CVR(T) tents

[greenlandy]

Hi guys this is my first post so I hope you can help me.

I'm currently helping a friend restore a Sabre, we rebuilt his Sultan last year http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b369/relish110/PB120753.jpg[/img].

We've aquired a tent for the sabre, which we hope to have on the road next week, but have NO idea how it's meant to erect or fit to the Sabre any one got any pictures or ideas?

[sirhc]

Matt,

Nice Sultan! There aren't many CVRT fans on here, so it's nice to have another. The tent doesn't exactly fit on the Sabre, it kind of just ties on to anything handy. I don't have a photo of one on my Sabre, becuase I've not tried it yet, but this one of the Fox might help!

 

Chris

[greenlandy]

Excellent picture thanks for that :-D

[Grasshopper]

They really are simple to erect. Just tie the top to the vehicle, fit the three vertical poles, and guy out the corners. Easy.

 

[Guest Tin]

Hi,

I used to crew Scimitars which are similar to Sabre when serving in the Household Cavalry and we used to use these tents a lot. You should have a number of ties along the top and lower front edge. The top ties, as one has already mentioned should be tied to almost anything. The lower ties need to be pulled tight and fixed via pegs to the ground. If I recall there should be brass eyes on each corner on the lower section where short metal poles can be placed to retain the shape of the lower wall section. I think with a sabre you will have a better result than you have with your fox. Good camping.

Mick :-)

[AlienFTM]

Hi,

I used to crew Scimitars which are similar to Sabre when serving in the Household Cavalry and we used to use these tents a lot. You should have a number of ties along the top and lower front edge. The top ties, as one has already mentioned should be tied to almost anything. The lower ties need to be pulled tight and fixed via pegs to the ground. If I recall there should be brass eyes on each corner on the lower section where short metal poles can be placed to retain the shape of the lower wall section. I think with a sabre you will have a better result than you have with your fox. Good camping.

Mick :-)

 

 

We were also a Recce Regiment. The CVR(T)s came issued with bivouac tents (aka bivvies, not to be confused with that most vital CES item, the boiling vessel, or BV), but people like the Commanding Officer in his Landrover and his Command Troop Ferret section, including RSM, LO and rebroadcast vehicles did not.

 

However, if you research the word Hussar, as in 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars, you find some interesting references and descriptions. One source describes the origin of hussars in the same breath as Croats, erm Crabbates (sp?) and rogues and reports that whereas the word Hussar originates from Hungarian (hence the side-reference to Croats), the word Hussar in Hungarian derives from the Italian Corsari, which gave rise in English to the word Corsair, or pirate.

 

Similarly, if you ever get to read Armour Volume 2, The Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (which is unlikely because its scale of distribution IIRC was - when they were styled Armd Recce Regts, now Formation Recce Regts - probably no more than a handful per Armd Recce Regt), or the History of the Reconnaissance Corps ("Every other bugger behind"), you'll find that to be good Recce troops, you need all the skills of the poacher.

 

Can you see where this is going yet?

 

We had a good collection of QMs and QMs(T) and their respective RQMSs, so their poaching skills ensured that every vehicle (CVR(T) or not) had at least a bivvy. You sometimes saw modified Landrovers or even trailers converted to allow very senior ranks the luxuries of a caravan.

 

My driver and I found our rebroadcast Ferret equipped with a four-man Chieftain bivvy. Arguably not as waterproof as the more modern design of the three-man CVR(T) bivvy, but with room to swing a cat, lay out camp beds, place a coffee table and folding chairs ... oh yes and instead of attaching it to the side of the Mark 1 Ferret, which was actually a little low for a Chieftain bivvy, we'd turn it about and string it between a couple of trees. This allowed us, sat in our gin palace - I mean bivvy - to receive visitors and watch the sun go down through the trees of the Teutoburgerwald or the Harzgebirge or wherever we happened to have set up our homes that week. Very civil it was too.

 

Truth be told, we carried so much kit to make life bearable that our vehicles on the move were often compared with gypsies' caravans.

 

It was a shit job, but somebody had to do it.

 

;o)