schliesser92

Generally, new and modified vehicles (ie ATVs etc) for the NFS and AFS were delivered in grey. Existing vehicles were left in their original red. Military appliances have been seen in a variety of colours - red, khaki and blue .

Actually my brain was in gear before typing! My thinking was that in heavy metal, the driver needs to be on the nearside for road-safety reasons. I may be wrong, but that is my excuse and I am sticking to it! I notice that Chieftain and Challenger had central driving positions.

all the pics that I have seen of kubels, they have a standard 20l jerrican fitted above one of the rear wings.

SS will not be a Signal Squadron, these were all numbered in the 200 range.

something to do with driving on the right, whilst we drive on the proper side of the road!

I cannot, for the life of me, envisage an armed Skeeter. Field Artillery regiments in BAOR had an air troop of 3 Skeeters in the 60s, and they seem to have had difficulty taking off with just the pilot and observer.

Methinks that someone need to get a life!

Nice job! How many of these were in service? Forgive my Pommie ignorance, but who exactly is Mick Doohan ?? :-D:-D

I believe that the M60A2s were only used by the Armoured Cavalry Squadrons attached to the various US divisions. These and M551 Sheridans, coupled with M114s, provided the recce screen for the Yanks. The Chav Cav used bog-standard M60s with 105mm main guns, which were first replaced at the end of the 80s with M1s (also then with 105mm). Additionally, Leopard 1s WERE RHD!!

Yes. Especially exercising against Yanks! We kept getting telegraph traffic telling us to let them win at least ONE engagement! The joys of having a complete comcen being winched one vehicle at a time up the Deister in midwinter! We used to cause in excess of a Million Deutschmarks in damages on a major FTX. happy days!

wasnt that SPEARPOINT 76 ? The same one when a Chieftain from the QRIH threw a track and parked itself in a pub? One of those 14 days or 1 Million Marks damages FTXs. We were out for 10 days!

2. is more likely. I seem to remember that on every major FTX, that there used to be a pile of MBTs on the side of the road decorated with pretty little yellow flags. Not just Chieftains, I might add.

Here is one preserved at the Fire Services Museum in Fulda (Germany). It was called the Hurricane, and I believe it came from the GDR.

Nothing new. There have been several conversions of tanks for firefighting, especially in Russia. Some of these being fitted with jet engines. This one looks rather interesting.

they look horribly like the set for the WS88, so possibly British.

I was responsible for a secure radio-relay link between Stormont Castle and Lisburn, which then connected in to the Divis Mountain-Stranraer-London link. That was in 1973. I was driven to SC, dressed in civvies, usually in a Moggie 1000 Traveller.I should state that it was defined as smart civvies, ie jacket and tie, with the L9 in a shoulder holster. Other jobs, which required our technical expertise, but somewhat covert, like the voice-disguising device for witnesses at the Commissioners Court, were also carried out in civilian dress. We loved the court job - ever heard a Dalek with a broad Irish accent ? HILARIOUS !!

In some circumstances, off-duty soldiers were allowed out of camp in groups of four, one of whom was armed.

Whilst in Hong kong in the late 1960s, my father, as RSM of an Artillery Regiment, carried a 0.38 inch Smith and Wesson revolver. When I was in NI, I generally carried a Browning L9 whilst on my duties at Stormont Castle. In some cases, other weapons were carried, and our armoury had a pair of Walther PPK. My father maintained that if I had time to fire the issued ten rounds from a Browning, I should really consider the wisdom of being there in the first place !

The French ones were built by Moraine-Saulnier. The one exhibited in the Musee de l Aire is a French built one, despite having pre-war German red-cross markings. They came with in-line and radial engines and were known as the Cygone, which apparantly is French-speak for a stork. These beasts could land on a tennis court - providing that the net had been removed first.

I, of course, left out the tactical bit as with my experience at Divisional level the technical reasons were more applicable. But you are right , the Warsaw Pact dedicated an awful lot of assets to Sigint and jamming. The NVA was known to have had a complete regiment dedicated to these tasks. A regiment was basically a short brigade, which was an awful lot of kit.

Ptarmigan crud!

I had mine under a Wessex, when the driver decided to ditch the USL! Must have cost a fortune! Made quite a hole too.

Oh, Yeah!

a radio-rebroadcast vehicle would be used as a relay station, especially in the VHF band, to counter problems occasioned by weather conditions (dense layers such as rain effect VHF comms) and terrain (ditto for high hills etc) or range (usually caused by the curvature of our favourite planet!). Radcon , or radio control, would be a control station. This was usually encountered in Signals units, rather than tactical formations. This vehicle could control several nets simultaneously.Usually found in the Divisional HQ net, possibly down to Brigade HQ level.This would be HF and VHF. My expertise was radio-relay, ie multi-channel trunk communications. Mainly in softskin vehicles, occasionally in armoured vehicles, and trailer-mounted (airportable role). I was also a Bruin man - way before Ptarmigan came into service.

With those fittings, it would not have been a telegraph station! It was probably decommissioned from that role and locally refitted as a radio-rebroadcast or Radcon (radio control) vehicle. The telegraph station would have had an armoured gene bin on top with two 3 1/2 KVA Onan generators. No radio masts, and would have had a BID200 station, a small manual telephone exchange and one, or two, Siemens T100R teleprinters. (Bruin system). For Ptarmigan - I've no idea. That came into service after my demob. Where it would have fitted inthe great scheme of things? Look at the diagram on page 4 of this thread. Your beast, in its original state, would be the chunk at top right!