question Liner,Extreme Cold Weather,Trousers-For Which Trs??

[Scotch Harry]

Did a quick search and couldnt find the answer,which type of trs please would be worn over these?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

[wdbikemad]

Worn underneath the "Trousers, Windproof, Arctic" (DPM).......:-D

[Scotch Harry]

Nice one,Thanks.

[AlienFTM]

These look to me like Mao Trousers, part of the Chinese Fighting Suit with a matching sleeved Mao Jacket (as worn by the Chairman).

 

They were worn under whatever you want. With the zips inside the legs you can drop your trousers, zip the Mao trousers up, pull your trousers up and you have nicely warm legs underneath whatever you are wearing without having to remove your boots, be it lightweights (de rigour in command Troop whatever the season), combats or overalls as worn by crewmen.

 

I was first issued a set I suspect in January 1978 for my first ever winter CPX in Command Troop, to be returned post-exercise. We were told they were experimental. Everyone in our recce regt got a full set a year or two later. Excellent piece of kit: only the hands, head and feet turned blue in the cold instead of spreading and turning the body numb all the way to the torso in the West German winter.

 

I managed not to hand in my Chinese Fighting Suit when I rebadged in 1982. In 1985 I got a phone call from my former Unit Paymaster. "Hello Corporal Alien you have been selected from a shortlist of one to be my navigator for the Inter-Services Regatta (BAOR vs RAFG) out of Kiel in August."

 

So I fronted up at Kiel where Major Head introduced me to our crew, the CO and RSM of the Ordnance Depot to which he had been posted. He always managed to be short-crewed as it saved a hundredweight of crewman and more including kit. One race was a night race. We split the crew into two watches, Maj Head and me; the two RAOC blanket-stackers. We did the early night stag and handed over to the other watch about 0400. Yes it was August, but we were in the Baltic and yes it got quite cold during the dead stags.

 

The race was meant to last 24 hours and at the start it was in danger of not finishing cos there was no wind, but during the night the wind got up and by 0800 and time to get out of my scratcher, it was all but over in a little over 12 hours.

 

The CO announced to me in a way that said "I am CO of an Ordnance Depot; I can get hold of all the latest kit," that "This nice new quilted suit I am wearing is quite warm." Corporal Alien put him down with, "Yes, I have enjoyed its benefits since I was crewing Ferrets in 1978 but I really didn't think that August is cold enough."

 

By now all trace of the Mao Suit had completely disappeared from my records. When I got out in 1989 it was one of the few items I felt worthy of keeping. When my daughter took up rowing (and coxing) in the 90s, she found them ideal. Haven't seen the trousers since (I suspect they got river-water dirty and she slung them surreptitiously when she moved out without me getting a chance to stop her) but the jacket hangs on the coat rack in the hall. It got a run out last winter when it was really, really cold. Not been necessary this winter. Seems to have shrunk though ...

 

During this regatta we famously caused a U-boat to believe he was about to be rammed. Oh and for the record, we stuffed the Crabs.

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

Okay since you ask. Another race, we were just outside Kiel, west of the northern approach channel. All or part of the race used a coastal buoy and two of the channel markers delineating the marked channel from Kiel harbour and the Canal out to the open sea to indicate the triangle course we were to sail.

 

We were on a windward leg heading probably more or less north-east from the inshore buoy to the more northerly channel marker.

 

If you have read The Cruel Sea, there is a moment where the radar operator on the corvette on the Gibraltar run, trying to catch up with the convoy, reports an unusual object on the screen. It's about the size of a small dinghy, but it's making enough knots to be closing on the convoy to their front. The skipper twigs that it's a U-boat on the surface trying to close and engage. What the Germans haven't noticed is that they in turn have a corvette hammering up behind them. Eventually the U-boat crew click and dive, but too late and the corvette launches a perfect pattern of depth charges on them. In modern parlance, they pwn them. Sadly not before the U-boat has engaged and sunk a merchantman. Sonar then detect a target right underneath the merchant crew in the water and the skipper has a dilemma whether to engage, thereby probably killing merchant crew in the water or let the U-boat go. He decides to get the U-boat kill. In the film, the harrowing scenes are well portrayed of merchant crewmen believing they are being rescued by the corvette, turning to horror when they realise the corvette is on a depth-charging run, ploughing through them and dropping depth charge right in their midst. Only afterwards does the corvette realise that he has just engaged the sinking wreck of the merchantman they had abandoned.

 

So. Cruel Sea moment. "Boss, there's a strange object approaching the marker buoy. It's small and dark and really motoring." Binos, out. "Blow me down, it's a Bundesmarine submarine."

 

 

So here we are lumbering to windward and closing on the marker buoy from the south-west and the U-boat hammering down from the north. There's no change in bearing: an indicator to both sides that we are on a collision course. (What the U-boat crew didn't know was that when we reached the buoy, we were turning right through 135 degrees onto a course parallel with them and there was plenty of room for us between the buoy and the U-boat.

 

So we reach the buoy just ahead of them as predicted. During this time I have watched the lookout tap the watchkeeper on the arm and point at us, the watchkeeper bend forward and speak over the intercom (presumably "Captain on the bridge!") a number of bodies arrive atop the conning tower with lookout and watchkeeper, all getting into an ever-increasing frenzy. I swear I read lips shouting "Verdammt crazy Englischers!"

 

They are making 20 or 30 knots (we are struggling to make about 6). The captain bends to the intercom to order hard a port just as the skipper pulls the tiller and we start to go round the buoy. The U-boat crew palpably relax.

 

But hang on. Our yacht is flying the red ensign. Technically we are a military reserve craft and junior by far to a regular Bundesmarine submarine by a long, long way. We absolute must observe the correct military protocols. The blanket stackers were doing an excellent job as sail-monkeys as we tack through the easterly wind but as navigator in this slick crew, I am rather spare. Being stood above the transom holding onto the rear mainstay and talking to the skipper who is helming, it takes the blink of an eye for me to untie the ensign and lower it to horizontal in the manner of a standard bearer, the approved manner of lowering the flag in salute when there is insufficient flagstaff to actually lower the flag in salute.

 

As the U-boat sped off into the distance, my last glimpse was of the captain bollicking one of the crewmen and reminding him to dip their ensign by way of returning the salute.

 

For good measure I threw up a friendly wave. I suspect his return wave might have involved just two fingers.

 

Oh wasn't life fun?

Edited February 16, 2012 by AlienFTM