Tiffy_massive

The RTR always had yellow tac callsigns on vehicles.

The SCOTS DG always had grey tac callsigns on vehicles.

All others as I remember had black.

The Armd Corps were the only ones to have tac callsigns on all vehicles. The Mech Inf had tac callsigns on Armd vehicles but no one else seemed to bother that much.

I was a young VM serving with a couple of tank Regts in the early 80's. The REME vehicles for 4RTR would have had no markings other than the standard ones for the Sqn they were attached to. Nothing to show them as REME. Everyone in the regt knew the call signs so that was always enough. The Sqn call signs were on the drivers and passenger doors in Matt yellow so they showed no matter what colour the door was. We were not allowed to have REME colours on display as we were part of the regt. The fitter sections were completely integrated with the Sqns and lived in Sqn lines, paraded with Sqns and played sport for the Sqns. The OC and ASM were the only ones allowed to have REME badges on vehicles. The REME tac signs only started to appear in the late 90' when we came back from Bosnia. Everyone seemed to adopt the spanner symbol in flourescent Orange displayed in the top corner of the windscreen.

always happy to answer questions if need be as I joined the REME in 1980 and have still not left, but may be off in the next year or so, but I have a good memory.

May have looked good from the road, but there were vehicles broken down across the plain. Part of the exercise was a move around SPTA which resulted in loads of work for the fitter sections and the move going on for hours later than planned. It proved the point though that you can't leave vehicles in hangers for years and then expect them to be in good nick without doing the maint on them.

Always worth checking that the fuel bag is not rippled and is laying nice and flat near the pick up pipe. Have had to remove a fuel bag before for just that problem.

Have you checked if the fuel pump is still running when the engine has stopped? Sounds like a fuel pumping issue to me. AFV fuel tanks do need draining of water from time to time but if that was the problem it would not re-start, however always worth draining it and refilling when you get the chance. CVR(T)fuel pumps are well known problem items and can sometimes be knocked accidentially leading to no fuel getting to the engine.

Not sure of the rules and regulations for non-military vehicles or historic vehicles but all miltary personnel travelling in a Troop Carrying Vehicle must be sat in the new seating system and strapped in. Its a real pain but safe.

Each time the seats are fitted they have to be inspected and the veh docs annotated as such. The days of carrying SQMS stuff as well as troops are long gone, it's one or the other. Can't even tow a trailer if you are carrying troops now.

Totally depends on the vehicle being loaded and the trailer it is being loaded onto.

An MBT will normally drive on and go as far forward as possible to ensure the barrel when in the cradle does not over hang too much. Dozer tanks have to reverse on and stay towards to back of the trailer as the blade sits very low to the ground and would damage the trailer during loading if driven on. Staying towards the back would then ensure there is no barrel strike when the truck and trailer turn.

Warrior drive on as do CVR(T).

Big guns would normally drive on as long as the barrel is not too long, however they could reverse on depending on the type and trailer type. They would not drive on with the gun out of a cradle hence the direction is decided that way.

Recovery varients if they have a blade on the front have to reverse on.

Not uncommon to see a couple of smaller tracked vehicles on one large trailer all depends on the overall weight capacity of the truck and trailer combo and the route they will take.

Cor, you were supposed to do maint on them as well! Drove one for about 5 years, then commanded one for another 8 or 9 years and thought they were great. In all honesty the good old 434 was almost indestructable. We always used to spend so much time looking after everyone elses kit that we hardly ever did a lot on our own trucks. The biggest thing for me was to make sure the coolant was always topped up, the final drive lock nuts were tight and the govener oil level was correct. I suppose the biggest let down was the poor quality batteries we had fitted, but if you have good quality batteries fitted you should have few problems. Apart from that they only needed attention if something happened which was not very often.

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RE Recce CVR(T) Spartan fell into the tank ditch that had been dug by the same Sqn the night before. The motley crew of the fitter section. Hohne Dec 1999

Clearing Basra International Airport ready for the first RAF flight in following the end of hostilities in 2003.

Its been a long time but steering fluid loss was a common issue back in the day. Check the steering calipers for leaks. Quite normal for these to leak and dump the fluid. If she has been bad for a while it is worth looking at the pads also to see if they are either badly worn or contaminated from a leak.

The normal evil beaver as we used to call them came without the cab as they were air portable and the cab was found to be too fragile so were taken off early on. We did modify some for use in the Balkans and the ones being used in BATUS. A fun bit of kit that we all used to play in.

It's not in Bordon.

Ditto from me. If the tracks were that badly worn the sprockets would be in a bad way so would also need replacing. If the sprocket teeth are worn they will slip in the links and make for a horrible ride with lots of banging.

Have to agree that it is not the way to drive a 432 on public roads. It might look ally, however no real control and a risk to other road users. Its never the cowboys who get hurt.

Someone at the REME museum in Arborfield will confirm but i think it is Blue to the rear as in the TRF we are wearing now which was taken from the TRF worn during the war.

Well there you go then, thanks for the replies. Had not heard that a REME TA Coy had been asked to move them.

Does anyone know anything about the 2 LARC 60s sat on the mud near Tipnor ranges Portsmouth? I have seen them many times and often wondered what their future if any is. I had an idea a few years ago to try and have one moved to be restored and used as a gate guardian at 17 Port & Maritime Regt, but never really followed the idea up.

They are on the mud to the East of the M275 and just to the North of what looks like the greyhound track in Portsmouth.

Basra International airport 2003.

Can you guess what it is yet?

I seem to remember in the dim and distant past that as a young VM in training at Bordon that we were told that the pedal going slack was caused by it going over centre which is why the big pipe is needed to bring it back against spring pressure. I also remember being given the task of adjusting the gear linkage as a trade test, but can't for the life of me remember what or how we did it, sorry.

CVR(T) are very noisey when in idle and that is normal. The noise sounds very much like cavitation in a Hydraulic system if you have every heard that so if the noise sounds like cavitation then there is nothing major to worry about. If you do not know what cavitation sounds like, it is caused by air in a sealed system at pressure so sounds something like a mix of a heavy duty food mixer and someone shaking a tin of stones.

_{Using a Landrover is something we used to do alot if circumstances meant that was all we had available. Leaving the Landrover running at approx 1000 rpm while the jump leads are connected will effectively send a trickle charge to the Cent or any vehicle attached to the other end. Even if there is not enough power in the landrover to start the cent straight away, giving it 10 to 15 mins should be more than enough for the job. However no reason there should not be enoght to start a cent as long as there are no ohter faults.}

I've got a pair of size 11 in my garage never been worn and still have the original string and label on them. I think i exchanged them back in the mid 80's before we were issued with the newer boots combat high. Were always comfy and when made into high leg were much better than anything else we had at the time.

Water can cause all sorts of issues to be honest. One of the other ones is where water has semi-covered rubber seals that have then been damaged when the water has frozen and expanded. I have seen the rear G/Box mount buckled by ice while on the CVR(T) line during the Winter Repair Prog. Common problem that we could not work out to start with but got there in the end. Another problem was that to repair it correctly the hull had to be temp controlled for at least 24 hrs before and i think it was 76 hrs after the repair in order for it to harden correctly (i am sure someone will be along to correct my figures if they are wrong). It was not relaised for a while that it took so long and hence repairs done correctly but not given the full cure time would fail fairly quickly.