Was it really that much fun being in the british army in germany in the 70s/80s ?

[ArtistsRifles]

You got coaches??? You lucky <censored> - we got ferried in MK's to RAF Lyneham (well - I was one of the "ferry Pilots" back then so a double whammy) for transport to Gutersloh via C130 - then MK's to Recklingshausen.

Unless on the advance/rear guard - then I got to drive all the way in an MK..... Or a 109 if the RSM was pee'd with me for some reason and we had a surplus of HGV drivers on the party..

 

Oh happy days...........

 

Highlight was in 76 - being forced by French customs to hand unload 4 MK's and two Landies so they could check all the kit for contraband on the way home - don't ask - still can't work out why port of departure did it and not Dover. Anyway's - picture to yourselves one officer two NCO's and 8 Troopers all tired, dirty and at the end of the job incredibly pissed off having the French Customs wander up - glance at the piles and then try to wander off.

Note I said try......

Very long story short - they wound up reloading the vehicles......

[ferretfixer]

http://baor-locations.co.uk/menden.aspx

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/historicsteve/MENDENNorthumberlandBarracks2009#

 

Incidentally, Taunton Barracks, Celle (where 94 Locating and afterwards 14 Sigs were based) is now the Town Hall (Rathaus) for Celle. It started life as a German infantry barracks (Heide Kaserne)

 

As for the WSPs, you only had to ask Soxmis - they knew where they all were!

 

Looked through ALL of the locations I was at on this site. Christ, it breaks your heart.dosent it? :cry: As a fellow member of this forum has commented. 'Where have all those years gone?'.

How true, it must be the old age monster chasing us!

[schliesser92]

Looked through ALL of the locations I was at on this site. Christ, it breaks your heart.dosent it? :cry: As a fellow member of this forum has commented. 'Where have all those years gone?'.

How true, it must be the old age monster chasing us!

 

Most of these barracks were purpose built for the military, and are very difficult to convert to other uses. These days it is far cheaper to pull something down and build new, rather than trying to convert.

 

As for transport, I remember going on Flying Falcon from 3 Div (Bulford) in combats, travelling in coaches and flying in Britannias from Brize to Gutersloh.

 

When we were deployed on Op Exit in Malta (1972) it was in civvies, in the back of an MK and flying in a Herc from Lynham.

[RecyMech]

We flew out to Batus in VC10s from Guttersloh...remember those ?...seats facing backwards for some odd reason. Anyone here see the Northern Lights while in Batus....what a FANTASTIC sight that is:nut:

 

I came back with the kit in a Hercules though & was deaf for a month afterward. Nothing like the scene in the Wild Geese at all (where they are having a quiet chat in the back while in flight.....my ar%*)

 

Hercules....never seen a plane with so many hydraulic leaks either. I waved down the load master who walked along the top of the kit to get to me....I pointed out the leaking pipes overhead...got the message across & he shouts "let me know when it stops leaking, ...cause then we`re in the sh*t". He did come back some time later & attempted a repair with two adjustable spanners though bless him.

 

Site Guard....ah yes, long periods of boredom & then a quick adrenaline rush & the chance to drive like a friggin nutter with 20 blokes hanging on for dear life in the back. I was a master MK thrasher you know ? :cool2:

 

As 2ic of the guard & in a state of boredom, :yawn: I answered the phone in the compound guardroom one afternoon with a "Yo" instead of the proper response. Bad move...B Sqn CSM removed my testicles with words not previous encountered by self.:blush::blush:

 

On the Command GO...`Chaaaange`....`SANDBAGS`.

 

H

[Tony B]

Crab air VC10 had the seats in backwards because it was safer if they bumped into anything.

[schliesser92]

Crab air VC10 had the seats in backwards because it was safer if they bumped into anything.

 

ALL the seats in Crab Air passenger transports (except Boss Lady Flight) had backward-facing seats. Again this is a safety thing, although it would not sell well in civvy street.

 

I have known CSMs who could reduce one to a midget (sorry - vertically-challenged person), without using one single swear word. I wonder if they go on a course to be able to do that ?

[Tony B]

ALL the seats in Crab Air passenger transports (except Boss Lady Flight) had backward-facing seats. Again this is a safety thing, although it would not sell well in civvy street.

 

I have known CSMs who could reduce one to a midget (sorry - vertically-challenged person), without using one single swear word. I wonder if they go on a course to be able to do that ?

Didn't sell to civvys because A) more cost to fit B) Stronger mountings required for the seats so more weight C) More weight on fittings less money making payoad= cheaper to kill pasengers.

[RecyMech]

I was in schtuck with that same WO2 again (I said CSM earlier & meant SSM) on the night I threw a jerry can in temper after the refueling hopper I put it in (& many many others like it), leaked (lots of) petrol in the belly of my Cent ARV.

 

Despite the fact that I was refuelling alongside 15 Chieftains, all with their engines running, as they also drew fuel, also in cans, from a line of Stollies......apparently my can throwing exercise was causing too much noise.

 

Happy days though.....if I see him again I'll kick his zimmer frame from under him :cool2::cool2:

 

H

[Zero-Five-Two]

I was in schtuck with that same WO2 again.....if I see him again I'll kick his zimmer frame from under him :cool2::cool2:

 

H

 

That's assuming you dont fall off you own while doing it, as someone said earlier on, must be 30 years ago, the age monster is chasing us all

[RecyMech]

Quote;-

That's assuming you dont fall off you own while doing it, as someone said earlier on, must be 30 years ago, the age monster is chasing us all.

 

You have a very good point.......36 years in my case & I doubt I could lift the leg high enough now. On a visit to REME museum (vehicle collection Bordon) to get reference pics a while back I could`nt resist a crawl over their Cent ARV.....& a crawl is exactly what it was...practically needed step ladders to get aboard & then found all the hatches had got much smaller over the years. Odd that !

 

H

[AlienFTM]

what to do with that old BFG car when it failed the TUV test

 

Stationed in Paderborn, I once found myself volunteered for CivPop, to become a citizen of Northern Ireland in an exercise at Salamander Anti-tank Range (so called because BAOR did not want to offend the West German government by training troops for Op Banner on West German soil) nearby at Sennelager. You and I called it Tin City.

 

For some two weeks we largely bimbled around the streets of Tin City acting like civvies. But we took it in turns to carry out attacks on the Blues and Royals, who were training for an upcoming tour. There were plenty of attacks to go round.

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

One night, I and a mukker took one of the exercise area cars (hence the upcoming link to the quoted post) outside the wire and down the outside of the wriggly-tin fence. At 0200 local we loosed off a few feet of blank 7.62 link from the GPMG we'd been given for the purpose. Good job Sennelager Training Area was out in the ulu cos it would have had the locals complaining.

 

Our pink instructed us to collect a handful of empty cases and dump them in the rear footwell, then drive the car back inside the wriggly-tin. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to either of us that freshly-fired 7.62 melts through four feet of virgin snow in the blink of an eye and it took a minute or two to find the cases we'd fired.

 

We drove back in. Needless to say the fort had responded by sending the QRF out on the ground. They flagged us down and started to search the car. Five minutes later, nothing. The DS looked daggers at us as if asking, "Why didn't you put any rounds in the back like you were told?" I nodded back furiously, intimating in no uncertain terms that we had. The DS gave the QRF a hard time, stook his hand in the footwell and pulled out a round. Waste of a night's sleep.

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

One afternoon the same two of us were given an M16 with instructions to take a pot shot out of the window of an empty house at a passing patrol. (Tin City was so called because it a small estate of West Belfast had been created in wriggly tin for the purpose. By 1978 the "tin" bit had been subsumed by a much larger estate built of breeze blocks.)

 

Our job was simply to follow the Pink. Everything that happened had to happen for a purpose with the Directing Staff in place in order to train, guide and correct the troops being trained.

 

So the designated patrol came down the street. Dave fired a couple of blank rounds at them. We knew to stand a couple of feet back from the window and we'd be in total darkness to people outside because of the different ambient light levels inside and out, and we stood and watched them go into blue-arrsed fly mode. We realised that they had eventually worked out where the rounds had come from and the Pink had us remain inside. There was a knock at the door. I put the still hot M16 behind the door while Dave opened the door to them.

 

The patrol commander was dead polite. He asked what we were doing in the house, which he understood (for the purposes of the exercise) to be empty. Quick as a flash, in broad brogue, Dave told him he was an estate agent showing me around. I, in an equally broad brogue (well we had both been in NI in the last couple of years), confirmed this. I kept trying not to look down at the M16 behind the door, hoping nobody tried to push past. We both also kept trying not to laugh. Another waste of time.

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

In the second week the RHG/D and their attached 16/5 Lancers were beginning to get the hang. I was sat in my front room when there was the sound of gunfire outside. A gunman ran through my house, handing me his M16 (per the Pink) and legging it out the back. I parked the M16 "under the bed" (it was a sleeping bag on a camp bed) and waited while the patrol poured in in hot pursuit. I acted all innocent. "Oi hevent a cleuw wot yiz er on aboit."

 

They searched the house ... and searched the house. The same DS as previously looked at me and I nodded. "Have you looked under the bed?" I was grabbed by the scruff and marched out to a Pig (the only one I ever saw) and to this day I can still see the Brummie 16/5L telling me, "You'll be going down for life for this." The Pig took me to the fort, where I was debriefed, had a cup of coffee and walked back to the house. 20 minutes after the shooting, the same patrol walked by and Brummie did a double-take that said without words "A life sentence doesn't mean life any more then."

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

Because, as Orange Forces, we had access to the Pink, everybody always knew when it was about to kick off. sometimes we had to clear the streets; sometimes we had to fill them, even if we weren't actively part of the serial.

 

We made ourselves as comfortable as we could. The cold was West German winter cold: nothing to be done. We had sleeping bags and supplies of coal to burn in the flimsy breeze-block houses. We were fed (centrally, in the "Fish & Chip Shop" on the main street, from Norwegians and urn brought down from the camp). We had beer available (next door in the "pub"). Many was an evening we paraded in the pub and attacked the cans (the cans were kept as ammunition for the riot that always happened eventually). The QM was OC CivPop and he'd teach us Republican songs that we could be singing when a patrol visited the pub (as patrols did in NI). But we knew whenthey were coming. Often as not we sang Geordie songs until five minutes before the patrol appeared and then we went Republican.

 

Whenever a serial was about to go off, I'd try and make sure I was in a house on the path the QRF would take in response, with my ghetto blaster (that I'd brought to help make myself comfortable) and my cassette of 20 Thumping Great Hits by the Dave Clark Five. Every time a patrol hurtled past the house, out of our window would boom, "Here we come again oo-oo-ooh. Catch us if you can ..." By mid-exercise the troops were shaking fists as they ran past. By EndEx, they were laughing as they ran by.

 

So to the point of the post.

 

Every Tin City exercise the DS would demonstrate to the troops the effect of torching a car. For this purpose, there were always plenty of cars left lying around camp that had failed their BFG Test (like a TUV - and an MOT - Test) and squaddy had not bothered, been posted, etc. Many of these were donated to Tin City for the purpose. Plus when the exercise required a vehicle, it was nobody's pride and joy getting trashed.

 

BAOR - it really was that much fun.

[AlienFTM]

I have known CSMs who could reduce one to a midget (sorry - vertically-challenged person), without using one single swear word. I wonder if they go on a course to be able to do that ?

 

Funny you should ask that - a couple of hours ago I passed this link on to my team. SOME people don't need lessons.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket

[AlienFTM]

I could`nt resist a crawl over their Cent ARV.....& a crawl is exactly what it was...practically needed step ladders to get aboard & then found all the hatches had got much smaller over the years. Odd that !

 

H

 

Nipper "took me to Tankfest" this year as an early birthday present. Big deal: I drove, I paid for petrol, I gave HIM the tour (he DID pay for entrance). We found ourselves next to a Chieftain just as they were about to resume letting people look inside.

 

Elf&Safety demanded that they secure a set of steps so that we might climb up safely. I might have refused, saying, "In my day ..." out of principle but it was their Chieftain and rules are rules.

 

Besides, Chieftains are higher than I remember and the joints don't bend like they used to did.

[RecyMech]

Quote;- "Oi hevent a cleuw wot yiz er on aboit." :rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

Steady on, I married one of those I found on a tea stop....seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

The interogations in the Fort at tin city were a proper laugh. Mate of mine was into weird hippie stuff at the time (1975) Having been 'arrested' he was questioned;-

 

Interogator "Whats your name then son"

Andy "Arnold Lane"

Interogator "How did you get here"

Andy "By plane"

Interogator "What plane"

Andy "Astral plane....aaa-um...aaa-um" at which point Andy adopts the mediation position & switches off to the world.

 

Great days,.

H

[schliesser92]

Quote;- "Oi hevent a cleuw wot yiz er on aboit." :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Steady on, I married one of those I found on a tea stop....seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

 

I married one too, of good proddie stock. Still together after 36 years!

I allways say that it was love after the third brick! That usually occurs ten seconds before she smashes me over the head with the next convenient blunt instrument.

[Stone]

Didn't sell to civvys because A) more cost to fit B) Stronger mountings required for the seats so more weight C) More weight on fittings less money making payoad= cheaper to kill pasengers.

All wrong There'd be approx 40% weight saving per seat if civvy ones faced backwards, most of the design of forward-facing ones is to stop them coming off the floor when you crash. Less material, less cost per seat, less weight so less fuel used, more seats fit in the same floor area (backwards ones can be flimsier) but they still use forward-facing ones - it's entirely down to the paying passengers wanting to face the direction of travel. The military don't get a choice so they get the cheaper ones!

 

(my other half designed passenger aircraft...)

 

Stone

[timbo]

Nipper "took me to Tankfest" this year as an early birthday present. Big deal: I drove, I paid for petrol, I gave HIM the tour (he DID pay for entrance). We found ourselves next to a Chieftain just as they were about to resume letting people look inside.

 

Elf&Safety demanded that they secure a set of steps so that we might climb up safely. I might have refused, saying, "In my day ..." out of principle but it was their Chieftain and rules are rules.

 

Besides, Chieftains are higher than I remember and the joints don't bend like they used to did.

 

You should try the drivers seat of a turreted CVRT then....!

[ArtistsRifles]

You should try the drivers seat of a turreted CVRT then....!

 

I did - once - when retaking my "H"... Never again. Easy (relatively) to get in. Getting out now - that was the "fun" part. Everything stopped for nigh on 30 minutes. Int he end the turret had to be traversed about 15 deg off to give me enough room to lever myself out..

As for driving - every thing was by touch and feel, I couldn't seen any of the controls at all..... :shocked: :shocked:

[timbo]

I did - once - when retaking my "H"... Never again. Easy (relatively) to get in. Getting out now - that was the "fun" part. Everything stopped for nigh on 30 minutes. Int he end the turret had to be traversed about 15 deg off to give me enough room to lever myself out..

As for driving - every thing was by touch and feel, I couldn't seen any of the controls at all..... :shocked: :shocked:

 

 

At weekend my mate said he used to get a rollocking if he exited without droppng the seat first. Does tend to make both getting in and out easier..

[ArtistsRifles]

At weekend my mate said he used to get a rollocking if he exited without droppng the seat first. Does tend to make both getting in and out easier..

 

Heh - bl&&dy hatch was so tight I could not reach the lever to drop the seat....

So much easier in the OT!!!!

[AlienFTM]

You should try the drivers seat of a turreted CVRT then....!

 

Have you ever tried getting in / out of a Scorpion with the GPMG fitted? I couldn't do it 30 years ago when it was my day job, never mind now.

[Bazz]

Especially if you use the flash eliminator as a hand hold after a range session.

[AlienFTM]

Ow ow ow. Please, Sarge, why is my hand burning? Ow.

 

I can feel the pain, though separated by 30 years.

 

Oh the joys of being a Control Signaller and not having to get denims dirty. And Troop Leader's operator. "I'll keep the troop on the combat team command net while you lot cam up. With my other hand I'll do you a nice brew up here from the freshly-boiled BV in my nice warm (ish), dry (ish) turret ready for when you have finished tangling yourselves in the dirty, smelly, cold, wet cam nets. Let me know when yer done."

 

;o)

[Tony B]

Or as an RTR guy said me 'Why to walk to war, when you can drive?'

[AlienFTM]

Or as an RTR guy said me 'Why to walk to war, when you can drive?'

 

Or, as I read (probably on ARRSE) Why carry your weapon into battle when you can let your weapon carry you?