Trying to find photograph/information on FV432 (Reg 08EA81)

Quote :

Probably the Services was the last to be warned/or take heed of these potentially dangerous substances. Once a nurse back in the UK was horrified to hear that the issue of Codeine tablets was still commonplace in the Army.

That is so true, I went sick in Woolwich a d was told to bed myself down for 5 days and given a prescription. I decided to go home, I went to the Chemist near St George's BKS in Sutton to file the prescription. The young pharmacist looked at it with horror. She passed it to the Senior Pharmacist and he just asked for my ID Card, when I produced it he got (I kid you not) and old ammo box out and started to make the prescription up. The young pharmacist was just stunned saying that he shouldn't be issuing some of the drugs he was. He just told her Military personnel were exempt some of the drug regs.

It's still true today, after my injuries in 2005 the Army and RAF Doctors put me on a massive concoction of pain relief etc. upon discharge after rehabilitation in late 2007 I had to register with a local GP - when I rocked up and explained what I need, what I take and.... I NEED IT NOW - he was horrified, it took a week to get this shambles clarified and I recall him saying words to the effect that this mixture would kill an elephant - well, I'm still here today.

My local chemist panicked when they saw my prescription and called the surgery thinking, I presume, I was some junkie who had stolen the prescription pad.

Now, I collect my 1.4KG bag of drugs once a month and the senior chemist has asked me, months ago, how I remain lucid on my prescription - easy, I said, wash the tablets down with 3 pints of real ale every night - shut her up!

Nothing changes then Martin, does it.

Its amazing how things come around i remember this as part of Engr Fd Sqn on Op Grapple. Trying to remember which camp it was in. I think it may have been Ridout at the top of the mountain track. But not 100% sure.

I never saw a 432 run on anything but diesel. it could, but it would have been a nightmare to set it up. I do remember one of our generators running on kero, well it did till we turned it off, and when it wouldnt start again we realised someone had filled it up with kero not diesel. for the VM's, remember the smell when you took the top off a 432 steering box ?

steve jones wrote:

I never saw a 432 run on anything but diesel. it could, but it would have been a nightmare to set it up. I do remember one of our generators running on kero, well it did till we turned it off, and when it wouldnt start again we realised someone had filled it up with kero not diesel. for the VM's, remember the smell when you took the top off a 432 steering box ?

But they told us at SEME how easy it was to set up the 432 to run on petrol.
How can we ever forget that steering box smell?
Just like listening to some oldie records, some smells do transport us back in time.

BobG wrote:

JPW is correct. Without being too technical, the L60 engine in Chieftain was not a multi fuel engine, the compression pressures and supercharging made this very difficult if not impossible without great loss of power. Challengers CV12 engine is a pure diesel engine. The multi fuel concept was a good idea but fraught with difficulties due to the basic characteristics of the two fuels, diesel is made to ignite under high compession pressure and petrol to resist igniting under pressure. The higher the Octain number of petrol the better it resists preignition under pressure, diesel is rated in cetane numbers which indicates its ability to self ignite under pressure. The K series engines were multi fuel but very inefficient when using petrol or avtur resulting in loss of power. Hope this explains a bit what is a complex subject.

Bob

Just a thought . .

Didn't the letter prefix denote the type of fuel an engine used? I seem to recal "L" was diesel "B" was petrol and "K" was (optimistically) multi-fuel.

That all seems to have been kicked into touch when the Challenger came along though. mmmm...

While we were in Germany we did use a mix of Kero and Diesel during the winter in our 432's, during Op Grapple in FRY we were using a 50/50 mix diesel/kero mix to try and prevent the fuel freezing (the PODs had to operate without their filters as the diesel kept freezing in them).

Reference 08EA81, while it was in 42 Fd Sqn RE, I believe it was in 8 Troop (I was in 9 Troop at the time and it used to be parked next to mine 03ED46, I was the lucky one with Ranger and Barminelayer). I may have some pics of it in the MT yard from when I took photos of mine.

I would queery the bit about the vehicle being on Op Grapple in 1992 with 2 Fd Sp Sqn as I was with 35 Engr Regt then and the Fd Sp Sqn was 44 Sqn not 2 Sqn (37 Fd Sqn, 42 Fd Sqn, 44 HQ & Sp Sqn all from 35 Engr Regt with 5 Fd Sqn from 26 Engr Regt joining later on). We had relatively few 432's with us and they came from 37 & 42 Fd Sqn's.

42 Sqn at the time were based in Gordon Barracks (Linsingen Kaserne), Hameln.

Many of our vehicles were stripped from us for Op Granby and given to 37 Fd Sqn RE, 35 Engr Regt or 21 Engr Regt at Nienburg. A few went to 23 Armd Engr Regt, Osnabruck. When we received the vehicles back (if we did) they were in a poor state and with the lack of spares many spent a year or so off the road (sand wear or the running gear).

We had just been issued 110 Land rovers and had all of them removed for Op Granby while we were re-issued Series III's and no spares.