Adam Elsdon

Thats a very smart Matador you have there, if i have my way, that will be next in the MV collection!

I know an army signals unit that used to have hardtop FFR Landrovers with the canvas over the top, never quite worked out why, whether it was to keep the interior cooler or whatever, not to sure. Our hardtop FFR's were so heavily camouflaged in position it wasnt identifiable as a Landrover and wouldnt have mattered. Going into an AlienFTM moment! We were on an exercise at RAF Chivenor, when it had just been closed, providing the comms for another squadrons Tactical Evaluation (TACEVAL) we had a large quantity of Bedford trucks and Landrovers and a Satcom Landrover. We were required to setup our equipment on the side of a large building that was being used as an HQ, so we were limited to camouflage options, so we put up tarps from under the guttering of the said building, in a very large lean to effect, with a drop for a wall, making sure it was all pulled taught, the generators and satellite dish that had to go outside of the tarp "building" we camouflaged with hessian and cam net, to give a bushes and vegetation effect. During the exercise an "Enemy" Jaguar done a high speed low level recce pass and the pictures taken processed by the photo interpreter intelligence types. Ours was the only unit on that exercise where they couldnt identify quantities or vehicles in use, or infact any of our comms kit including the satellite dish, they knew something was there, but that was it! I seem to remember that the units who were being evaluated didnt fare so well...

I seem to remember something about the roofracks being COTS (Commercial of the shelf) items, try brownchurch or safety devices, i think it was one of those companies that supplied MOD.

The bikes had panniers and the gun box, in addition to the usual webbing radios etc, they had kit to test the density of the proposed strip, and deploy the temporary runway markers, all a bit quicker on wheels!

:nut::-D

I seen the Vulcan when it flew into Usworth Airfield (or Sunderland Airport, depends who you talk to!) when i was a kid, one heck of a piece of flying, as it was quite a short runway, Nissan now have a factory where the airfield was, last time i was up in those parts i noticed the main hangar which was WW2 era had gone:cry:, originally Nissan fixed it up due to the fact it was reasonably rare so i dont know what happened to it after that.

Maybe it was sent to Aden as soon as it was in service, as Saladins seemed to have been there for quite some time, prior to Britain pulling out of the region, if it was, there is a chance it was photographed, Saladins seemed to be quite photogenic in Aden. If you find out the various armoured regiments that operated in Aden, then do a search on their various associations and old pals websites, they are usually a good source of photos, you usually have to do a bit of trawling through loads of Pictures, but its amazing what is out there. As far as i can tell, alot of vehicles stayed in theatre, and the various regiments swapped in and out using resident vehicles, whether that applied to Armour or not im not sure.

This one is Croc's Explorer, the manager commented about how many parking spaces it took up! if he had come back 20 minutes later, he probably would have had something to say about the Exxon Valdez re-enactment underneath it! Scotch eggs were nice though

:rofl:

Just to make a change from the usual, "It's Big Greasy and 'ard as nails" or more cheerfully.."My MV took part in and was fully responsible for the total annihalation of such and such's Army" type thread :-\ Here it is your opportunity to show what real benefit a Military Vehicle can bring to everybodys every day life! Following on from another thread, that had some bloke in the German papers shopping with his Fox, i thought why not tie in a mundane activity with any excuse to use a Military vehicle, take a picture and get it on here. Requirements are for your shopping to feature in the picture, preferably with people looking at you like you had grown another head! So here it is, Mrs Elsdon and family (The boy is in the back of the Pig, my daughter didnt have any black tape for anonymity and improvised). And yes it is parked in the Parent and Child slot Its the only time i have seen the staff of a supermarket come out and openly gawp at a vehicle in the car park! be prepared to let the wife do the shopping herself, while you answer allsorts of odd questions.

Havent seen the bloke with said trucks yet, i should think he knows what he can carry as he moves heavy plant for a living, i will let you all know!

Britain pulled out of Aden on the 29th November 1967, so it would suggest it was sent to Libya from Aden on the 1st November as part of the withdrawal (Libya was used as a desert training area). Saladins were used in Aden and in the interior, in what was known as the Radfan. Have a look here: http://www.britains-smallwars.com/main/index1.html Some good stuff on that site particularly covering Aden, which has become a bit of a forgotten war, but it is also an excellent link to everything thats gone on since WW2.

There is a show on up here this weekend and a friend has a Fox and a Mk 1 Ferret, somebody i know has phoned up wanting to know how long they are, as he has a smaller 26 foot flatbed truck he could use, that would be cheaper to run, than the very massive tractor and plant moving flat trailer he usually uses (4 MPG!). Ive done the Wikepedia thing but the Fox measurement includes the cannon, i just need the body length for both....fairly quick!!:sweat:

FV1611B....Snap, same as mine! by the way ignore the croc bloke, he just has issues about size :-D

Stick your head under the passenger side front wheel arch, towards the front on the chassis, there will be a nice brass plate with the vehicle details on it, and the original Army registration (ERM) which will be for example 05BK61. Once you have found the plate, scraped off the muck and written down what it is, put it on here, and im pretty certain Clive the Pig Guru will be along soon to let you know all about it, and when it was auctioned off and how much it made! (No really im not kidding!) Congratulations on your inspired choice to purchase a Humber Pig, and in particular a Mk1, by the way HMVF stands for Humber Military Vehicle Forum, only the poor misguided fools who run it havent cottoned on yet :-D

Sounds like an opportunity to create a man-made dust storm!:-D

Good luck on finding WW1 horses in good order! ive heard they are quite rare. I have two donkeys and a tetchy shetland pony for rent if all else fails, at reasonable rates of course!!

Thats the spirit... next thing will be really old tracked armour!! :-D

Frankly OFCOM is probably the least of your concerns, given the Russian activity in Georgia!!!:-D

Its more or less 41.6Mhz at 1/2 wave

Looks like it was a total success in Aden as well, they ditched it and went for the far more useful sand tyres!!

I was going to kick off an aden picture thread and remembered this one from before the crash, here are a couple of Odd saracens, one has a radiator blind or something at the front, the other one has VERY large sand tyres!

Couple of more photos, this time Aden with numbering much closer to yours! the one hit by a mine looks nearly as good as yours!

Mad Cow,Have a look at this link, it's from the 10th Royal Hussars website, it has a number of photos of Saladins on exercise in Germany in 65 - 68 showing numbers 07BB10 etc, so yours cant be too far away from that. http://www.xrhgb.com/xrhgerm.html

When i was in the RAF on TCW (Tactical Communications Wing) the Tactical Air Traffic Controllers TACATC had a couple, if they werent para dropped into position, they went off the back of a Hercules with bikes, i seem to remember they had the Harley built version. They have been on operations in most of the bust ups since Gulf War 1.