challenger

Great pictures not seen most of these - excellent!!!

When in green we did a lot of work on range targets toget them to last a bit longer. modern tank ammunition will tear a tank target to pieces in pretty short order. The bottom line on concrete filled tanks is that it does not extend the life of the target to any great effect. It is better to place the target front on so that the thickest part of the armour is facing the firing gun. I know what you are going to say - why didn't they dothat then? It seem that the range staff who place these things are only concerned with placing them not making them a realistic target. How many times have you seen a Chieftain on the range with the gun in the clamp? It would be far better with the turret front so that the main armour ofthe turret is facing the firer. Not a difficult job all you need to do is attach a line to the end of the barrel and pull it round with a Land rover orsimilar. The clutch in the traverse gearbox will slip and permit this to happen. We also built targets made from large diameter concrete pipe sections filled with reinforced concrete again these only worked well if practice natures were fired at them. As for the different colours - quite a few reasons for this. To make them more visible, to designate closeness to arcs of fire, to indicate that the target is not to be engaged (on German ranges they usually put a red board in front) Theyare also painted yellow or other bright colour so that aircraft can see them as the centre of the target area. Of course when Chieftain was withdrawn the MOD had hundreds of targets to put on the range so maybe the need for them to last was not deemed necessary.

I see that Newcastle is to close so the vehicle on thegate might be up for grabs if you are lucky. It is V9 the last of theprototypes. It is to the Oman build but has been disguised to look like a UKvehicle. As far as I know it is complete but unarmoured. As for the Challenger hulls leaving DSG in Bovington theyare probably going to Ashchurch and eventual disposal. The Army now have moreChallenger 2 than they need so vehicle that require rebuild are being disposedoff. Nothing to do with the arms limitation as we have nowhere near enoughtanks to get onto that radar.

Excellent little book titled British Army Vehicles and Equipment 1968 by R.E. Smth published by Ian Allen. There are several on Amazon for as little as £2.40 Everything from the Energa, .30, .50 and the Vickers Machine gun are in it. Plus loads of vehicles of course. All you need to know is probably in there.

.30 was indeed used in the ground role, Saladin and Ferret carried the tripod to enable this. The ammunition was always .30 and not reworked to 7.62. The .30 Browning was replaced in Ferret with a 7.62mm GPMG towardsthe end of Ferret life. Last time I fired .30 Browning in the ground role was at Hohne in Germany in the eighties. The ammunition was from India and didn’twork that well. I have fired it recently, 2010, in Vietnam and it worked great.

The RAF flew me to Cyprus in 1970 in a Britannia, it wasbleeding freezing and took forever. The trip back a year later was a bit morecomfortable in a VC10. Two great aircraft.

There is some info here, the simulation equipment he is talking about is SimFire that was fitted to all vehicles thattook part in the shooting bit. I will dig through my photos to see what I've got. Might be a lengthy process. http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?27474-Foreign-test-off-the-S-Tank-(picture-and-movie) The Chieftain, a friend tells me, is now in bits on Castlemartin ranges.

These two are Omani vehicles. They had some from the British Army and some that were delivered from the factory. This modification was to reduce the chance of small arms fire and bits of shrapnel bouncing up into the Gunner's sight. As far as I aware the Royal Army of Oman were the only ones to do this.

Looks like the auxiliary winch fairlead from a Chieftain ARV with the arm turned over. Sorry the picture is so crap.

Here is one of them although a bit blured, I will keep looking.

Thanks Rick, fascinating stuff :-)

The Ram was recovered from a scrap yard in Holland by the LAD of the 17/21L in the eighties. The request from the Yeomanry was for a Sherman so they could restore it as a gate guard. REME sent off to recover one and they came back with a Canadian Ram. I got onto the Tank Museum and told them the story, they acquired a Sherman for the Yeomanry and the museum got the Ram. The ram had been in service with the Dutch Army prior to being dumped. I have a picture of it sat next to a Challenger when it was waiting in Munster. I will dig it out.

Kirkcudbright again and a bit of a mystery. At first glance you would say a target manufactured to look like a tank. This has hatches and the steel is about an inch thick, all a bit over engineered for a target. The wheels, I believe, are from a Comet or similar. What do you think? The range have no nidea what it is or why it was constructed. It has been on the range for some time.

Correction to my original post - I'm reminded that it was 2 RTR that had a squadron of S Tank on trial.

Actually the S Tank managed quite well. It was being compared to a Chieftain which of course was a little faster at getting onto target. Once the S Tank was there it could track quite well. As for the floatation screen, yes we used them a couple of times in Germany, as I remember the vehicle became quite uncontrollable when in the water. Also used them when in Bovington but that was in a dip tank on Gallows hill.

Have put the Scorpion at Bovington on another thread but then I found some of my old stuff and noticed we had been using two vehicles before the Bovington one in the early seventies. Compare 02 FD 48 to the one at Bovington and quite a bit has changed. Wading screen removed, stowage all changed and headlights changed to an older style. 48 and 49 have no II sight fitted as they weren't available when the vehicles were issued. A piece of tin with zero ballistic capability was put over the hole were the sight and cowl were to go. We stowed sleeping bags in the space in the turret. The pictures were taken on Soltau training area. The vehicles are fitted with SimFire so we could act as an agile target for the Swedish S Tank that was being trialed by, I think, 1 RTR.

Maybe this one. Sorry about the quality my original wasn't that good. This is an early Abbot so the early 432 guard may hold water. The second one is a prototype 432 called Trojan at the time. And the last one an early build vehicle which has different guards. Noe of these have the ribbed version that you have but it could be a later build.

Was talking to a mate of mine the other day, he spent some time in the Oman Armoured Car Squadron in the seventies and he was saying that they received some more Saladin from the UK at that time. He says that one was a vehicle he recognised from Bovington. The armoured wheeled troop at the RAC Centre had four of five Saladin that were withdrawn around 78 - 79. I know at least one of those ended up on Lulworth ranges but is seems one of them at least ended up in Oman. Are you going to have the vehicle as UK? Have you got the blade vane sight and the binocular mounting fitting?

Any pictures of the turret? Was it complete with armament? Looks like the hull is coming on at a pace, envious!

You see that print quite a lot in messes in Oman. I think your coin is ten Baisa, when I was there about two pence.

An early 20 pounder Centurion on Kirkcudbright ranges. Although stripped out not everything usefull is gone.

I would hazard a guess that are none left. The one in Oman is still there though. I know the tank museum showed little interest in the UK ones when they were being withdrawn. Chopped up for scrap. Shame as they wouldn’t take much to revive. The biggest problem as I remember was the hydraulics that were all at different age and mod states.

Classroom Instructional Model CIM. In the UK it was later incorporated into the Gunnery Training System GTS when the Improved Fire Control System IFCS was put on the vehicle. Last time I saw any in the UK was at Ludgershall in the nineties. About ten of them on the railway sidings. Regiments usually had two of them whilst Lulworth had six but only five were GTS the last one remained a CIM. The GTS was replaced by the Loaders Drill Trainer LDT and the Turret Gunnery Trainer GTS when Challenger 2 came along. This one in Oman has the L30 from Challenger 2 fitted as the delivery of LDT was delayed.

A good picture of said Scorpion at Bovington D & M school.

Things on a dump in Oman.