, the side resting against the chest of a right-handed firer and not easily visible when tactical. The black square might have been two inches by three and the characters (usually but not always in white) maybe an inch and a half high. Of course, once your weapon has been thoroughly cleaned up, I'd expect you to do a neat job of applying a butt number as if to a new weapon. HTH

A clapped out ex World War 1 USN destroyer "loaned" to the RN under Lend-Lease. Became HMS Campeltown. Op Chariot. Great story - ideal film subject matter. First ever British Combined Operation by definition. (They hadn't previously invented the term.) St Nazaire's dry dock was the only such on the Atlantic coast in German-occupied Europe big enough to hold Tirpitz. Built for the pride of the French liner fleet (Normandie? France?). Having seen her sister ship, Bismark, sunk trying to reach St Nazaire for repairs after being damaged trying to escape retribution for sinking the Hood, the War Office knew that destroying the St Nazaire dry dock would render Tirpitz impotent, with nowhere to flee if damaged after the RN and RAF had mined the Kattegat and Skaggerak to deny her her home port. I believe it to be out of print, but if you can get hold of it, read "the Greatest Raid of All."

Remember, packets of five to eight vehicles with a fitter at the back of each packet. Lead and tail vehicle of each packet displaying green and blue flags (or is it blue and green? I forget, but it's been discussed, I think on the accessories forum). Commanders always to maintain eyball (Mark 1) contact with the vehicle behind. (Faster vehicles can always slow down, but if a vehicle runs into trouble, it isn't going to speed up is it?) What is it? Ten minute intervals? Packet commanders to remain in communication with other packet commanders. That would be by mobile phone these days I guess.

You don't think the splinter-like light brown mud finish after they'd deployed might have been light brown mud collected during deployment? Or am I too having a blond moment. Weren't they brand spanking straight off the production line never been used before kit? In which case I doubt the crews would have had the time or the inclination to apply pretty mud cam schemes, especially when we only tended to use green and black vehicle paint at the time, having just repainted all our vehicles with IRR paint. Or a meringue?

How about this then. Bear with me: it's a long one ("As usual." Ed) In the cavalry we had radios coming out of our ears (figuratively). Virtually every vehicle had at least one, the vast majority had two and Command Vehicles and the CO's rover would have at least three. When I transferred out and was posted to a REME Armoured Workshop, the scale of issue of radios was significantly less. In the MRG HQ there was a single UK/VRC321 to work the Divisional Logistic Guard Net and another Clansman set whose model escapes me, which was VHF, possibly a UK/VRC353, though that would be hugely over-powered for the role in which we used it. The latter was used when in a location to communicate with what they now term PRRs (Personal Role Radios) issued one per platoon guard trench. 3 Platoon was the Forward REME Group which deployed separately from the MRG, nearer to the front line and the troops they supported (hence their name). Because they had ARVs and stuff, they probably had rather more by way of radio hardware than the MRG. Each of the five remaining platoons had one such PRR. My memory tells me they were Clansman because ISTR they were supposed to be issued with a Clansman telephone-style handset, and therefore probably UK/PRC349s. 6th Platoon was the HQ platoon. We didn't deploy our own guard because the Workshop set up in a cricle with five platoons surrounding the HQ like covered wagons. However, 6 Platoon did have a 349 and it lived in my webbing because I was the ex-Control Signaller and ex-teeth arm. In the absence of someone to outrank me in the event of an incident, I'd command a Quick Reaction Force; otherwise I'd act as the QRF commander's radio operator. Because this was the role in which I used my set, I had acquired a throat mike and pressel to use in place of the handset, enabling me to at least monitor the net and use my personal weapon, though hand had to come off the weapon to press the pressel. Radios were certainly not issued on a per-value basis and they weren't necessary because, when the MRG moved, everything moved at once. It was quite normal for, for example, the QM to wander off to collect rations, POL etc, and the WSM to recce a new location for when we moved. Unfortunately for them, if we moved while they were away, there was no way for them to contact us by radio. We therefore had the concept of the dead letterbox. If the MRG moved out of a location and there were people who would return to the current location looking for us, a dead letterbox was designated and there would be left a note telling them where'd we'd moved to. This "dead letterbox" would typically be a note pinned to the tree next to the location that had been occupied by the Command Vehicle. In the 1980s, the green movement had become very anti-military. It was after all now four decades since we'd set out to protect them from the Commie hoardes and they'd never come over the IGB yet, so why should they come now and why should the green movement pay taxes to enable us to wreck their land? In particular they didn't like anybody sticking nails in their trees to poison them, then leave them there for poor animals to catch on. Nailing dead letters was therefore not popular with the greens. I put it to you, therefore, that the item we are looking at is in fact a dead letterbox designed to keep the greens from whingeing about squaddies sticking nails in their trees. Or a meringue?

You forgot "I Was Monty's Double" How's this for coincidence. My uncle volunteered for the Northumberland Hussars in September 1939. They had long since disappeared apart from an Old Comrades Association affiliated with 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars (my local cavalry regiment based in Northumberland and Durham), whom I joined in 1975, completely unaware of a link to my mother's generation. His wife, my mother's sister served as an auxiliary at RPO Leicester with the Royal Army Pay Corps under the command of a Lt Col M. E. Clifton-James RAPC. Again, I was completely unware of this when I transferred from 15/19H to RAPC, and my only Pay posting was to a unit where almost all soldiers were administered by RPO Leicester. Who was Lt Col M. E. Clifton-James? He was Monty's double and played both parts in the film.

I'd love the thought of traversing The Plain again. If anybody has too many vehicles (preferably armoured) and not enough commanders (or drivers - see list below - and you trust me with your beloved - vehicle not wife FFS) I'd love to help out and make up the numbers. Weekends are fine by me and The Plain isn't far at all. It's been 25 years since I was inside an A vehicle but it's something you don't forget in a hurry. Fingers crossed. ;o)

Cheers marra.

I just finished this. One correction: Richard Holmes is Colonel of the Regiment. Colonel of a battalion rather implies Commanding Officer thereof, whereas Colonel of the Regiment is a ceremonial rather than operational role. Colonels of the regiment (who don't have to be Colonels: I remember one who was a Major General, and the current incumbent at the Light Dragoons is in fact the King of Jordan) provide an administrative level between the regiment and the Ministry of Defence to for example fight their cause when there is yet another round of amalgamations. Anyway that's a minor detail. I enjoyed the book. It went into a surprising amount of tactical detail that I think the MOD might have taken offence at had it come from a Tom. The descriptions of actions were very good, especially since they were taken from the writings of the Toms involved. (I have always had a problem with the writing of senior officers who never seemed to see what toms see.) I got a little bogged with some of the political stuff but otherwise it was a pretty good book.

Classic! I remembered another. One first Thursday evening of the month, must have been about 1988 and as ever it was Sergeants' Mess meeting night. RSM "The PMC will read out the minutes of the last Mess meeting." PMC "The minutes of the Mess meeting held <the previous month> ..." RSM "Comments arising from the minutes of the last Mess meeting ..." he made his own observations. "A show of hands that this is a true record of the last Mess meeting. All those in favour? Anyone against? Passed. Carried." Understand that, because the RSM had conducted the last Mess meeting and he was conducting this one, and the PMC wouldn't dare write up inaccurate minutes thereof, notice how, in the last quotation, there were no ellipses. This is because the speed you just read that quotation is the speed the RSM spoke it. At the word of command "All those in favour," a hundred hands shots in the air without a flicker of hesitation. Nobody would dare respond to "Anyone against?" so the hands came back down very quickly, knowing just how quickly the RSM would ask. Who says there is no democracy in the Sergeants' Mess? On to Mess business for this month. A novel one came up. The RSM started, "I have received a letter from HQ SE Dist. It came originally from Steven Spielberg. He is filming a third Indiana Jones film and needs a crowd of Nazi storm troopers. Because of the military nature of the task and the level of military control that will be required during filming, he had approached HMG with a request for soldiers to act as extras. The filming will take place at night. It will involve a mass of storm troopers burning and looting the streets of Berlin. No rape scenes are planned. Busses will leave here at 1600 hours on the day, kit issue and filming will take place overnight and volunteers will be returned here the following morning in time for work. Volunteers will receive £40 cash in hand for their services." I have to point out that as a Band 5 Sergeant Military Accountant Programmer, I only grossed £33 per day. Clearly storm trooper was the trade to be in. Following morning I phoned the RSM and volunteered. He told me to report to the QM, where there was a checklist provided by Mr Spielberg. Obviously there wouldn't be the time on the night for all these extras to roll up at the studio and get measured for and issued with kit, so individual units collated the information and sent it off. Beret size (for Stahlhelm). Boot size (for Marschstiefel). Inside leg, height, weight, etc etc. Cometh the day and I had an overnight bag packed. At lunchtime I got a call to the gym for a briefing. Excited I got down there, only to learn that the WHOLE of UKLF had volunteered and the project was hugely oversubscribed. Since the demographic profiles of the Computer Centre and Command Pay Office were all wrong (shiny-bottomed senior ranks), we were dropped en masse. I never did get to be a storm trooper. And I have never spoken to Spielberg since.

Some potted memories. A colleague's husband was RN Submarines. After last night's Mummy's War on Channel 5, there was some discussion this morning. According to her husband, he was aware that for months before the onset, that the small numbers of Exocet systems the Argies were able to buy (on the black market after the French knew there would be trouble) were all fitted with malfunctioning fuzing mechanisms. (Buying ANY Exocet system was difficult, since British and French spooks were trawling all the black markets ahead of them to prevent their falling into Argy hands.) It has literally only just as I type occurred to me the implications of something I heard on BFBS Radio one Sunday morning whilst lying in bed in my new Married Serviceman's Quarter in February 1982. During a Commons debate on the replacement of Polaris with Trident, I think it was Lord Carrington stood up and asked, "If we don't have a credible independent nuclear deterrent, how can we stop some tinpot dictator from just walking into one of our dependencies and simply taking it?" I always wondered why we never nuked BA, especially since, as I now realise, Lord Carrington probably knew there was trouble in the offing. One morning early in April, shortly after the fan had got in the way, our squadron was preparing for an impending exercise and live firing ranges at Oxbol near Esbjerg in Denmark. There was a foot and mouth outbreak raging in Denmark. I was across the square from our B Squadron hangars while the REME Light Aid Detachment did some work for me. I forget what it was but I don't remember it being my Sultan Command Vehicle: it was a B vehicle hangar so I'd guess it was the CO's Landrover. Things weren't going well. I was having a REALLY bad morning. I stepped outside, threw my beret on the floor and jumped on it. I really was that angry. An old mukker who was in C Squadron was walking by and made some remark which I took really, really badly. He laughed off my quick and witty retort along the lines of, "*** off you red-nosed ****" and continued on his way. C Squadron were a couple of weeks away from a six-week bunfight - I mean exchange - which would see then in Australia as guests of the RAAC and an Aussie squadron coming to us in BAOR. This had been on the Arms Plot for years and C Squadron had been getting up everybody else's noses about it for at least a year, escpecially since they'd recently had an 18 month accompanied Cyprus Sovereign Base posting. My mukker's reply was the usual something like, "Who cares. Did you know we are getting six weeks in Oz?" To which, quick as a flash, I replied, "You haven't heard then? Announced within the last half hour. Oz is off. Because of the Arms Plot of Recce Regiments over the last five years, we are the senior line Recce Regiment. We're ALL going south Bonny Lad, but not to Oz. How do you fancy Port Stanley?" Now the whole regiment knew that until recently I'd been in Command Troop for three years where I'd had intimate contact (no not THAT intimate!!!) with the Commanding Officer. The grin disappeared off me mukker's face - he clearly assumed I still had a direct line to the Colonel - and he was off like a rat out of an aquaduct. There was a palpable wave of consternation swept through C Squadron's hangars, next to our own on the opposite side of the LAD square. It is said that C Squadron Leader was banging on the CO's desk within the half hour, demanding to know if the rumours were true. Oh how it brightened up my day. We didn't go to the Falklands: there was a Guards cavalry regiment on Allied Command Europe (ACE) Mobile Force (AMF) on permanent standby in the UK. As we all now know, the Blues and Royals went. It was a mixed blessing for me. I so wanted to go, but just a week or two earlier I'd discovered that our first-born was due at the end of the year. The A vehicles went up to Oxbol by train as usual, accompanied by their drivers. Having once been a squadron leader's driver, I travelled in the OC's rover and we hot-swapped drivers as we drove up to Oxbol non-stop except to refuel and to walk through a disinfectant footbath on the German - Danish border as a Foot and Mouth precaution. We all got out and walked; the driver drove through then walked back and through again. Because we were on exercise, my memories of the Falklands timeline are a little hazy so excuse me if I get anything wrong here. ISTR we were in Oxbol when Conqueror sank the Belgrano. The Danes had canteens not unlike the NAAFI and we all mixed quite freely even though none of us spoke Danish and the Danes didn't thank me for speaking German to then because they'd occupied Denmark during the war. But there was no doubting their shared joy at the success reflected on us by this great military strike, depicted by the famous picture of liferafts with the Belgrano listing in the background on the front of the Danish newspapers. Much collective sinking of beers to mark the event. A couple of days later, the mood was entirely different. An Exocet had sunk one of our ships. The Danes' expression was clearly, "Hard luck chaps." Another couple of days later and it got even worse. Another Exocet. But of course we were getting very much third-hand news and our attitude got increasingly depressed. Anyway, we converted live rounds into empty cases by day and emptied beer (soory Lager - spit) glasses at night and soon found ourselves on the return journey. We followed the news avidly on the newfangled BFBS TV service. They may have just opened a live TV link direct from the UK via a series of microwave radio masts all the way across France belgium and Holland into the Corps area. It certainly wasn't there when the Iranian embassy siege took place in 1980 and it certainly was there when we got The Paras a short time later, looking at Hollywood Platoon (as they were to become known and their careers blighted forever as a result), who passed out just in time to be assigned to their battalions, get on the QE2 and sail for Ascension. By the end of the war I was very seriously demob happy. The pinnacle of my time in Recce (apart from 6 months with the UN in Cyprus after the war) had been toward the end of my time in Command Troop as a rebroadcast Ferret commander. With the start of a new, C Sqn-based, regime in command Troop with new favourites for promotion, I decided I'd get my second stripe more quickly by rejoining a sabre troop and living in the turret of a Scorpion again. More bad timing, as a new B Sqn regime meant that suddenly there were a large number of Boy Brats (ex Junior Leaders) who were more favoured than I. Five years after I'd moved on from Troop Leader's operator in the turret of a Scorpion, I found myself back there, now a Lance Corporal but with any prospect of an immediate promotion even further away. So after a year back in the turret, I engineered a move to the squadron's Field Headquarters (FHQ), back to the Sultans and Command radio nets. A vacancy came up for Troop Corporal. I was perfect for the job, but we still had this new squadron leader who liked his boys young (what am I saying?!?!?). The Troop Sergeant wanted me as his Corporal but I got knocked back again. Married by now, I had already come around to the idea of taking up the offer of my Paymaster and former yacht-racing buddy to transfer to the Pay Corps. (In 1980 the Intelligence Corps had tried to headhunt me whilst attending my Civil Service Linguist (Army) course, which was, apart from me, an exclusibe I Corps preserve but I'd resisted. Now, seeing how our Pay staff got on, I saw the RAPC as a quiet life and right for a married soldier, especially seeing so many cavalry marriages end in divorce.) I had been accepted for transfer into the Pay Corps earlier in 1982 and by the end of the Falklands war, my days to do were getting very few. I was on another exercise the day the war ended. It might well have been my last before spending time attached to the Pay Office prior to transfer. If so, we must have been up north on Soltau Training Area. Well I remember the Squadron Leader's voice as he broadcast a NoDuff message. (NoDuff - from No DF: a radio message which is not a part of the exercise, describing an urgent matter that takes absolute priority over all other traffic.) "Hello all stations this is two niner. NoDuff message. The Union flag is flying over Port Stanley, The war is over. Out" I ordered my driver to pull the Samaritan squadron ambulance to the side of the road. I think all exercise traffic stopped as one. A few minutes thinking of the boys who had done us proud, then back to the exercise. On the Friday, last day of the exercise, we had an almighty climax to the exercise. As ever, the exercise finished with us turning withdrawal in contact with what was meant to represent 3 Shock Army the other side of the IGB and bringing them to a standstill, then chasing them back with their tails between their legs. A large part of the B Sqn area was marsh. In their excitement to throw the marauders back, one after another, Scorpions got bogged and a series of recovery operations took place. I was commanding the Combat Team (think squadron) Command Net from the back of 2 Bravo (Alpha and Bravo were co-located, but Bravo was the working CV. Combat Team Command Net (working) was in my left ear and Battle Group (think regiment or infantry battalion) Command Net (monitored) in my right ear. The advance was flying, but these recovery tasks were seriously impacting it and in danger of taking over the net. I breathed in and prepared for the SOP in the circumstances. I pressed the pressel and started, "Hello all stations this is Two. Minimise. Minimise. Out" I was surprised when the Regimental Signals Sergeant in the back of one of the Zero callsigns came back, in my left ear, with, "Hello Two this Zero. The net is perfectly under control. Do you have a problem?" I stared down at my pressel and the map board. Back to the pressel. How on earth had the BG Command Net come through my left ear when I was talking on the CT Command Net?" I looked up at the radio junction box behind my head and found that the Squadron Leader, sat almost beside me, half out the back of the CV, was taking his hand away from the set selector switch, which I'd had set to work A set and monitor B set, and he had switched it to work B set and monitor A set so that he could talk to Command Troop. I looked at him, frozen with his hand by the selector switch, back at my pressel, then gave him The Look, boring through his eyeballs at the back of his skull. I didn't need to speak the words, "You made me look a prat on the Battle Group Command Net you barsteward." He may have been a Major and I may have been a mere Lance Corporal, but he knew he'd made a faux pas. His task on the BG net complete, he switched back to the CT net, all the while I continued to give him The Look. We both knew this was my last ever exercise, I'd be gone any day and he had done nothing to further my career in the cavalry so what was he going to do about it? He switched back to B and addressed the CT. "Hello all stations this is Two Niner. The trains are booked at the railhead for mid-day. Never mind about bleating about it on the air. Get in with recovering your vehicles. When we were stationed here (a decade earlier) I saw a Chieftain sink without trace in those marshes. Next commander to bog his vehicle I'll reduce to Trooper. Out." Then he snuck out of MY Command Vehicle and never ever looked me in the eye again. Postscript. By November I had transferred into the RAPC and been posted up the road from 15/19H to Osnabruck. My by now heavily pregnant wife stayed in our old quarter accompanied by her mother while I awaited a new MSQ at my new posting. I'd go home to PAderborn every Wednesday afternoon and weekend. On arrival in Paderborn I'd visit my old Squadron HQ building and round up any stray mail not yet diverted to my new BFPO address. First time I walked in in Barrack Dress and RAPC chip-bag side cap, the Squadron 2IC stared at me in disbelief. He hadn't even realised I'd gone. It seemed nobody had: I WAS missed when there was an Active Edge (crashed out) and there was nobody to man a Sultan. They all believed I'd been on another German course. Whilst on my next posting I undertook a Class 1 course to restore me to the Pay Banding that had been cut when I left the cavalry. There, I met a guy who'd taken a grey funnel line cruise on the QE2 in 1982 to the South Atlantic. In BAOR the threat had always been theoretical: if we did our job correctly, the Commies would never cross the IGB. I am proud that they never did on my watch (and as soon as I left the Army, they pulled down the Wall). There was however going to be a shooting war in the South Atlantic, so all ranks spent many hours every day pounding round the promenade decks on the QE2 and Canberra in full kit to make sure they were fit. This lad had overdone it. One day, pounding out the miles carrying a GPMG, a muscle in his calf ruptured and burst through his skin. He showed me a dark red glowing railway line up the length of his leg where the field surgeons had patched him up. To this day he looked like he had a zip fastener in his leg. Fast-forward another year and I was posted to the RAPC Computer Centre. There were three flavours of Pay Corps: Direct Enlistments (Recruits), Apprentices (Boy Brats) and Transfers-In. The Brats and the recruits were forever having a go at each other. They all demurred to the Transfers-In who's seen real soldiery. Posted as a Sergeant, I was now a member of a rather exclusive club, the Sergeants' Mess and as a Transfer-In, I found myself mixing with a hard core of Transferred-In senior ranks, where all gave and got maximum respect. Many of these senior ranks took roles as Weapons or NBC instructors. One such WO2 had been attached to the Welsh Guards. He was on the water in Bluff Cove but mercifully hadn't cross-decked to the Sir Galahad for disembarkation. Only he outside of the Welsh Guards, could have described that day as "The Day The Boyos Got Crisped." In those days I was professional and hard-bitten. Nowadays, with my son the age I was when I was with the UN in Cyprus, I watch the news and see other people's children. I never realised how much my being in Northern Ireland had worried my family. Now, I hear news of yet another death and a tear comes to my eye. Even watching Mummy's War on Channel 5 last night, I had to wipe tears away. Even for Argies on the Belgrano. Not because it was wrong to sink the Belgrano: it was an entirely justifiable act of war, a war they implicitly declared under UN Resolution (erm somewhere between 51 and 54) with an act of war by invading another sovereign nation's territory. No, because the Conqueror's captain had set out to sink the Belgrano, not 1000 Argentine sailors, largely conscript. Every time I sat in the gunner's seat of a Scorpion, I eased my conscience by remembering I was destroying an enemy tank, not burning its crew alive. I understand that this is how fighter pilots ease their conscience when they down enemy aircraft. A decade after the war I left the army and took the train into London every day. One evening on the journey home I found myself sat next to two foreign teenage boys on their gap year. The fourth at our table started talking to them. they were Argentinian. I bit my tongue and held it. Then I realised that they were only now barely old enough to be conscripted and the war hadn't been their fault. From then I was able to separate individuals from the state that had taken my country to war and taken over 1000 people like me from both sides from their parents prematurely. Thank God my son is the son of a consultant, not the son of a coal miner like his father, and he has every chance to make his way through life without having to offer up his safety to a government (any government, this statement is not explicitly aimed at any particular warmongering government and prime minister - if the cap fits ...) that doesn't understand.

Hmm (checks the map) Horndean. Might be a fun time. I am almost in Dorset Jack. (Off the M27 J3). I might be persuaded. ;o)

D'oh. I realise the next forum down would have been more appropriate. If some kind mod might move it I'd be ever so grateful. (_8o())

Barrack DRESS trousers (After I walked out of the RMP, in late September 1975 I was the last arrival at the last RAC intake NOT to be issued with Barrack Dress trousers: for half my training I wondered why the next intake was ALL QRIH and wearing their dark green Number 2 Dress trousers all the time). We preferred our green jeans and I spent the next 14 years trying to stay out of Barrack Dress. Indeed, whenever I wore Barrack Dress and shoes, I seemed to get rubber-dicked into some task where green jeans and boots would have been more appropriate, so I went against the grain and wore green jeans, boots and combat jacket whenever I could get away with it (but smartly of course). (In the cavalry, normal dress was green overalls over green jeans.) The white belt might have been the 57 (58? I always forget) pattern web belt bleached and painted with tennis shoe white, but this was exceedingly high maintenance and when olive green nylon belts were issued to the troops for wear with Barrack Dress, RMP got them in white. The green belts had green-painted metal furniture: I suspect RMP got plain metal "brass" furniture (maybe nicked from their Best web belt) so that they could be highly polished. I believe the high-maintenance web belt remained on issue for ceremonial wear. I doubt they wore ammo boots for everyday wear. They weren't issued, they were self-purchase and saved for best. If there is a single reason why I discharged myself from the RMP as a statutory right after 88 days' reckonable service, it's because I got really jacked off with spending night after night "highly polishing" two pairs of boots, only for the RMP Training Centre CSM to launch them out of the window on room inspection because they were "EXPLETIVE DELETED". DMS boots will serve for you. Combat Boots (Boots, Combat, High or Boots CH) were rushed into service after the Falklands War, more cases of trench foot than combat casualties and some 13 years' development (the Mark 1s were a disaster - I have the scars to prove it) but I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of something nasty that, because CH were supposedly not bullable (even though these days they do get bulled) and DMS were more comfortable. lighter and more-easily maintained, any RMP worth his salt will have held onto his highly-polished DMS until they fell apart. I left the Army in 1989 and I still have an issued pair of DMS for those tasks where boots are appropriate. The QM would not on any account let me "lose" a pair of CH when I handed my kit in even though I had more than enough pairs of boots to hand in and still retain an unworn pair of CH. I wasn't going to pay the cost of a pair of CH for anybody. I also believe that if your particular Provost Company CSM didn't have the same sadistic streak as the RMPTC CSM, you could get away with "highly polished" (= bulled: supposedly eradicated from the Army with the end of conscription, but continuing to this day because nobody argues with his Sergeant Major) toes and heels and highly BRUSHED uppers for everyday wear, but for Best, bulled uppers were also mandatory for the uppers (as indeed they were everywhere else). BTW, during my 88 days, so the story went, the RMPTC CSM received a posting order to the Berlin Garrison. As soon as the Brigade Commander heard about it, he vetoed it, threatening to resign his commission if this man were posted in. He remained RMPTC CSM. Ever the RSM wasn't at sadistic as his CSM. Think Lad's Army. Thinking about daytime wear as described above. Shirt sleeve order in temperate climates was only persmissible (indeed enforced) between 1 May and 30 Sep unless extreme weather conditions forced a local variation. I'd therefore expect that during winter months, the RMP would have to wear something on top of Number 2 Dress shirt. I have to say that being in recce, we were kept well away from the RMP and I cannot for the life of me remember ever seeing one in the daytime in winter. (I must have, because one winter I was wrongly suspected of trashing a newly-refurbished barrack block and threatened with six months in Colchester until they eventually caught the barsteward.) Some lateral thinking. In Cyprus, our summer evening walking-out dress (as UN troops we were in uniform at all times) was Barrack Dress shirt-sleeve order. However, our six-month tour was almost entirely during the winter months, when our walking-out Dress was full Number 2s (with UN badge on the arm), UN beret and highly polished DMS SHOES. I don't remember wearing a 15/19H regimental belt which is the only belt we'd have worn with Number 2s. Note that RMP were (are?) issued with two sets of Number 2s, one working, one Best. So my guess is that in winter, the RMP WOULD wear Number 2 Dress during the day. Note also that to be absolutely correct, you must wear *RMP* Number 2 Dress trousers, which differ(ed at the time) from those of the rest of the Army by having a truncheon pocket below the right-hand hip pocket allowing a truncheon strap to hand down, handy to the right hand for immediate action as required. Since (as I have explained) Barrack Dress came into issue AFTER I had left the RMP, I cannot tell you whether there was a similar RMP variant of Barrack Dress trousers with a truncheon pocket. However, having said all this, I now have a picture in my head of RMP wearing a wooly pully with a scarlet RMP stable belt over the top. I'd suggest that when not on policing duty, the white belt was replaced by the stable belt either in the trouser belt loops or over the jumper. I cannot recall ever having seen a white belt over a wolly pully though, so I am guessing that on policing duty, they'd wear full Number 2s in winter. For full ceremonial duties (eg VIP escort and embassy guard duty), RMP are (were) issued with blue Number 1 Dress. I was measured for mine: it came complete with LCpl stripe as I was never going to wear it outside of the tailor's shop before completing training and being promoted LCpl, but I walked out before that happened. Note that, although issued with a khaki Number 2 Dress Cap, after training RMP never wear it. The scarlet beret (first issued to the TA RMP while I was in training in early 1975) is appropriate for normal wear. If anything else is appropriate, the red Number 1 Dress cap with black band is worn. AFAIK nobody else has even been issued with a khaki Number 2 Dress cap for decades: in other regiments, the Number 1 Dress cap exclusively is worn with full Number 2 Dress. (There are occasions where Number 2 Dress is appropriate but the Number 1 Dress cap is not. RMP in Number 2 Dress in a vecihle is a prime example. At this time, beret or side cap would be appropriate. I never saw an RMP side cap, but their red berets were entirely appropriate.)

I bothered to read the instructions on my flak jacket which said to wear it under the combat jacket, and I did, working on the principle that it made the weedy young me look big and tough. Then I considered (especially since everybody else in the regiment wore it outside) that this made me a target because I looked like big roughy-toughy me wasn't wearing a flak jacket, so by wearing it on the outside, I looked like everybody else. I had an interesting conversation with my wife last night on a subject very much related. As I have said before, 15/19H always, but always wore green jeans (lightweights) and combat jackats rather than full combats. Pictures I have seen suggest that this practice was the norm thoughout the RAC. Combat trousers were a frightening price to replace whereas gren jeans were cheap as chips, so we only EVER wore combat trousers on guard duty. My experience (seeing the media and also after I transferred out of the cavalry) suggests that this was very definitely not the norm and that most other arms wore full combats whenever they were appropriate. Except that the Paras were also party to this exclusivity. We have lived the last 20 years midway between where the Paras and the Marines lived (though the Paras have now left Aldershot and the Marines, I think have actually moved closer). One evening some 15 years ago, on joining the M3 to return home, I clocked a man trying to hitch a lift. I wasn't so far from Broadmoor (every Monday at 10.00 we'd hear the sirens being tested ...) and there was always the risk that a nutter had done a runner so I never ever picked up hitchhikers. As I drove past, I had this sudden feeling, changed my mind and pulled onto the hard shoulder. As I looked in my mirror I saw him go down on his knees and offer up a prayer of thanks to God, before I invited him to dump his kit on the back seat and pile in. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so very much, sir." "Don't promote me, you can't afford to pay me," came the stock reply. "I am a Reserve Sergeant, you can call me that if it makes you feel better, but I really don't care: I am a civvy now." Over the next 50 miles we chatted (he was a very well-spoken young man for a recruit Para). It seems that when the Paras sent their recruits out on an escape and evasion exercise, they were tasked with escaping to the Marine's base in Dorset, with the Marines providing the enemy. When the Marines sent their recruits out on escape and evasion exercise, the Paras returned the favour and they escaped in the reverse direction. I dropped him at Rowhams Services on the M27 where I was about to leave the motorway, happy as a sandboy and thoroughly warmed up. I even considered inviting him home for a hot meal but decided he might find it awkward. Understand this, I didn't give him my address and although I lve quite close to Rowhams Services, to get from one to other is quite a drive to get on / off the motorway Our house near the junction of M27 and M3 turns out to be a convenient mid-way-ish point in either direction. After this, my wife became increasing aware that squaddies on E&E exercises seemed to have a homing instinct that brought them to her door and, "Can I fill up my water bottle, please?" They'd managed to pick out our house on an estate of several hundred. They have allways been very polite. My wife, having been a part of all this military stuff, would happily fill up their water bottle and slip them a chocolate bar or whatever. Now here's the point we discussed last night. Even though in 1995 there was a complete overhaul of military clothing which, as far as I can make out reduced the military wardrobe to full combats and a set of cheap and nasty khaki best Number 2 Dress, these squaddies at her door have ALWAYS but ALWAYS turned up at her door in green jeans and combat jacket. They never wear berets (which is understandable and the one colour beret will make them an automatic target to the enemy wearing the other colour). But these escaping and evading squaddies always wear green jeans, even though the Army only gets issued full combats. So it seems quite clear to me that Paras and Marines STILL to this day, ONLY EVER WEAR GREEN JEANS, whatever the current pattern may be. I'd like to think the cavalry also behave like this this as this was also our sartorial tradition, but somehow I doubt it. Apparently these days, because everyone ends up in one or other of the sandpits eventually, they don't even issue temperate combats unless they have to, and desert combats have become universal. Which of course trumps everything I have said so far, because it's all the media ever show. But as far as Paras in NI are concerned, GREEN JEANS!!!

Being cavalry, SLR was my alternative personal weapon after Small Metal Gun. We trained on it at Catterick in 1975. TBH I have absolutely no recollection either way of whether there was a preponderance of wooden or plastic furniture. I deployed to Omagh as a reinforcement in early 1976 as a section rifleman. On Day 1 I was assigned an SLR, still wrapped in greased protective stuff, and spend plenty of time cleaning it up before going out on my first VCP (the regiment was coming to the end of its tour and re-roling upon return from NI as Recce: many of the drivers were away retraining on CVR(T), so my troop could not afford me the luxury of attending the week-long in-theatre reinforcement training course for a week or two so I went straight out on the street). I remember marvelling at the clean lines of this never-fired-before weapon with its delicious light-wood furniture. A couple of days later the troop headed out to a range in the wilds of Tyrone somewhere to convert live rounds into empty cases and for me to zero the thing so that I might kill someone if called upon to do so. This allowed us to use up old ammo and ensure that the ammo we'd have on the street was in tip-top condition. It was only when we stood on this range in daylight that my section clocked my wood-furnished SLR and I realised that the rest of them had tacky, naff plastic furniture and the green-eyed monster was casting its evil eye on the speccy, fower-eyed, brain-box cheery boy that had just been posted in. But of course they were all very professional about it and, after all, we were only a couple of months away from returning home safely from a highly successful operational tour, so they were all demob happy and keeping their noses clean. Looking back, it would seem that the wooden furniture had been almost completely replaced by the Spring of 1976, much to the chagrin of the Tom on the street and I was just lucky. I am fairly sure, though, that the odd example of wooden furniture did crop up for some years thereafter. And highly sought-after they were, too. Over the following 14 years I never had such a beautiful weapon (of course for most of those years, the SMG was my personal weapon, with neither wooden nor plastic furniture. I have suddenly remembered being issued on Day 1 with 40 rounds of 7.62, to load into two magazines of 20, 4 Ball, 1 Trace. Except that quite bizarrely, I was issued with the troop's incendiary round. Instead of a plain metal tip (indicating Ball) or a pink tip (Trace) this round had a yellow tip. "This round goes in the top of the magazine you will always load first. When that sucker gets downrange, the nice little POP will keep Paddy's head down, oh yes." Then on the day of our hand-over to 9/12L, I was about ask what to do about the incendiary round, when the guy who'd given it me took it back, scraped off the Humbrol yellow paint and said, "It's Ball round you soft get. Incendiary! Ha ha ha." As an aside, on the 4 Ball 1 Trace thing. Infantry scale of issue was 4 Ball 1 Trace so that every fifth round allowed for a check-zero. The first round (if you weren't a sucker like me) was always trace, so that upon contact, a valid target designation was "Watch my trace," fire the one round at the enemy, then give the section corrections. These days they'd probably just give a squirt of laser. Some Geneva Convention precluded the use of tracer as an anti-infantry ammunition because it contained phosphorus. 4 Ball 1 Trace was permitted. In Royal Armoured Corps turrets, our GPMGs were classified as ranging weapons, (edited) ... and were therefore loaded 1 Ball 1 Trace ... allowing the gunner to fire short ranging bursts (2 - 3 Trace IIRC, = 3 - 7 rounds), determine the fall of shot and adjust to determine the range to the target before sending a single HESH round (in Scorpion, let's not get started on the whole range ...) downrange safe in the knowledge that the range was fairly accurate. In practice, good commander and gunner skills allowed for accurate range estimation without the need for the GPMG coax. The coax was still good for engaging targets not worthy of a HESH round though, when killing bursts of (IIRC) 8 - 10 trace were the norm. Anyway. A guy who became a good mate told me how he'd been designated his section's LMG (Bren) gunner and he and his number 2 had to lug a box of (IIRC) 240 rounds of 7.62 in eight times 30-round LMG magazines, 4 Ball 1 Trace. Except that he loaded his first two mags with straight trace and his last three with 4 Ball 1 trace. The rest (bar the couple of trace left over) were straight ball ammunition. His theory was that if he was engaged, he'd hosepipe the firing point with Trace, ensuring he killed the enemy while he could see where his ammo was going, then he'd empty three or four mags of Ball into the target area to make sure they stayed down, go home with two or three mags of 4 Ball 1 Trace, defy anybody to prove what order he'd fired his rounds and stuff the Geneva Convention.

Ich moechte Ihre Tochter bitte in die Scheune mitnehmen. ("I'd like to take your daughter into the barn." HOW useful was my Civil Service Linguist (Army) qualification???) p.s. why does the forum clock say 01.54.04 pm when it's ten to five?

I have a book somewhere (I have a good idea but it hasn't come out of its hidy hole in the 20 years I have lived here) about German WW2 tank camouflage. Several points (but obviously I am quoting at least 20 year old memory). Originally all German tanks (of the period) came off the production line painted a very dark grey "Panzergrau". When desert operations became a feature, they rolled off the production line in Desert Sand. ISTR that by about late 1944 the heavies, i.e. Tiger and Panther were supposed to start out Panzergrau. However, some, maybe many, maybe even most, continued to come out Sand. Even though the Tiger II never served in the desert, we (not me personally, far too young) still saw examples in Sand. ISTR that mediums (ie by this time the late model Mark 4 Hs and Js were supposed to come out Sand, but again some, many or most continued to come out Panzergrau. During winter months, the wintry monochrome effect of Panzergrau was favoured over Sand, epecially with the addition of whitewash applied over the top. Units had tins of paint in Sand, a sort of Olive Drab and a Red-brown to apply their own cam as conditions and preference allowed over the base coat. Since Panzergrau did a good job of turning the tank into an instant shadow anyway, applying cam paint was more common and creative on top of Sand. Understand that I have never owned one of these vehicles, however much I would love to, but from my early teens I have loved them and for many years I built scale models. It was this interest that led me to join the Royal Armoured Corps. For this reason I have had plenty of practice studying and painting this schemes (being in recce also encouraged me to learn more than most about camouflage). The book I mentioned describes dozens or scores of camouflage schemes supported by photos of the real thing. On a Sand base, the simplest scheme was thick, rough green and brown stripes over the Sand to create a three-way colour scheme otherwise not unlike the green / black used by the RAC throughout the cold War. Some that spring to mind: a Panther, originally Sand, painted as described above parked under a tree in bright sunlight. the effect of light and shadow caused by the sun shining through the leaves was so startling that many crews actually painted Sand spots over the dark colours and dark spots (green or brown) over the sand, so that the tank would disappear into complicated shadow even when it was in the open; a King Tiger. originally Sand, aptly painted with red-brown tiger stripes; (I think) a Panther, originally Panzergrau, with two-way Sand stripes creating dark square spots in the style of a giraffe. Off the top of my head, those are the three that spring to mind. I almost feel the urge to grub around in the glory hole and dig out and revisit the book. The original question was, I think you'll agree the answer. from what I have said, is, Yes. It could be either. However, if I had my arm twisted to make a decision, I'd plump for "just something funky thought-up by our French friends" I have never seen a camouflage pattern like it before, but it doesn't mean it never existed. From what I understand, the tank was in a poor state when it was recovered and I'll bet recording the original colour scheme was never high on anybody's list of priorities. IMO, I say again, it's a made-up colour scheme. It's far too funky for super-cool elite heavy tank crews. Especially since the Schwererpanzerabteilungen were Waffen-SS troops. But don't quote me. ;o)

As I understand it the SAS use Pink Panther Landrovers because a Mosquito (IIRC) crashed in the desert and faded to pink in the blistering heat and scouring effect of the wind in no time at all. This made for such good camouflage (the wreck lay undiscovered for a long time) that the SAS decided it was the right colour for their desert vehicles. Or is the story apochryphal?

On the Army Rumour Service Royal Armoured Corps forum is a thread (or two) about Bovington and the RAC Junior Leaders Regiment. I only ever did a six-week Control Signaller course there, though we occasionally popped in whilst firing the Scorpions at nearby Lulworth Ranges, so I don't tend to read about the JLR. However, one post I did catch on one of these threads was from an ex-Boy Brat - sorry Junior Bleeder - sorry Leader - who stated that the King Tiger has an escape hatch in the floor and that it wasn't unheard of for JLs on guard duty in the Museum so slip under the King Tiger and kip inside for the duration of their stag. So next time you're in Bovvy and you want to have a look around inside the King Tiger (and if you haven't piled on the pounds the way I have), just slip around the back, slip underneath and you're in.