AlienFTM

In the 1970s I was indeed taught that the 432 was not legal on UK roads for this reason and I have to say that to this day I have never seen one on a UK road. (We didn't have then in recce and my one RAC tour on the mainland UK did not involve us working alongside 432s - or anything else apart from Ex Bugle Call in 1976 which stayed mainly on The Plain.) As you say, I have no proof, but if it were me, I'd keep quiet about the 432 being used on the road by the MOD, as I have no positive proof of that either. If they want to believe that and it gets your vehicle registered, don't rock the boat. ;o)

Please bear with me on this: eventually you'll see where I am going (literally). As an alumnus of the Royal Armoured Corps, a leaflet came through my door a couple of days ago. There follows a transcript of the relevant bit: So, last August on my birthday Wor Lass kindly allowed me to take her to Bovvy and she freely admits to having quite enjoyed herself even if, being recuperating from illness, she tired rather quickly. I missed last year's Tankfest at Bovvy (partly because she was still recuperating and partly because I hadn't realised she had so mellowed toward my loving those "magnificent engines of steel and gleam" * as much as I love her). Have any of you fine chaps been invited along to offer up your Shermans and Halftracks as fodder for the Bovington tiger, or are they just looking for puddlejumpers with with the gruntcruncher can bloody its tracks? Whatever, Wor Lass is not averse to attending (and I am working on nipper, for whom 23 June is his first day as a post-graduate), so if any of you are going to be there, we might just meet. Anybody has questions, you may wish to chat up - I mean chat TO - Debbie Barker at the Museum on 01929 462529. * "magnificent engines of steel and gleam" © Bob Calvert, "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters See also: http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html

No-o-o-o-o that was just added as a bit of an aside. Of course it is physically impossible to double declutch a Ferret for the simple reason that it isn't a clutch, but a gear change pedal (GCP). I'd guess that anyone trying to double declutch a Ferret would deserve a false neutral. Not something I ever managed to achieve on Ferrets though I vaguely recall it happening once on a Saracen ACV: just about pushed my left knee through my chest. Ouch And then there's the guy in the Fox who found a false neutral halfway up a 45 degree slope on the Driver Training Area at Tidworth, rolled it end over end and cut his gunner in half - not pleasant.

I'd go with the marine idea. Where the propellor shaft passes through the hull of a yacht, the stern gland needs to be kept sealed and lubricated, which (in my day anyway) involved a couple of turns on a tap every morning to pack more grease in. "Lubricating the stern gland" as a first parade action every day always brought a smile to people's faces. I really cannot think why.

When you are receiving radio signals, the more antenna you throw up, the better. When transmitting however, you need the antenna to be as near to a quarter wave-length (or just below) as possible. However, because the antenna length is more or less fixed (Larkspur: 8' of rods for VHF, 12' for HF; Clansman: 2m of rods VHF - I cannot now remember seeing 3m of rods for HF but that could just be me), you will need an electronic device attached to the antenna. On Larkspur this was an ATU - Antenna Tuning Unit. On Clansman VHF it was a TUAAM: Tuning Unit Automatic Antenna Matching. ISTR on Clansman HF it was ARFAT: Adaptor, Radio Frequency, Antenna Tuning. This device would electronically optimise the signal to match the antenna. On Larkspur you actually had to send a signal whilst manually tuning the ATU to get the biggest possible deflection on the meter. ISTR on Clansman VHF there was a "Tuning" position on the face of the set which did the same thing automatically without actually transmitting. A whole squadron retuning and transmitting to adjust the Larkspur antenna tuning was a godsend to enemy direction-finders. The rod lengths stated above were deliberately derived to match the quarter wavelength of the sets. Note that if you carried a millimeter too much rod, the ATU would try to transmit and the next quarter-wavelength up, ie half a wavelength and it would be terribly out of tune. The only realistic way to do that in practice would be to carry 12' of rod in a VHF antenna base. As a Control Signaller, I was taught a formula to derive the actual length of antenna required. Useful when we set up dipoles on the HF sets in static locations. After I left the cavalry and recce, I went to a REME Armoured Workshop where we spent a week in a location and worked on the Divisional HF Logistic Net rather than the VHF Command Nets. A dipole was the norm. As the expert, I did permanent night radio stags, so that I could change the frequency, the dipole lengths to match the frequency and all the codes at midnight. One night, bored out of my skull, I plotted a graph by first principles of frquency against 1/4 wavelength for the whole frequency range of the UK/VRC321 and laminated it to the command vehicle wall where the coax left the vehicle to go to the antenna mast. For those that care, the command vehicle was a hand-converted Bedford RL Machy Wagon (well it was a REME workhop: they were the people to do the conversion). Getting fed up of this now so I'll stop. ;o)

I used to double de-clutch my Series 3 Landrover because otherwise I always found the gearbox clunky. I'd have an officer in the other seat, usually wearing a headset so the smoothness of my double declutch was always lost on them, except that I'd be asked why there was a double tap every time i changed down. I'd point out that if I was double declutching it was pointless only half-dipping the clutch. The DMS Boots helped me achieve a satisfying double-tap and a smooth change. We had to take formal instruction on Ferrets before our UNFICYP tour even though I had driven them on ops in NI. Our insturctor was an exchange Senior NCO from the RNZAC (14 armoured vehicles apparently, in their defence force) He pointed out that going uphill in a Ferret and needing to change down because you couldn't keep the revs up at full throttle, don't prat about with the normal sequence involving easing the accelerator foot. Having pre-selected the next lower gear, simply smack the GCP and the fluid flywheel will take care of everything, and when the next lower gear engages, you don't have the problem of getting revs back up before you find yourself with too few revs for THIS gear too.

BP - we also had a monthly allocation to be purchased from the Pay Office to buy VAT-free Benzin (2*) or Super (4*) for use in our private BFG-registered vehicles. There is a BP station in the pokey little village of Wankum which did trade beyond its logical catchment because it was the last BP station on the Autobahn from the Corps Area to the ferries. The advent of unleaded petrol, the use by the IRA of BFG plates as target indicators and a single European market all affected the practice and I have no idea how it works now. Most of my time was spent in Recce. If the CVR(T)s were going far enough to need a replen. they'd be on a train. Ferrets usually went by road because they gave more radio comms as packet leaders / trailers. They had a short range but TBH I cannot remember ever making a planned stop. On one exercise, all six regimental Ferrets left the railhead after watching the Scorpions off, carrying spare Jerry cans and we topped up at the back of a motorway service area. Even so, as lead Ferret, I reached the last hill before Paderborn and as I bombed down, it misfired. Over the I/C I got the commander to throw the reserve tank switch and the engine caught as we reached the bottom of the hill and shot through the traffic lights. The other Ferrets had all bunched up behind me, but didn't make the lights. Made me the first person back from exercise by a long chalk. This was Saturday lunchtime. I had been awake since 0400 Wednesday for a radio stag. I slept well.

The red and yellow flags serve another purpose on the ranges. When the commander goes to "Action", he will deploy the red flag from the turret, indicating that there will be rounds going down. In the event of a prolonged misfire on the main armament ("Misfire wait 30 minutes" - I think a prolonged stoppage on the coax was "Stoppage wait 15 minutes" but it was a long time ago), he'd deploy the yellow flag. At night, he'd use a Bardic torch with the appropriate filter aimed at the range control tower. I also suspect that on an active range at night any vehicle not at misfire/stoppage or action would show green so that the range staff knew that the vehicle hadn't lost its torch. But don't quote me.

I don't know who did the captions and if they can be corrected. Two of the cavalry regiments of the period were 14/20th Hussars and 17/21st Lancers (titles are neither full not official but common useage). Hope this helps. ;o)

Under the old callsign system of Signals Communications for the Army (which I believe started about 1956 and was replaced ISTR 1 July 1982, just after I transferred out) 24A id derived like this (as a Royal Armoured Corps Control Signaller, I automatically think RAC subunits; 432 being primarily an infantry vehicle, I include Infantry nomenclature for completeness): 2 = B Squadron (Company) 4 = 4 Troop (Platoon A = second vehicle in subunit. Troop/Platoon commander = 24, 24A = Troop/Platoon Sergeant. In the pic, the callsign is surrounded by what ought to be a square (to indicate B Sqn/Coy) but to my eye the bottom edge doesn't look square. A Sqn = triangle, C Sqn = circle, HQ Sqn = diamond. The Germans learned to make battlegroups during WW2. The Allies were getting the hand by the end of the war. It worked like this. In action, break up units (regiments and battalions) into squadrons and companies, mix them up and put them back together as a mixed arm unit, a battlegroup instead of a regiment / batallion, based upon one of the RHQs. Thus 15/19H battlegroup might consist of B Sqn 15/19H (Recce), B Coy 1LI (Mechanised Infantry) and B Sqn 3RTR (Tanks) answering to RHQ 15/19H. As far as major units go, you would certainly expect to see either two RAC or two Infantry Sqns/Coys in any battlegroup. The above isn't typical because Recce were Divisional Troops and not normally assigned to battlegroups, but this demonstrates the flexibility of the system. But this didn't stop RHQ 15/19H from commadning a battlegroup. Divisions were structured 1 * Recce Regt, 2 * Armour Regt, 3 * Infantry Bn, giving six RHQs upon which to base battlegroups and giving each battlegroup an average of three combat units, but it was entirely down to the Divisional GOC how he split up the battlegroup for the task in hand. If you look closely, you'll notice that this battlegroup has no A Sqn/Coy: they are all B Sqn/Coy. To differentiate them, callsigns were prefixed with an arm indicator where: I = Infantry K = Infantry alternate T = RAC U = RAC alternate G = Artillery W = Artillery alternate E = Engineers F = Engineers alternate A = AAC ... followed by remaining arm indicators in alphabetical order. So in out example, B Sqn 15/19H would prefix all callsigns with Tango and the vehicle in question became Tango 24 Alpha. The same vehicle in B Sqn 3RTR would use the Armour alternate indicator, Uniform and would answer up as Uniform 24 Alpha. The same vehicle in B Coy 1LI would answer up as India 24 Alpha. And so on. And the sequence given above for arm indicators is the sequence they would answer up on the command net. All India callsigns first from I2 (FHQ command vehicles, Alpha and Bravo) through I21 to I24C, their support platoon (applicable to arm), REME and HQ element. Then would answer up all the Tangos then the Uniforms. There would also probably be an Artillery FOO, typically Golf 11, some engineers for the reserve demolition and so it went on. Naturally, you would know from one battlegroup grouping to the next whether you might be Tango or Uniform, India or Kilo, so that wasn't a permanent fixture of the callsign. In fact, in our regiment, 15/19H, callsigns were mounted on sheet metal plates attached to the rear turret stowage bin, only visible from the rear and easily changed if the Troop Leader's vehicle broke down and he took over command of say 24C. I could write a book about it, but I think that's enough for now. Roger so far over? Note that this system was identified as full of security holes a lo-o-ong time ago and this is why it was replaced with a totally different, more secure system in 1982. I have read books which suggest the system I have described was not dissimilar from what was used in WW2, except that in WW2, instead of having the B Sqn indicator carved in stone, this changed on a daily basis so that T24A as well as having a "floating" first letter, also had a floating second letter, and might be for example GM4A (sorry cannot remember the pre-NATO phonetic alphabet).

It looks like it's about 155mm in calibre which would make it HE in all probability. Besides it doens't look like any smoke round I have ever seen and 155mm is heavy and not expected to be used in an armour-defeating role, which would get it painted black. NATO standard would therefore demand that it be painted Olive Green with Yellow writing on it. However, it could very easily pre-date NATO, and maybe not even bat for the same side, so without further information, I can say no more. In fact, having reached the limit of my knowledge of HE ammunition, even with further information, I could say no more. Of course, since it didn't explode, it may be a practice round (though I don't know if heavy artillery units ever fire PRAC). In this case it should be painted sky blue, but of course that wouldn't look at all warry. Besides, in recent years Heavy Regiments have fired Lance. It doesn't look like a Lance round to me. Or even a lance.

In February of 1976, concluding my Scorpion Gunner's course at Catterick, we went to the ranges at Warcop in Cumbria to convert live 76 rounds into empty cases. First time behind the gun, eyes on the sight, the instructor was naturally encouraging us not to be afraid of the weapon - it was far more dangerous at the other end. He guided me toward a target and asked me what I can see. No gun drills, just friiendly encouragement. Having lined the sight graticule onto a hard target, he asked me what I could see. "Well if I am perfectly honest, Sarge, it looks to me for all the world like the turret off a Tiger 1E." He double-took (double-taked?) as he looked across and peered back through his commander's sight, then regained his composure and agreed. Then we got into gun drills and a HESH round went downrange at 533mps. I was dead chuffed at my recognition skills (though looking back I wonder if he wasn't simply boosting my confidence). Throughout the range week, I kept bringing my gun back to look at the Tiger turret. Mid-week, it fell to our group to stand guard on the range overnight. The range hut was brick and solid but very cold in a Cumbrian winter wind. But I had a plan. First opportunity, two of us set off down the range track to have a close-up look at the Tiger turret. Needless to say, 1200m downrange and in the dark, the landscape looked entirely different and we never found the Tiger turret. However, from a bluff in the target area, looking northwards out of arc we had a clear view down a valley to where the Infantry Junior Bleeders, colocated in our camp for their final Battle Camp, were having a night under canvas. They were clearly just settling down as all their lights were going out. The full moon came out from behind the clouds and I felt this uncontrollable urge. I took a deep breath and released a massive werewolf howl down the valley. Oh how we larfed when all the lights flicked back on. Quick bimble back up the track, nicely in time for a hot supper to arrive. Nice.

Oh it swims. Go to Tenby in Wales, get down to the beach and buy a ticket to Caldey Island. Hang around a few hours until the tide is different and I'll bet either when you land or you embark for the return, they'll cross-deck you between boat and shore (or vice versa) in a genuine, sea-going Stolly. I did, a couple of years ago.

Don't be daft.

Pegasus Bridge is only a couple of miles down the road from the ferry terminal (not sure how far from the city though). They finally had to replace the bridge (ISTR that they actually replaced the original many years ago, but the replacement was sympathetic to the significance) a few years ago. I hope it has been suitable preserved. There's a slack handful of vehicles and guns there and a museum. I remember the stairs down to the museum's cellar display. On the left were all the front pages from the newspapers, something like: The Times: We Invade! The Telegraph: 250,000 Troops Ashore! The Sunderland Echo: Shop at Binns (It's private joke. There was an invasion-related headline: the advert was in the next column and caught my eye rather more as someone who read the Echo right through his youth.)

Check out this thread: http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=29731/start=120.html The (currently) four postings in page 9 are from me, my best man and a guy I have known since my pre-army mid-teens (the latter, aka Hat Mackem, who posted the Fox picture, is second from the right in the back row of the picture).

I'd guess that the vehicle was built, painted and registered in 1965 then sat in a vehicle depot for two years before being issued to a unit. How's that?

I drove 77FM51 in 1977, but it had certainly been used by my predecessor in 1976 and in fact it was a heap. 72/73 is a lot more likely.

If you use Lotus Notes (WHY???) be aware that you may need to tell it your time zone too. I once got a new ThinkPad and it took me months to work out why Notes would never send me a meeting reminder. Eventually, deep in the guts of Notes, I found that somebody (maybe in Software Delivery and Fulfilment in Boulder, Colorado) had decided that Notes's default timezone ought to be Mountain Time. Consequently, Notes thought I ought to be in meetings in the middle of my night. Something to watch out for.

1. I served as a military policeman for 88 days' reckonable service until I told them where to shove their truncheons, obtained discharge as a statutory right and re-enlisted in the cavalry. (RMP didn't like people transferring to "lesser" branches.) 2. As a young cavalryman in Tidworth I was easily led and once agreed (against my better judgement cos it was an illegal journey: no work ticket signed by an officer) to collect the squadron p!ssheads from the British Legion in downtown Tidworth after a liquid lunch. We were spotted and followed through Tidworth by a Military Police Cortina (IIRC) and I panicked cos I wasn't wearing my seatbelt (in contravention of Standing Orders: not that anybody ever wore a seatbelt in an Army vehicle). I was flagged down, wetting myself in case the RMP wanted to see the workticket, but I just get a telling off, told to wear my seatbelt and be on my way. 3. Some years later, as a hardened lean mean killing machine, I dated the Paymaster's nanny. (The Paymaster and I went on to race offshore for the Army: he told me he needed a nice young man to show her round Paderborn and I told him that if I found one, I'd send him round. His nanny and I have now been married 25 years.) One evening I returned her to the Paymaster's quarter and parked up the bright loud yellow Capri with BFG plates in right in front while we said our goodbyes. An RMP patrol pulled up behind us and I got the third degree. Why were a Lance Corporal and his girlfriend lurking outside an officer's quarter? Come to think of it, this was shortly after a senior officer has been assassinated by an IRA group up the road in Bielefeld and the alert state was high. It wasn't uncommon for the IRA to use "courting couples" for recces cos they drew less attention then men in hats, sunglasses and trenchcoats. Satisfied, they continued on their way. As they passed, I couldn't help but notice that the Cortina (IIRC) has a tail light bulb out. Of course, it might have blown during the course of the patrol, but they had halted and we cavalry would have carried out a Halt Parade on our vehicles whilst stopped. I drove the few hundred metres back to camp and promptly used the Guardroom phone to pass on to their boss that they might want to check their lights again at their next Halt Parade. Of course it never occurred to me it might drop them in the doodoo. ;o)

Officers (used to) get a sleeping bag issued with a number of ancillaries. By and large, in Recce nobody ever used the ancillaries. ISTR that there was a canvas cover like you describe. In the 70s and 80s they were G1098 stores issued by Eskimo Ness, the SQMS, so they wouldn't have been anybody's personal item on permanent issue. It is however entirely reasonable 30 years earlier that non-combat officers got them issued on a more-permanent basis and bothered to stencil their details on them. I'd guess you guessed right first time. ;o)

That presumably would be two US infantry regiments, each comprising multiple battalions (probably organised into Regimental Combat Teams) which were therefore more equivalent to what we in the UK think of as brigades. Two brigades being sufficient on paper to comprise a division, the mistake was not as big as it might sound.

Humph. I started Google Earth to verify what I was about to write here and it trashed my machine. Try again. In 1995 I was taken on strength of the Bank of England due their error in a contract with my consultancy firm (forgot they'd have to pay 17.5% VAT on cunsultancy services, so they simply took our team on strength for the duration). Come the beginning of May and I was redeployed to fight another fire at another mainframe site (my specialty: the BOE job was one of only two non-mainframe jobs I got in five years), a well-known credit card company in Northampton. On my last Friday we pub-crawled round that area of London and staggered back into the bank about 3pm. I cleared my desk and took my leave. As I walked out of the front door of the building in New Change, just the width of the road from St Paul's (see Google Earth), whose dome had filled my office window for the last three months, the doorman in the pink frock coat and black hat bade me farewell for the last time and I stepped out into the light ... ... to find a pair of WW2 AA searchlights positioned either side of the door during the short time I had been upstairs packing up. I was well impressed at the farewell, but at a loss as to what I was seeing (I had had a lot to drink). I got home and at the end of News At Ten, Trevor Macdonald reminded us that it was the 50th anniversary of VE Day, and for the occasion, NAT had reconstructed another iconic St Paul's photo, from VE Day, of a pair of AA searchlights behind the dome lighting up the London night sky with a giant V for Victory.

Kettenkraftrad = Tracked motorised bike. (Kraftrad is an old word for motorbike. By 1980 when I did my Civil Service Linguist (Army) course, "motorbike" had ceased to be a valid translation from Kraftrad. By then its meaning had become "moped" - in the traditional sense, not as per Fizzie, Bloop, etc. Do we still have the concept of moped since the rules were changed a decade or two back?) Abbreviations to Kettenrad and Kettenkrad are both common and accepted.

We had to respray all our vehicles with IRR paint when I was in a sabre troop on BAOR, which dates it as between December 1980 and hmmm maybe December 1981. I am fairly sure it was Spring / early Summer, so my money is firmly on mid-1981