Apart from Pot Noodles, wet wipes and a dog eared copy of Razzle, is this one of the most important pieces of military equipment on the market?
Apart from Pot Noodles, wet wipes and a dog eared copy of Razzle, is this one of the most important pieces of military equipment on the market?
it’s bloody dusty in here, getting in my eyes!
Too hard to see this clearly on an iphone, but is this not just a gucci BV? If so, then the answer is yes. Ask any man taking over a vehicle (thank you whole fleet management) and the first question he will ask is ‘Does the BV work?’ !
It says in the brochure “Sustenance on the move for land air and sea operations”. Does that mean there’s a mounting point in a Typhoon then?
What we really need is compo ration menus cooked up by Jamie Oliver or Heston Blumenthal.
DD,
If only. I worry the fighter crowd would view it as to common, though. But ACSG is less house-proud and I suspect they’d be glad of it on the long transits.
Monty,
Sign me up. Not Ramsay, though. There are enough profane, overrated mess chiefs in the Large Corps as it is :)
The pongos are welcome to it – that’s why I joined the Service that goes to war with a bar and a duvet!
SI, you could have always joined the REME
@ SI,
this could rapidly turn into a reverse Monty Python 4 Yorkshiremen skit.
The Bustard Inn on the edge of Salisbury Plain (sadly now closed, I’m told) offered a muddy car park into which you could get 4 CVR(T), 2 men left on radio / guard stag, 9 men in the bar necking a few pints, and a rota for the 10th man getting a hot bath for 50p each. Bloody luxury in the middle of a foul February night, before heading back out as a Troop to start the second week of the exercise.
Then there was the ill-fated acceptance (by me) of the very kind offer by the matron of a old people’s home near Braunschweig of putting my Troop up overnight in some unused accommodation. The Bundeswehr spotted our track marks on the road / driveway and roared up, firing off Marder and MG blanks with gusto at 6 am in the morning. We fought back with smoke, blanks and thunder flashes. All of which combined was not a happy awakening for the residents of the home, most of whom had already lived through 1945, and many of whom were convinced that the Russians had arrived for the second time in their lives. Cue a truly epic stewards’ enquiry.
I recall a few days later being invited to the Adjutant’s office. He asked me to pick a number between one and 12. “7?” was my answer. “OK, you bloody fool. Take July”. 31 days extras taught me a little lesson.
lol James. Life in the Army.
Funny how much fun it was after the fact.
One of my friends told me of an incident with a 40mm Orange Powder training round. He fired it off, it hit a tree, bounced back, and detonated. Since he and his friends were under cover, only their helmets got painted orange. The instructor, however, was standing in the open… :P Full body I was told.
@ Observer,
the Belgians used to run a range in Vogelsang where there was an “under-fire crawl”, with a GPMG(SF) firing towards you and above your head as you crawled over perhaps 100 metres. We quickly worked out that it was far safer than it looked, and the bullets were at least a metre above you. However, one day, someone on the range staff failed to lock one of the SF tripod legs properly, and it sort of collapsed mid crawl, with the bullets right in among the crawling lanes. Cue mass evacuation sideways, and lots of anger about Belgian competence etc. My Squadron Leader was watching this, and less than impressed with us, so he ordered the tripod leg to be locked properly, but still pointing downwards, and made us all re-do the exercise. Lots more care and concentration on the second run, I can assure you. Good proper training with the rounds coming in about 18 inches away, not a metre.
Since we’re spinning ditties.
RMP chap on patrol, for some reason he has a UGL. Ignoring the fact he fell on his arse at the first incoming burst of PKM, the second funniest aspect of the contact was the look of sheer glee when he realised that when the PC was screaming for UGLs he had one, the third funniest aspect was him firing it and it bouncing back onto the ground in front of him, and the very funniest part was him looking around to see if anyone had noticed and then slyly kicking the offending HE projectile into an irrigation ditch.
I was anticipating, as a medic, some “trade” as I watched him belt it into the ditch.
Observer,
Would that be the elusive specialty Oompa Loompa round?
James,
More grand stuff. Has anyone (of course I’m joking, but only just) considered modifying a Bivvie as a PDW? Steam at range, boiling water for CQB … way back in my youth it was a bootie from 40 Cdo who taught me that one of the best methods of home defence was an aerosol can, an all-weather match, and an evil mind ….
Phil,
A whole new perspective on kicking it into the long grass :) Redcap fail.
@ Phil,
All-Arms combat engineer course, Hameln about ’88. I had to do the course to take up my second Troop (“Assault Troop”, which in recce terms was analogous to assault pioneers except with a recce role as well). Demolitions, instructed on the importance of unscrewing the gripswitch after firing a charge. Well, naturally having laid the charge I was too excited and forgot the gripswitch. I got back to the safety bunker with a good 15 seconds to go, and the ruddy RE SSgt made me go back out to get my gripswitch back. Quite right too, I say now, but at the time I was making like Usain Bolt over the 50 yards to the charge.
@ Jackstaff, a tale from your own service. I’ve got a paperback copy of a book by Max Hastings on the Falklands War. He describes how a Royal Marine officer on South Georgia (Lt Keith Mills? from memory, but the book is at home and I’m in a business hotel in Birmingham) did an “on-the-fly” adjustment to strap a can of white paint onto the business side of a Claymore mine, and the effect of the explosion was to create a sort of napalm mixed with shrapnel, which sounds a bit nasty to me. I think the oil in the emulsion combined with explosive fire was the thinking.
Of course, he only had a tiny force, but that’s the sort of offbeat thinking you want young officers to have.
@James: I used to hear from aged parent of some pub that the thirsty cadets of Oxford UOTC used to stop at near the plain (driving Ferrets, much smaller!) back in the early 60’s. Perhaps the same one :-)
@ wf
Ferret. My favourite wagon, ever. Quiet, small, .30, ability to duct hot air from a clean air exhaust down around your feet, camouflage it in less than 2 minutes, and a ridiculous steering wheel angled in a bizarre fashion. Would have been perfect if it had a BV.
Never broke down in one, despite it being an mild update of the Dingo from WW2.
James,
Just a clarification — thanks for the complement but I was never a hard enough customer to be Green Death myself. But said commando was for many years a dear friend (I seem to have inherited an odd affinity for bootnecks from my father, each of us in our day seem to have served as bookish mascots for them….) But Mills’ actions don’t surprise me one bit. I don’t think it’s in the water at Lympstone, they arrive with it. And I think this is the wrong thread in which to mention it but, like x and Phil, I’d love to hear more about the later days of BAOR. The only things I know much about IGB operational detail go back a generation before to my American uncle who was for a while OC of a jump-qualified (those were the days for daft-as-a-brush improvisation) cavalry troop with the Yanks’ old 8th Infantry Division. Love to know more about TA integration in wartime, what the Belgians were there to do, etc.
Ref: Ferret, if there was a surplus store for second-line military vehicles I could just see you as salesman of the month, red trousers and all :)
@James : upon further research with said aged parent, it turns out his pub was one on the other side of Salisbury Plain, The Lamb at Hindon. The Bustard seems to be still going strong however :-)
@TD if you hear a knock at the door it will be some great big hairy arsed, knuckle dragging recovery mechs coming round for “a chat”
‘kin wedgeheads!!!
james, P1 at vogelsang, SLR days, bottom of the hill at the rope crossing instructor tells young scroat to sling his rifle ie put head through sling to free up arms…. said scroat promptly overarms rifle in a beautiful arc to the far bank,with one up the spout and people on far bank bomb bursting to the four corners. “you said sling it” he said!!!!
Good one paul! :)
@James
Did the crawl too, learnt to just ignore the bloody MG.
Was told this by an Air Force pilot. You know how aircraft have recirculated air in the cockpit? You can guess how miserable a flight is going to be when the instructor yells at a trainee: “YOU FARTED IN MY COCKPIT!!??”
“…some great big hairy arsed, knuckle dragging recovery mechs “
Are there any other sort? They’ve done me some good favours in the past though. Literally, dragging me out of the **** when I got a little too enthusiastic to close with and kill the Queen’s enemy (or OPFOR) by taking a particularly devious route.
Next, you’ll be telling me that there are female Recy Mechs. I’ll bet they still conform to your description though.
@James
James, you remember that guy which winched your tank out of the ditch last time? He’s a she.
:P
Danish Battalion, Helmand, 2010.
At the head of their resupply convoys was an M113 with a mine roller. Driven by “Rollergirl”. She was utterly stunning. I only managed to get a picture of her from behind. Saw her stripped to her bra and knickers once when their convoy was delayed and all the Danes broke out their camp beds and started sunbathing on their trucks. It was literally too much to bear after 5 months away.
http://www.imagebam.com/image/f0425b174078205
Oh and as a bonus for TD – that thing in front of her is an infantry assault bridge in its transport configuration.
Nice pic of an Infantry Assault Bridge there Phil :)
Clever bit of kit. Bit bouncy though!
Whilst I’m here and uploading pictures. What bridge is this can you tell?
http://www.imagebam.com/image/eaad05174080581
http://www.imagebam.com/image/9c9fad174080587
Note the Quad MkI in use as well ;-)
Phil, thats a double storey Medium Girder Bridge
I wonder if we’ve “gifted it” or we will bring it back one day. I expect it will stay there forever.
yes there is female reccy mechs, last one i conversed with had huge tattoos and swore like a docker, god bless her!!
still think this beats a bridge!
http://www.gizmag.com/gibbs-amphibious-phibian-humdinga/21388/