Bob Posted May 18, 2018 Share Posted May 18, 2018 Morning guys. Some of you might have heard rumours on the green oval grapevine that my long-running monthly column on Military Land Rovers, which ran in LRO from the January 1988 issue until the autumn of 1998 and then transferred across to LRM for the next 20ish years is finally being dropped from print publication. One final column will run, insha'Allah, in the July 2018 issue of LRM - the topic is Lithuanian Army Defenders - but unless one of the other publishing houses makes me an offer for my services it is unlikely the story will continue. When I penned the first column for Richard Thomas back in late 1987 it was decided that a mini-series of three might actually be needed to do the topic justice, but initial feedback was so positive that we decided to let it run until I ran out of ideas. Incredible as it may seem, ideas are still flowing and subjects are still cropping up regularly, but unfortunately print magazine sales are not faring as well and that t'internet thingy is impacting quite seriously so lots of good things are coming to an end... for Defender production, the end just came a bit earlier. Following the demise of COMBAT & SURVIVAL Magazine earlier this year, another victim of the slump in magazine sales, I created the JOINT-FORCES.com website as an outlet for my scribbles and snaps and this has been gaining popularity. On Wednesday evening, after being told my LRM column was being dropped, I added a Modern Military Land Rovers section to my site and from now on I expect this is where my features will appear; Uncle Frank Elson, who was also recently dropped by LRM, kindly put the word out through his Facebook page and as a result yesterday I saw a massive increase in page views. Thanks Frank. This new venture will not only give me an outlet for fresh military Land Rover stories - watch out for one on Jordanian Army Defenders following my recent trip to Amman - but it will also allow me to go back to the beginning and drag out some rarely seen old images from my extensive image library. I'm really looking forward to it. If interested, take a look here:- www.joint-forces.com/features/military-land-rovers The plan is to add at least one article a month, with a few extras over the first couple of months, but if something interesting crops up I'll add a post at the earliest opportunity. Bob 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin craig Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 Dear Bob, I will always be deeply in debt to you for your writings and photography over the years, starting with your articles on military Land Rovers in the model making magazines that I followed and have kept as reference material. The attention to detail that scale model making people like yourself bring to the real life 1:1 scale vehicle world that those of us with or maintaining ex Military vehicle strive for. Such images as the Series 3 109" towing the 25 pounder on exercise that you took and the Operation Granby detail shots are used over and over again. Bob, don't stop doing your writing an photography, maybe we will hook up for a pint and a curry one day again. I must dig out the slide you gave me of the lightweight Land Rover and it's occupant and look at it again, that was a cracker that will likely never make your website! All the best from your chum in Canada Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordonb Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 Series 3 109" towing the 25 pounder. Been there, done that! Through London in the 70s, traffic lights were a bit of a fingers crossed affair. Did it a number of times when no Bedfords available. Gordon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surveyor Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 (edited) Bob Great Articles in LRM, 2 of which I have kept as relevant to my Landie, assume the ones in LRM cant be reproduced on the site Will look out online for you site Edited May 19, 2018 by Surveyor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted May 20, 2018 Author Share Posted May 20, 2018 Morning guys, Glad to hear my scribbles and snaps are still of interest. Robin, if I remember correct the next round is yours so stop hiding on the other side of the Pond you tight git. I do not plan on taking the easy way out and republishing the LRM (or earlier LRO) articles, as not only would the publishers be unhappy bunnies but also many things I did not know back then have subsequently surfaced to bring the story forward. However as I have always asserted my © on my original images, and as I still have most of them (unfortunately some slides never got returned by publishers and some disappeared into the world's biggest shoebox of unsorted stuff) there is a good chance, insha'Allah, that I will go back over most of the subjects in due course. I have just uploaded the second article to JOINT-FORCES.com - on the early Ninety, using mostly old snaps from 1988 - which some of you might appreciate. http://www.joint-forces.com/features/military-land-rovers/13961-military-land-rovers-pt-2-the-ninety Next I'll look briefly at the early One-Ten before covering the Jordanian Armed Forces One-Tens using a mix of historic and recent shots. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surveyor Posted May 20, 2018 Share Posted May 20, 2018 Look forward to the posts, on the web and here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted May 20, 2018 Author Share Posted May 20, 2018 3 hours ago, Surveyor said: Look forward to the posts, on the web and here Cheers, Surveyor. Not sure how many on here this will be of interest to, but I have also just started uploading some of my old combat boot scribbles and snaps, which were first published in C&S, on my new J-F website. Two MoD suppliers ( Alt-Berg and Iturri ) have also sent me sample pairs of the next generation of UK Forces combat boots for evaluation and I expect two more models - from AKU ( CHL ) and HAIX (DCHL ) - to arrive over the next few weeks so articles on these will also be posted in due course on J-F. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surveyor Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 Bob Look forward to seeing the reviews, I have not looked to closely at the web page but is there an alert similar to here to advise when you post on line? Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted May 21, 2018 Author Share Posted May 21, 2018 If you mean a direct personal email Notification, not at the moment Richard. I'm waiting for this new GDPR lunacy to kick in first. A link to most new content get autoposted on the TwitFace accounts:- http://facebook.com/JOINTFORCESMEDIA and http://twitter.com/JOINTFORCESNEWS Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surveyor Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 Okay will have to learn those methods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin craig Posted May 22, 2018 Share Posted May 22, 2018 Bob it will be my pleasure to buy you a drink or two. It wont be this year, my daughter is getting married, that has a slight effect. Maybe we should get you out to BATUS and we could hook up on this side? Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted May 22, 2018 Author Share Posted May 22, 2018 6 hours ago, robin craig said: Bob it will be my pleasure to buy you a drink or two. It wont be this year, my daughter is getting married, that has a slight effect. Maybe we should get you out to BATUS and we could hook up on this side? Robin 'kin'el! Is she that old, Robin? How time flies. I was lucky, Lynne paid for most of her wedding as she and her now hubby were loaded in comparison to her mother and I. BATUS sounds interesting, but as the seat-polishers in UK MoD defence communications prefer to tweet banalities rather than grant media access (BBC and Telegraph excepted) to the troops it probably won't happen. The only reason Operation CABRIT got coverage last year was that I sneaked in the back door out in Estonia and Poland (with national military help) and just got on with it..... but that's another story. I've just uploaded the third article on Modern Military Land Rovers here - I don't think I've published that 1988 Ashchurch interior shot before:- http://www.joint-forces.com/features/military-land-rovers/14045-military-land-rovers-pt-3-the-one-ten Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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