AlienFTM

Not a shred of evidence, just opinions. 1. I'd expect earlier model brackets to be found on late model Jeeps: * to use up factory stocks on the production line * issued by a QM from his stocks to replace damaged later-model brackets. 2. If you think a modification is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that others did, too, especially since you have heard of the mod from others. In the field, Tommy (and Joe ;o) would perform whatever mods he deemed useful. However, even if he had a camera and bothered to take photos of the mods, there is still the problem of getting the film developed and preserving the photographs. Lack of photographic evidence doesn't preclude the mod's existence. If I thought a mod added something to my vehicle (if I had one), and was in keeping with the spirit of the times, I wouldn't let lack of evidence stop me carrying out the mod. It would take a lot of discussion to discuss all the user mods I saw during the Cold War. I am sure the ex-REME on this forum would agree, especially since we had to call upon them for their specialist skills to modify the aluminium armour on our CVR(T)s.

Broadening the topic ever so slightly. I have seen discussions about how long WW2 vehicles continued in service thereafter. (Not thinking American because they produced a lot of new kit very late in the war and took it all to Korea.) I remember reading about the last Panzerkampfwagen 4s being used by the Israelis as dug-in pill-boxes in Golan Heights / West Bank / Gaza Strip (delete contentious land as appropriate) in the 1967 war. I also believe that the Panther last saw action between the Israelis and Jordanians in the same timeframe, and that the Spanish Army kept a few Tiger 1Es running until they could no longer get parts. Another one that has bugged me: I recently, 30 years later, got a copy of "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters", a 1974 album by Bob Calvert of Hawkwind fame and friends including Lemmy. It takes a humorous and cynical look at the story of the renascent post-war Luftwaffe rearming with the F104G. In the opening track it attributes the following statement to the German Air Defence Minister, Franz Josef Strauss: http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html So to my question: Exactly what aircraft did the Luftwaffe have in 1960 before buying 700 F104Gs? If they had ME262s, surely they wouldn't be so far behind in the arms race. The album suggests piston-engined aircraft. Again, surely the FW190 and TA152 derivitive wouldn't have been so far off the mark?

A guess. Maybe it is a prototype built on the hull of an earlier vehicle. I once saw a VRN beginning 02FD** and identified the vehicle from this as a Scorpion. (02FD** to 04FD**) However, when the camera zoomed out, the 30mm cannon stunned me, as Scimitars were registered in something like the 05FD** to about 08FD** range. And it simply didn't look right for a Scimitar. Turned out to be a Sabre, converted from a Scorpion by replacing the retired 76mm gun turret with the 30mm cannon turret from a Fox.

It proves me both right and wrong! Wrong in that clearly it was done. Right in that they have painted most of the Jeep black apart from a few inches along the sides. As far as Micky Mouse Ear cam is concerned, all they have achieved is two small circles of black and they haven't yet painted any circles up from the mudgard to break up its shape. By the time they have broken up the shape of the wheel arch, there will be next to no green left and IMCO the cam will be worse than leaving it the base colour. Complete waste of war effort. Applied to an hostoric Jeep nowadays, whilst technically permissible, it will certainly make the Jeep a talking point but I don't see it as a crowd-puller. The rivet-counters may be wrong, but the owner will never convince them of that and any exhibition will be spent arguing with them over it. If I were given that vehicle to drive in combat in that state, at the first opportunity I'd slap a can of Olive Drab on it (or Khaki if applicable). Probably the best thing about that paint job is that they have covered up all the eye-catching white characters (apart from the bumper and the bridge classification which we've discussed before).

I spent a few summer holidays in the 1990s visiting Normandy. I remember driving around a dock on the coast in a town behind one of the central beaches, having to take two rather long sides and a short side around the dock, quite a distance to cover a few yards along the beach. I watched the film and I KNEW there was something about the famous "Ouistreham" scene that didn't ring true. Thanks for that.

I am setting myself up to be shot down here, but ... I have described the logic (and how the camouflage works) behind painting on Micky Mouse Ear in another thread somewhere. Given the tiny amount of side area on a Jeep, it occurs to me that painting MME cam onto a Jeep would leave it almost enirely black with only a couple of patches of the base colour underneath. So what would be the point? Unless someone can show me a contemporary picture (ie not preserved) of a Jeep in MME, I'll find it hard to believe that it is correct. At that time I believe it was more common for soft-skinned vehicles to carry only the base coat without camouflage and in the case of the Germans, usually without Balkenkreuz. Clearly larger British softskins (I am thinking Matador and remember a series of pictures of Matadors on this forum) DID carry MME cam.

I have looked at the supplied screenshots and now I AM surprised. The turret is that of the Easy 8 (as I'd identified the tank from memory in my previous post), but the suspension in the picture is clearly the archetypal Vertical Volute Spring Suspension, not the then new Horizontal VSS of the M4A3 "Easy 8" (and the "Easy 2" I mentioned), which in my book means that the tank in the picture is in fact a hybrid Sherman (but it appears to me still to be all Sherman). Maybe the hull is actually an original DD hull then. Though I find this hard to believe as I was under the impression that the float screens tended to be ditched by their crews as soon as convenient. FWIW, hats off to the DD crews who floated off landing ships off the coast. I swam a Scorpion a few yards in a tank at Ludgershall in 1977 and it was no fun. The only wave was that given off by our own forward motion - not a lot.

Many years ago I missed The Longest Day on TV because my aunt and uncle were holding a Silver Wedding celebration and I was dragged along. Up in God's Country at the weekend for a school reunion, I stayed over at my now-widowed aunt's. I walked into the room and found The Longest Day, reminded her that I had missed this film because of her and in fact had never sat and watched it through (technically I still haven't because I missed the first 5 minutes. I tried not to share too many bloopers with her, because she really didn't care, but when I saw a number of DD Shermans go by, couldn't help myself. They were Shermans, but they were M4A3E8s with the long 76mm gun, so long that you wouldn't have been able to raise the flotation screens fully. I couldn't give you an exhaustive list of the Sherman models converted or built as DDs, but the the M4A3E2 which introduced the revised hull shape seen on the M4A3E8 did not appear until nearly two months after D-Day. I suppose on reflection, the producer had made a best effort and I let it go. But since you ask ...

Gloss white with blue UN badges. I am thinking UNFICYP 1976-77 but it was probably a lot more common than that.

On our Ferrets the canvas bucket lived safely out of the way at the bottom of the most awkward wheel-arch bin, festering, usually in a puddle of oil from the oil can or grease from the grease gun. It only ever saw light of day for a kit check. (No, no, a CES check, not a barf after a night on the wee.)

I saw a wonderful sight in the Sunday paper. The L1A1 with wooden furniture is to return. Unfortunately it comes with a relaunched Action Man wearing what looked horribly like a Royal Tank Regiment badge on his beret, a khaki woolley pulley, grey teflon trousers and boots. Not a black JHW or coveralls in sight. Memo to self: must go wind up the Armoured Farmers thread on the ARRSE RAC forum.

My guess as I worked through the thread was that maybe it was a tester for a smoke discharger circuit, but: 1. subsequent answers suggest I am wrong. 2. I doubt smoke dischargers are 3.5" in calibre. Ho hum

Toward the end of the logical tour round Bovington, tucked away in a corner behind a display (of how armour-defeating rounds work), can be found the only known surviving Schmalturm. I use the term "surviving" loosely: it spent many years on Lulworth ranges until somebody realised its historical significance. Long story: There were three pre-production versions of the Panther, so the first production version was Panther D. To understand why the next version was Panther A, it helps if you speak German. They say the letter "E" as we say "A" and they say A as we say "Ahhh" and even they sometime get it wrong. So Panther A ought to have been Panther E, but somebody wrote it down wrongly and it stuck. Before the definitive final version, Panther G came into service, a radically-improved Panther F was in design. The mods were so severe it later became Panther II, and then scrapped, though all the mods were applied in the design of the Tiger II (which is why the latter looks more like the former than a Tiger 1) and indeed, the improved road wheel design was implimented on the late model Tiger 1E. One of the biggest design changes was a much longer but slightly narrower turret to make loading the gun easier whilst reducing the frontal aspect to Allied gunners. This was the Schmalturm or Narrow Turret. Sadly, Bovvy's Schmalturm has been essentially destroyed on the side that was facing uprange. It has been cleaned and tidied up (and rough edges painted red as appears to be the norm) and is displayed next to "How an armour-defeating round works" so that the effects of said rounds can be seen.

As far as household insurance is concerned, the MOD do not bother (again I am speaking from experiences of 20 years ago). If a house is damaged, it just gets paid out of the housing repair budget. Army budgets are (were!) big enough to cover this. In the big freeze of January 1987, about 1/3 of all married quarters on our estate suffered burst water pipes. Mine was in the rising main. Everybody who was flooded out got moved to an empty quarter (there were plenty: they have all been sold off now). I believe that this cold snap put a severe strain on that particular budge Army-widet. WRT vehicle insurance. My gut feeling is that Army take the same position but I have no concrete reason to think so. Obviously there is the small matter of legal minimum liability, but I do know that in the event of a culpable accident, debt recovery will be made direct from the soldier's pay account at source. (Apochryphal stories abound of squaddies causing damage in the millions to Chieftains etc. I believe in this case, squaddy will be crippled to the limit of his ability to pay back and the remaining liability written off.) Re: giving details to civvies. I had an accident in my own vehicle in the UK whilst stationed in BAOR. I exchanged insurance details. A month later and back in BAOR I was summoned to the Squadron Sergeant Major's office and had my balls chewed off. He had received a letter from somebody (who turned out to be a policeman) who had written to him to complain that I hadn't coughed up yet. The SSM ordered me to sit down immediately and write a grovelling reply. Instead, I marched out of his office and downtown to the local Deutsche Herold office to see my insurance broker. This man was an ex-Para and honorary Sergeant's Mess member because he insured a significant percentage of the regiment. He immediately and in my hearing phoned my SSM and in turn dragged HIM over the coals. I had reported the accident to my insurers, it was in their hands and damn-all to do with him, and if he persisted in abusing his client, he'd take action via the commanding officer. The upshot of all this is that yes, if you know your way around the military, you can probably get details, but IMO if you don't, it will be difficult.

The first DPM came out about the same time as troops deployed to NI on emergency tours. The earliest pictures of the troubles show troops in Olive Green all over. The first DPM combat jackets were of the same pattern as the last of the OG, with a stitched collar (this is the easiest recognition feature). By the time I first joined up in early 75, another issue of combat jacket was out. This did not have the stitched collar. I believe this was the first model that was fully lined. The next model appeared early in 1985. Apart from a double thickness of DPM over the upper back, the 85 pattern was unlined. To this day, I still wear one, though it's getting threadbare. Last month I was able to find an example of this marked as "New". Now I cannot. This model was the first to feature velcro wrist straps instead of buttons. Whilst searching recently for a new 85 pattern combat jacket, my searches suggest that there was a new model in 94, which looked very like the 85, but the blurb suggested that it had slits to allow access to pockets in clothing underneath the combat jacket. This obviously didn't catch on because the 95 pattern remains current. It rings a bell. AFAIK the Flak Jacket was worn throughout the troubles. Pretty sure I have seen pictures of troops wearing OG combat jackets and Flak Jackets. I can confirm there were numerous types. They all appeared to be of US origin and I have always imagine they are the same jackets worn in Vietnam. The instructions said to wear them under camouflage clothing, but it was normal (if not SOP) to wear them OVER combats. There has already been a thread on this subject somewehere on here. Have a look. My only other comment is that my observations suggest that most troops wore DPM Combat Jacket and OG Lightweight Trousers rather than DPM trousers. Far cheaper, more comfortable and better fitting without braces.

From 20-something years ago. As Pay Corporal, I had to go down to the bank to collect a few thousand DMs to pay the troops (because there was no Sergeant in our Pay Office and the Staff Sergeant was manning the till). I called the MT section, who promised me a Landrover by the time I got to their hangars. Waiting for me was a freshly-serviced SWB LR. I jumped in, shot off as is my wont and got myself onto the main drag into Osnabruck. I stared astonished as a Landrover wheel rolled past me and smacked into a civvy car. And my wheel hub went clunk and the world went all slanty. Bugger. I was banged to rights. MT came out and recovered their Landrover: I guess I must have been given another to complete my task. The memory goes with age you know? The two young Craftsmen who had serviced the car were charged with failing to service the vehicle in accordance with blah, blah, blah and punished in some way. I was charged with failing to check the roadworthiness of the vehicle before driving off. Because I paid them, my sentence was a three month report. "Do nothing wrong and it will never have happened." In fact the Part 3 Order publishing the charge went straight to the Commander, Pay Services, 1 Armd Div, and a day or so after being charged I was tipped the wink that nothing had happened. Being a good boy, my service record remained unblemished. As for notifying my own insurance company, as far as I am aware, what goes on in the Army stays in the Army. But my experiences are from two decades ago ...

I left the Army two decades ago and was distraught recently to learn that the venerable Ferret Scout Car has finally been retired. (Earlier this month I learned that this was after GW1). The presenter of the Tank Demonstration at Bovington Tank Museum (Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at midday in summer) announced that there were now lots of happy restorers. There are a good few Ferret owners in here (oh how I wish I could afford to be one). It's no bigger than a Landrover, but it's the best ride you'll ever have (can you guess I spent a lot of time in Ferrets?) and parts and expertise ought not to be an issue. Gets my vote.

I am astonished. I just Googled for +bren +"rate of fire" and found a wikipedia entry which quotes it as: I cannot believe that it fired at some 9 rounds per second. I stand corrected, but like my Mother used to say "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

You'll find a thread running to many pages on this subject on the Army Rumour Service forum, somewhere off http://www.arrse.co.uk.

I refer readers to a comment by George MacDonald Frazer in the introduction his autobiography Quartered Safe Out Here, about his time as a section rfileman in The Border Regiment in Burma in 1944-45. In summary, it goes something like, "This is how it was then. Times were different. We had a war to win. We couldn't do it now, but it is different now. Listen to the loonies and we are made out to be animals. We weren't animals, we were ordinary men who were made to kill. We didn't have counsellors. How would we have survived the Blitz if we'd needed a counsellor for every Londoner affected by bombing?" It goes on. You could call it a theme or a rant, but entirely valid from someone who was there. Basically, who has the right to condemn his fathers and grandfathers for doing the only thing they could that would grant their children the right to condemn him for doing it? As for bombing Dresden (okay it wasn't mentioned but we know where the thread will go), when the Iron Curtain came down, Dresden's archives made it quite plain that an SS Panzer Korps was on trains in the city (IIRC either heading for or returning as remnants from the SS's last adventure, in Hungary). That made it a justifiable target, whether the intelligence supported it or not. If the German's didn't want historic cities bombed, they shouldn't have put troops there. End of story. Ditto Monte Cassino, ditto Saddam and his trick of putting HQs under hospitals. Hello, Geneva Conventions! Of course during the Cold War, the Communists had all this information and they knew they had it, but it was Cold War. Why should they release it? For sale. Soap box. One careful owner. Oops wrong forum.

Based on the thread so far, I'd guess it is a field modification to allow the fitting of a canvas empty case bag to a vehicle-mounted MG. But what do I know?

Pleased to report that this week I received a nice letter from DRAC on Tank Museum headed notepaper with his e-mail address and direct line telephone number thanking me for my very kind donation, watch out for my name at the top of the Roll of Honour to be erected next year ... "and Sarah [his wife, I assume] will always be glad to hear from you." So what? He wants me to engage in chatting up his wife by telephone? The Prince of Wales chatted up a Brigadier's wife and look what happened to him! Oh sorry. The point. (There's a point? Ed) Apparently in the short time elapsed, the museum's shortfall is down to just £1.8M. So if you lot all cut back on track mileage for a few months, we'll easily make the target and a super-duper new Tank Museum will become fact. ;o) Wahay!

Nah the Bren's rate of fire was wonderfully slow, if anything more like 55-60. More like one round per second than ten. If I had to guess, it would be closer to 120-180RPM. (Fond memories of Sunday morning lie-ins and listening to the TAVR on the rifle ranges at Whitburn Camp 1/4 mile away.) Unlike the ripped-calico sound of the MG34 / MG42.

On Scorpions we only ever powered up the BV by plugging it in. No switch.

I arrived in NI in February 1976. I remember there were several types of night sight and I do remember the one in the picture. I also recall a much shorter, wider sight which I believe to have been a NOD sight. No idea what the acronym meant Powered by Army Batteries, they were less than brilliant. One afternoon our section was called to RTB from out culvert checking to prepare for a night op. Another troop had made a significant find after the bank of a stream had collapsed near Pomeroy. They had set up an OP to guard it in case it took visitors. We were to take over from them under cover of darkness. Fresh out of training, I didn't have a clue, did as I was told and watched and learned. We took over from 2 Tp without ever seeing them (or indeed anything as it was moonless with 10/10 cloud cover). We sat in silence (and cold, and wet backsides). Silence. Periodically we would ask for or reply to whispered radio checks. Periodically a guy with a night sight (like I say, we had several, all different as far as I can remember) would power it up and scan the countryside. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then at late o'clock there was a cough. Nowhere near where any of our people were (the two sections on different hillocks overlooking the target and the two Landrovers a little way away). Our section commander quickly whispered into the manpack to find out if it was one of the other section of the Tp Ldr and LR section who had coughed. All had heard it but none was responsible. Bums went into Sixpence - Half a Crown mode. Sub-Machine Guns, which could be cocked silently, were. SLR's, which couldn't, weren't, but we were all stood to. Powered up a night sight. In the cold damp night, the Army issue batteries were dead. Great. Power up another night sight. Guess what? One of the Rover drivers lost his patience and there was a WHOOOOSH as he launched a Schermuly parachute flare and we all made ready. The flare reached the top of its flight and lit up ... a herd of cows that had wandered onto the target in the pitch black. I learned something very important that night. Cows cough just like humans. The OP being compromised, we PUFOed (Packed Up and Flipped Off) back to camp. A couple of months later we left NI and were issued with real night sights. About four feet long and mounted coaxially with the 76mm gun, the Scorpion's Image Intensifying night sight set a new standard in night vision equipment. Our conversion from armour to recce (via tour of NI) was complete.