Snapper

Fantastic stuff.:-D

No, not at all. The European scene is increasingly attractive, but with only a smattering of French, I don't feel confident enough to dive in. I take it for granted that all the Dutch/Flemish/Scandinavian people speak better English than me.

I wish I could. I have enough hassle of the mrs for parking my MUTT outside my own house. MB

Dunno if he'd even touch Fosters with a barge pole if he's from WA. It's a religious sort of thing. Nice to have you with us Phil. Welcome to the Friendly Forum. MB

Welcome to the Friendly Forum, Jeff. We do like a FWD Model B! Love that photo - looking forward to more. Best wishes Mark

Nice to have you here Tony, welcome to the Friendly Forum. I remember your name from my distant and usually dim past, I think we must have chatted at some event or other. Best wishes, Mark

Great stuff. Wekk done Steve!

Good to have you with us Nathan, Welcome to the Friendly Forum. MB

Yes, Welcome to the Friendly Forum, Steve. Cheers, Mark

Yep, the chap is part of the W&P set up. Nice guy. Also does a bit of US WW2 living history if memory serves. I snapped him with the LR at the Bunker. MB

I think you'd use up a lot of your lottery. Looks amazing.

Welcome to the Friendly Forum, Geoff; here's hoping you find all the info you need here and have a good laugh with us. MB

interesting stuff. Thought I'd seen the snaps on here before.....

The whole thing needs a bit of cropping. But I think it does the job. I'm sorry we had some absentees but just keep in mind sunday morning in the helicopter field next year. MB

He's sitting on the Fox!

Nope, things seem to be working. Mostly me. I'm doing this pretty much to see how long it takes them to notice. Anywayz... Here is the group pic, uncut - untoyed with and as is. So please identify yourself and we'll work out what to do next. MB

Having been to the Orkneys during "summer" I doubt I can convince the Mrs to go further north. Sounds interesting though.... MB

Good stuff mes braves, Apologies for delay with posting team group. I am wrestling with the second edition of TPM2 at the moment and Bodge has run out of vodka, so he's effing useless after lunchtime. Beckett is in Mons putting back international relations. All in all a sorry tale. It can only get worse. Watch this space MB

I am pleased to read this input. I'd be the first to admit I've regularly heard scary stories and have only ever had one conversation with a member of NLBA in years of attending events and this was entirely cordial. I got a lecture off one for "speeding" on site this year which was appropriate. I suppose it's all about finding a balance between yarns and reality. But the NLBA do have, for the want of a better word something of an aura like pirates for want of an analogy. At the end of the day we are meant to be having fun at events, with or without Elvis. To each his own - and long may it be so. I wish there had been a NLBA when I was growing up in Stoke Newington and Edmonton. I was ideally placed. Oh well! I haven't got the knees for it now! MB

Think you're right. I know someone who has one which was cut down as a tool for gardeners. MB

Jack's helmet should have had Old Baldy on the back. Interesting Press design there my friend. MB

Just a general pointer. Topical as these pictures are, we do try not to post anything of a modern 'in combat' nature on the forum for a host of reasons. By all means continue with the post and information, but please draw the line at any images which might be deemed unpleasant. Ta MB Modding

Keep this going, good info and corrections. Didn't a Challenger get damaged by an IED with serious injuries to the driver? I am sure Abrams have suffered similarly. Have also seen snaps of wrecked Bradleys. Big enough bangs for your dinar will wreck anything. MB

Good points. The most important being Harris's duties day in day out. How can we honestly put ourselves in the minds of him, or his air staff or more importantly his crews? Some good recent works reveal that politics was as rife in Bomber Command as it was at Bentley Priory. The dead hand of the Air Ministry and the CAS were everywhere. Churchill and Cherwell were a consistent cancer. But the raids went on and on. It had to be so. Area bombing of cities was morally and ethically suspect and they knew it then as we know it now. But they were fighting a war for the very survival of our nation and much more than mere sovereignty or status. But the following decades, especially during the tenure of the GDR, allowed a string of revisionism for other purposes to bash the RAF Bomber Command. It was a stick to hit Churchillian capitalist Britain with. Peacemongers (by that I mean politicised types with an agenda against the West in all its forms) found it easy to slag off Harris. People who used him to win the war for them conveniently dropped him. His route to ignomy was his very success at his job. How ironic is that? We all know there were devoted anti-Nazis who never believed in Hitler. There were also the von Stauffenbergs and people fuelled by a need to replace the Fuhrer as they saw his original successes turn to nightmares for them - the aristocracy, industrialists, senior soldiers. Switching sides, in a manner of speaking, suited them - but they wanted to maintain the war, but as a different Germany - preposterous then as it is now. But this latter group were more than happy when the Panzers were cutting a swathe across the whole of Europe making them rich, powerful and fabulous. Once things started to go awry they played their hand and lost. We cannot put our morals or ethics into a 1940s world. The trouble is, too many people try for all kinds of reasons. When you hear people say we should not have carried out the bomber offensive, ask what else they could have done in 1940-41? We don't know how to hate or fear the enemy of that time because he is not our enemy today and we were not there. The Germans were our enemy. They are not now. Different times. Different people. Armchair generals and critics never fade away.

Hobknobs - have you taken leave of your senses, man? Donkey food! Bloody students eat them; not real people. Report to the Moderators immediately for punishment. Trevor - you have been warned. MB