AlienFTM

"Torch, Right-angled" They still appear to be available today, worn on the kevlar vest of your local Bobby on the beat. In the mid 70s in Northern Ireland we were issued with "Shark's Eye" torches from G1098 stores which lit up the clouds quite nicely whilst on VCPs. I wouldn't be at all surprised if these didn't exist in G10 stores in BAOR. Besides, if I wanted a torch in BAOR in the late 70s and didn't get issued what I wanted, I'd have gome out and bought one and nobody would bat an eyelid, so, as long as it is in keeping with the period, you can get away with anything. Then I just remembered, we also got issued Bardics, about 5" cubed IIRC with a handle on top and some traffic light filters activated by twisting the pull/push on/off switch on the top. These same torches were used for many years by guards on the railways, and AFAIK they still might be. I think they have been around forever. Needless to say, Army issue Bardics (and Torches, RA) were painted Olive drab. I seem to recall the Shark's Eye was black plastic. There may have been a red circle around the glass. If you can find a period Maglite (Does such an animal exist, a 1960s Maglite?) it won't look out of place.

They are Ostketten, "East Tracks" - tracks for the Eastern Front. Less hindered by narrow railway tunnels, the Germans got better performance in the Russian mud on these tracks. I think they may also have been used on Mark 4s, which is why the Thoma bazooka plates on H and J models were mounted so far away from the running gear. I believe the Americans did the same with some Shermans. The picture I have in my mind is of an M4A3E2, the so-called Cobra King brought into service for Op Cobra in Normandy in July 1944 and introducing the enlarged turret and hull with stronger glacis plate, the same hull as comprised the M4A3E8, the so-called Easy 8 with horizontal volute spring suspension in lieu of the early vertical volute spring suspension system. Note that all Tigers had Ostketten: they WERE wide enough to cause railway problems and had to change FROM wide tracks to NARROW tracks for shipment by train. Occasionally you will see pictures of Tigers rushed off the train and straight into battle still on transport tracks and the small side skirts above them missing. These items would be stowed underneath the tank whilst in transit.

1. You might like to buy a copy of Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser (author of the Flashman and McAuslan series). It's his account of his war in a battalion of The Border Regiment in Burma in the last months of the war. It won't give you colour schemes or anything but he knows his stuff and refers to tanks (Shermans) and aircraft (Spitfires and something American which escapes me at the moment) by their model name rather than generically. I haven't got far into the book yet, so I don't know, but I'd expect him to refer to the vehicles he saw and you can find out what was there. Even if you don't find what you want, he is a superb author and it's worth the read. You'll be out buying McAuslan and Flashman before you know it. 2. Having established what was there, I have, tucked away in a cranny a collection of vehicle books that have been there since I moved in in 1987. There is a series called ... In Action. I certainly have Sherman In Action and PzKpfw 4 In Action, maybe others. The list available is long. A couple of weeks ago whilst visiting the Tank Museum, I noticed that these books are still in print and available from the museum shop. I have vivid memories of a series of pictures of M3 Lee and Grant tanks in South East Asia. I suspect that may be from this series but not sure. Also, take note of a statement by GMF very early in his book along the lines of "... official documents will tell that the PIAT was never used in Burma. Well I can tell you I remember clearly putting five rounds from a PIAT into a bunker full of Japs ..." Moral of this story: don't take what you read as gospel. HTH

The second picture is a better representation of how Mickey Mouse Ear was supposed to be. From memory of what I read 30-40 years ago. Vehicles were churned out of factories in base colour (khaki, then olive drab toward the end of the war). Mickey Mouse Ear involved applying overlapping circles of black to cover all upward-facing surfaces and break up the shape of all vehicle-identifying edges e.g. wheel arches, window frames. It is a camouflage scheme after all. So the top canvas was supposed to be entirely black and MMEs extended along the top and bottom edges of the sides. Of course, crews slapping paint on in the field may not have known how it was meant to work and just did their thing.

I did enjoy last night when "Cpl" Nauyokas told a scumball that it was a good job he could only threaten him verbally cos he was "this" (holds thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart a millimetre from scumball's eyeball) far from [EXPLETIVE PRESENT PARTICIPLE DELETED] him. Scumball didn't even flinch. So they booted him out. His loss.

Having reached the grand old age of 33 (in hexadecimal) yesterday and taken the day off, local radio were carrying adverts for the Tank Museum who are doing thrice-weekly armour demonstrations through the summer (Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday at midday). So we took a bimble along and Wor Lass was quite impressed. The man explained the role of recce, so she now knows what I did for seven years of my life: advance to contact; get killed. Coincidentally, on Monday (which I also took off, giving myself an extra long weekend), through the door fell my periodic newsletter from the Regimental Association. It turns out that the current Director, Royal Armoured Corps was a sprog 2Lt in our C Sqn in my day. With the newsletter came a begging letter from him on behalf of the Tank Museum. Brigadier DR-J has initiated a £15M programme to completely rebuild the museum and show off these beautiful beasts in the glory they deserve. He has raised £12M so far (£9M from the Lottery Fund!!!), so he figured Regimental Association members of all RAC regiments might like to make a contribution toward the remaining £3M. I made a young lady's day yesterday (no, no, silly) by presenting her with a Direct Debit form so that I can donate £600 @ £10pm and they get tax back. I felt I had to pass this on in case any of you fine people felt the urge.

I didn't get suncream for my UN tour of Cyprus 76-77. Yes it was a winter tour but it was certainly still hot in September!

Curiosly, just this month I had a visit at my desk from a guy in the greater department whose name I knew and nothing else. His name is Isherwood. I told him that every time I saw his name I thought of the Six Day War. I had to explain. Isherwood ... Isherman. Geddit?

This is the fourth Series. In the beginning there was Lads Army, in which the lads weren't bad. And Lads Army begat Bad Lads Army, in which the lads were bad. And behold, Bad Lads Army did beget Bad Lads Army - Officer Class, in which the lads were bad and they were going to make National Service Officers of them (and former cavalryman Lord Brocket did a Big Brother's Little Brother-type follow-up after the main feature). Bad Lads Army Extreme has worn incredibly thin. Sadly. Mind I (and I suspect all of you) would like to see Bad Lads Army - The Gruntcrunchers in which the Lads are trained to drive Centurions all over Bovvy or Tidworth. But here's the catch: Every day they have to change the tracks or the engine or whatever. That'd teach the little feckers the meaning of work. ;o)

Similarly in the late 1930s there was yet another reorganisation of the TA. The plan was something like to raise TA Battalions of Regular Regiments and number them accordingly. Seaforth Highlanders 1st Territorials absolutely refused to wear SH1T on their shoulder titles.

Being a Recce Regiment, all ourCVR(T)s came with bivouac tents. However, pre-Sultan the Saracen ACVs and even thereafter the Ferret Scout Cars went without. However, over time it was possible to creatively account for bivvies and make sure everybody had a bivvy by the time I progressed to commanding 98A, (Command Troop Rebro Ferret number 2). I was more than a little pleased to discover that the lump of canvas we were issued turned out to be a Chieftain bivvy (4-man) rather than CVR(T) (3-man). And here was me with a crew of 2: me and driver. We acquired a steel ladder ("A Mark 1 Ferret stands about 4'9" high FFS." Ed.), a small coffee table and some folding chairs (we could get camp beds issued). All carried in the XPM box over the engine decks. My tent became the Command Troop Gin Palace and whenever I wasn't doing a fetch-and-carry (only once in my career did I ever actually get to rebroadcast a net, and it was an umpire net! So all we did on exercise was fetch-and-carry liaison jobs and radio stags) or on radio stag, LCPL Alien would be "Entertaining At Home". It was a sh1t life, but somebody had to protect the Free World from the Communist Hordes. ;o) BTW ISTR that CVR(T) bivvies were better waterproofed than the basic canvas Chieftain bivvy. Does this mean that size isn't everything?

A few things to try (as in fish in the dark). 1. Empty out your browser cache: * Firefox: Tools / Options / Cache / Clear cache now (If you have a wodge of free hard drive, you might consider increasing your cache size) Internet Exploiter: Tools / Internet Options / General / Delete Files (and Clear History if you so desire) 2. Force a page refresh: In the URL bar, amend the page's URL, e.g. http://www.hmvf.co.uk/smf/index.php?action=post;topic=1762.0;num_replies=3 by adding "/?" (no quotes) on the end. This will confuse the browser into reloading the page from the server instead of cache (which you ought to have emptied anyway). The small print: This information is offered as seen. No guarantee offered or implied

On a regimental or squadron move, the Troop (Platoon, etc, but I am thinking Recce) Sergeant travels with the Advance Party and signs over all of the vehicles, having checked each against its own particular CES. When the main party arrives, Troop Sergeant then signs over each vehicle to its driver (turret equipment to the gunner). Because the CES is (was) a paper document, susceptible to rain, oil. getting lost by incompetent drivers, etc, the wording on the Army Form, General AFG1033 would read something like "Scorpion, 02FD14 complete as per CES 12345, less CES 12345" (sorry after all these years I have no idea what the CES number for a Scorpion might have been). So, come the day of reckoning (kit inspection), although the Tp Sgt has his signature on the formal document, he has in his hand a piece of paper that guarantees he passes the buck on to the driver.

Depends on yer driving, mate. I passed my CVR(T) test in May 1976 in Tidworth to get crewman's pay, then promptly returned to the turret to complete a career in radios. That said, I was fast-tracked (if you'll pardon the pun) because of my natural driving ability (having held a driving licence before I joined up) to give the other course members more training. Then years later on the North German Plain on exercise in the area between Paderborn and Osnabruck and west of Bielefeld. Our Scorpion had been BERed (and was due for Scorpoling at the end of the exercise anyway) and the only vehicle available to us to complete the exercise was a Spartan. (We we also short a crewman as a member has been MEDEVACed, so having a Spartan worked well having only a two-man crew, expect that the section was a significant percentage down on manpower for mounting radio stags and foot patrols.) Anyway. The Spartan stopped unexpectedly and the REME were invited to attend. The exercise continued and we found ourselves significantly displaced. Come the completion of the repair, I really, really fancied a cabby, cos all I ever got in a driving seat was moving the vehicle into / out of the hangar. My driver was up for it (and I trusted his map-reading). Off we roared to catch up with the Squadron in order to get skull-down for an eyelid inspection. I took great delight in the summer evening sun demonstrating to my driver (temporary commander) how to take a CVR(T) through corners without grinding to a halt. He didn't. Eventually he requested that we swap seats back so he could drive me at a rather more sedentary pace. Probably a good move: the Squadron Leader didn't like me and may have taken my relinquishing command as a demonstration of my career aspirations. What is the point of having "The fastest tank in the world" (see Guiness Book of Records and notwithstanding the semantics about whether a CVR(T) is a tank) and not pushing the envelope just a little bit?

Saracen ACV: marvellous. Pull out the penthouse struts, tie the canvas, unload six foot table, chairs, heater, map board, handset extensions, let the officers work in the mud while the operators keep their boots clean. Keep fingers OFF the C13 High Power (or C11/R210) and make sure nobody fries by touching the vehicle while the set is sending. I spent many a happy (or otherwise) hour sat in the back of one of these running the battlegroup command net until we got them replaced by Sultans. The six-wheeled Saracen was wonderful sat inside because you never ever felt a bump (and my experience in them and Ferrets taught me how to take speed ramps flat out without taking off). It was like a battleship cruising in calm waters. The Sultan on the other hand, every gear change or bump caused the whole thing to rock like a Contessa 28 in a Force 8. Having represented The Army in regattas, I have to say sitting facing sideways in a Sultan with no horizon for reference made me more seasick than yacht racing. Very pleased to be given a Ferret command, head out breathing in the fresh German Winter air, then a Sultan command.

This wa 30 years ago mate. I seriously think it'll have a home by now.

ISTR reading a thread about this on the RAC forum on the ARRSE website. http://www.arrse.co.uk/index.htm

In 1976 in Tidworth I saw two vehicles that have never been recorded anywhere to my knowledge. The first was an assault gun on a Chieftain chassis with the turret removed and the 120mm gun mounted in the glacis plate in the style of the then-popular Swedish S-Tank, which many thought was the way to evolve the tank.. Our barracks, Aliwal, was the last (actually first - they were named alphabetically) before the driver training area and Salisbury Plain, so wherever it came from, it passed by us. The second was a half-track conversion of a Series 3 Landrover. Like I say, I saw each of them once and once only and can give no more information. Filed away alongside Vixen, to which I was introduced during Basic Training at Catterick the previous year as our Corporal said, "Look and remember: you'll never see one of them again, cos they aren't being taken into service, but they make better driver training vehicles than Foxes." In fact when we stagged on over at the tank park, it was usually possible to get inside and the Vixen was always accessible, and a good place to rest weary feet and stay dry instead of getting soaked through walking interminably in the North Yorkshire sleet.

I searched for +"NATO" +"ammunition" +color and found the following. http://www.tpub.com/content/administration/14067/css/14067_160.htm FWIW here are memories of 76mm ammunition for Scorpions. There were only five rounds ever seen: Practice rounds ("PRAC"). High Explosive, Squash Head ("HESH"), an armour defeating HE round. High Explosive ("Shell") a standard HE round, which only offered slightly improved HE capability over HESH, so HESH was the standard all-purpose round. Smoke. Canister. Think 76mm shotgun. Banned under Geneva Convention, but so long as rounds exist, existing stocks may be used up. Better at reducing hordes of oncoming Chinese conscripts than burning out the barrel of a GPMG. Popular during the Korean War. Typically ONE round would be fired per firing camp to demonstrate its effect (and use up the stocks) About as devastating to the barrel of the gun as to a horde of Chinese conscripts. Strictly speaking, HESH, PRAC and HE were designated HESH-T, PRAC-T and HE-T because they burned a (pink) trace during flight. The PRAC payload was light blue. (This does not mean that the round was inert: it looked, fired and handled in flight like a Shell round, only a few mps slower than a HESH round, and if it hit anything, the kinetic enregy could still do some damage to a softskin target.) The HESH payload was black (indicating armour-defeating) with a yellow tip indicating HE. The Shell payload was Olive (indicating ammunition) with a yellow band (indicating High explosive) Smoke was light green. Fore firing, the fuze was protected by a conical brass cover, discarded as the loader set the fuze time. ISTR Canister was Black, but no description seems to exist in the linked document (probably because of that Geneva Convention). On the ranges, most of the parctices were carried out using PRAC. These did not damage Hard targets at all and they merely punched a 3" hole in a screen target. As explained above, we rarely saw HE rounds as the HESH round was dual purpose. HESH rounds would be fired at hard targets so that hopefully the gunner might see the effect of the round on real armour. They would NOT be fired at a moving target as this tended to destroy either the towing cable or the wheel / sled mechanism and reduced the range day to hurry up and wait while German civvies emerged from their bunker to fix the target. Smoke didn't have a trace because: 1. the round was so slow in flight that you could see it; 2. unless the commander (loader) set the fuze so long that it bured itself in the ground before igniting, you'd see a pretty smoke cloud develop. These colours ought to tie up with 30mm rounds as this was a NATO standard (se elink). The 30mm also had an APSE round (Armour Piercing, Special Effects). I never did find out what this round did or looked like, mainly because all my gunnery was on 76, not 30mm. HTH ;o)

You could mount a black plastic water can on the bumber in the radiator recess. Even in the blistering heat of a German summer, it kept our drinking water chilled almost to freezing due to the refrigeration effect of air being sucked through the reduced radiator air gap. Thank you Signor Bernouli. ;o)

All UN troops wore their own uniform with modifications. Between September 1976 and March 1977, we (The Force Reserve Squadron in Ferret Scout Cars) wore: A UN blue beret, made in Italy and with a lot of material but well cut, so that after a lot of shrinking by boiling, it shaped well and held its shape, unlike the abortion of a standard issue Kangol beret we wore at home.* One member of our squadron had served with the Army Air Corps (indeed, we'd had an AAC Squadron attached during our tour of Omagh, which we'd left earlier that year). As a result, he owned a Victor's* AAC beret as substitute which was better than the real thing. The badge was a white enamel representaion of the UN globe: big and heavy. We were issued a UN blue scarf in a lightweight silk or satin-like material: much lighter weight than the navy towelling 15/19H scarves we wore normally. The cloth badge was worn as described in my earlier post. The tailor was kept busy as just about everything with a sleeve had the blue badge on. We were issued with OG shirts for the tour which were remarkably comfortable and we were able to retain them and end of tour, to wear in BAOR. Overalls were only worn in camp: Combat Jacket and Lightweights / OGs were de rigeur on patrol (we were a winter tour; the summer tour wore OG shirts and trousers. OG shorts were also available for wear in camp**). Having been issued on Day 1 with OG shirts bearing the badge, beret and badge, we were also issued a brassard bearing the badge, for use with clothing which, for whatever reason might not have a UN badge on. ISTR that the UN generally required them to be worn on the left sleeve, but British troops wore them on the right. This was good news for NCOs who might be wearing a rank brassard on the right sleeve: they didn't have to wear another on the left, looking like they had wings. Shirts were attritional items and didn't last long. It wasn't unheard of that badges were glued onto the shirts (though I was able to remove the badges from all mine for use use in BAOR). As UN troops, we were required to be in uniform at all times. We arrived in September when Shirt-sleeve Order was still in, so we were able to walk out into Nicosia in (smart: we were inspected) Barrack Dress trousers in dark green with khaki No 2 Dress shirts (and badges on sleeves!), but come the cessation of Shirt-sleeve Order which was probably the end of October, we had to wear full No 2 Dress out of camp in the evening, including the blue badge on the arm. Because I hadn't had a ribbon for my General Service Medal 1962 with Clasp Northern Ireland ("For Campaign Service") sewn onto my No 2 Dress Jacket, I bimbled into the tailor's shop with a request for it to be done (along with the blue badge) ready for having to wear it out. I found myself queued up behind the Squadron Sergeant Major, who had beaten me to the drop and went on to point out that having completed 28 days (IIRC) in theatre, we were entitled to wear the ribbon of the UNFICYP Medal ("In The Service Of Peace"), even though the actual medals wouldn't be presented until a medal parade at end of tour. So I was actually one of the first to wear the medal ribbon in our unit. In those Cold War days, there were no other medals to be earned until the Falklands War came along six years later, so I went from sprog to "chestful of medals" in the time it took to sew them on. * Back in the regiment it was normal to pay a visit to the QM and try to exchange a nasty Kangol beret for a much better-cut, better-fitting, more comfortable Compton Webb. People who really cared went to Victor's of Aldershot and bought a beret there. ** The Troop Sergeant of the A Squadron Troop who relieved us informed us he'd lived in these Nissen huts in the grounds of the closed down Nicosia Airport ajdacent to RAF Nicosia a couple of years previously with the RAC Parachute Squadron on its final tour before disbandment in the immediate aftermath of the war when it was being changed from use as a refugee camp.

The German Kar 98 K rifle was in fact a Karbine, 1898, Kurz or SHORT carbine dating from an 1898 design. The Sterling SMG was available with a designation of CARBINE, stamped on the magazine housing (I held one in Basic Training in 1975). I guess you could define a carbine as being anything in between! This discussion is also available on the Army Rumour Service website at http://www.arrse.co.uk/ ... somewhere.

... and a cloth UN badge on the sleeve. I suspect it's the right sleeve worn above any rank chevrons (and above an SQMS's crown, too). In fact, the more I think about it, it goes right up maybe 1/2" from the seam at the top of the sleeve.

Do you know what? I was recently browsing an enormous pile of old photos that I hadn't looked at since they were taken (and most of them were of my two now grown children as babies). I was hoping to find some UN Mark 2s for a colleague on here, but the only collection of military I could find were from BAOR about 1978 and of them only one picture actually showed a clear picture: of either one or two Mark 1s. I am working from memory of a pic I looked at at home a month or two back at home whilst sat in the office. One of them may have been 02 CC 74, the other possibly 02 CC 76 (one of which was mine to drive at one time but I forget which) or 33 BA 81 which was certainly mine to command at a later time. It's a small world, isn't it?

No mate, in my time we were the other side of Sennelager Training Area from you (rhymes with badder morn). I transferred out in 82, 15/19H moved to Bovvy in 84 and were posted to your neck of the woods probably 18 months later on Panzers I do believe. When you say you had the CP version of the Sarrie bus, do you mean the Sarrie ACV or the Sarrie APCRA, the double decker that struggled to reach about 20 mph it was so heavy? When we deployed in 77, they gave us APCRAs by mistake: we soon swapped them for ACVs, until we were issued with Sultans a couple of years later. The APCRA was a complete waste of time. It may have been 14" higher (IIRC) and allowed you stand up, but it was no wider and so effectively gave you no more space. I saw a picture of a Sarrie ACV on this forum this week from a meet maybe last weekend. It gave me a warm feeling. Reminds me of the summer of 77 on Salisbury Plain. I was driving the Squadron Leader in his FFR and we arrived at FHQ just as they were manouevring the ACV into position. However, somebody was having trouble with his lefts and rights and he managed to reverse it straight into the only giant gorse bush for miles around. We could move a Sarrie with the back door latched open to give the operator some air (as we had in Omagh previously to get rifles on show), something you couldn't do with the huge back door on the Sultan. I found sealed in and sitting sideways in the rocking back of a soft-suspended Sultan with no external reference points made me sea-sick, even though I sailed for the Army - did you find that? So my mukker in the back of the Sarrie suddenly found himself sat next to a gorse bush. And him a hayfever sufferer and it being a dry summer ... It was some sight when he started a sneezing fit and the whole Sarrie shook at the venom of it all. It even brought a smile to the Squadron Leader's face.