You couldn't make it up !

or the one about the IRA boys, opened the back door of their transit van and fired a RPG7 from inside the van. hadnt thought about what the back blast would do!!!!!

i do suspect that is an urban myth.

When I was in the Ops room i n HQ NI we had a file full of "Own Goals", wish I'd photocopied it, there were some real strange ones in there. One of the best was the INLA guys who'd been tasked to burn a warehouse down in a bit of intimidation, great stuff they sprinkled petrol all over and then set fire to it, problem was they were on the second floor and hadn't left themselves an escape rout. Exit 2 terrorists.

Quote :

Here's another.
Early sixties, a soldier, dissatisfied with his lot, defected to The Glorious Peoples Proletariat.
The Commies pumped what little info they could out of the mental midget then sent him back to face the wrath of his capitalist masters.

I remember that,

steve jones wrote:

or the one about the IRA boys, opened the back door of their transit van and fired a RPG7 from inside the van. hadnt thought about what the back blast would do!!!!!

i do suspect that is an urban myth.

I remember seeing a Pig belonging to the RWF parked up in GCH Belfast, in '76.
It had been hit by a RPG.
There was the classic "splash" marks on the side of the veh and a finger-wide burn hole. There was a hole of the same diameter on the other side where the molten metal, etc had blasted straight through.
Incredibly, no casualties.

Not an urban myth, this time.

Been listening to the News about the latest Al-qaeda plot to blow up an Aeroplane using an operative with a bomb in his underpants, needless to say the plot was foiled. I have had a bomb in my underpants for years and never experienced any problems with Airport security, right enough, mine has been defused for years.

Is that us back to Barnes again?

Shelldrake wrote:

Been listening to the News about the latest Al-qaeda plot to blow up an Aeroplane using an operative with a bomb in his underpants, needless to say the plot was foiled. I have had a bomb in my underpants for years and never experienced any problems with Airport security, right enough, mine has been defused for years.

Oh dear !

Never misses a chance to get phallic does he ?

Taken over from you methinks

[quote="brum"]

csqnblackhat wrote:

........ He didn't actually succeed in his attempt because the hand throttle broke and he was unable to steer and keep the revs up at the same time...........

I remember this story circulating. At the time the general opinion among us was that once the ocean got the slightest ripple going the bloody Stalwart would've been swamped and he'd've gone down like a brick.........

Hmmm..... Sounds well thought out, this one. Can't confess to know much about Stalwart fuel consumption when firing up the water propulsion stuff, but I reckon there might have been a range problem after crossing Belgium. But I suppose steering might not have been necessary after he'd got in the water..... just point it and hope cross channel ferries kept out of the way. And crossing UK could have been difficult. I suppose he'd taken the trouble to get an advance booking to cross to Ireland from Holyhead........... Showed initiative, though, but it might have been more productive to nick a coracle or something.

And about the lad who spent a 72 with the Commies........ True one, which I was told by a mate years ago he'd been in a similar situation. He was NS in the Paras, in Berlin around the early 1950's. Got on the U-Bahn after a few beers & got off at the wrong station, one in the Ruskie zone. OK, I don't know whether this was easy to do but he swore it was & never elaborated on how he was treated. When he was turned loose, he was dischuffed to end up in the cells again until his charge of AWOL could be tabled. I've not seen him for over ten years now, but it would be interesting to find out more detail if I ever come across him again.

And being "You couldn't make it up " this could be applicable.............

Army followed the national trend & brought in metric in the 1970's. The Sappers were conversant with a bit of kit called the MGB, not a classic sports car, but the Medium Girder Bridge, a quick fix gap crosser with fewer bits than the Bailey. These bits came in 6'.0" lengths.

Seeking to avoid confusion between millimetres and inches, an order was drafted to clarify procedures. Near as dammit, it read:-

" For simplicity the metric system is to be adopted. To determine the number of panels required for an MGB, it will no longer be necessary to measure the gap in feet & divide by 6. Henceforth the gap is to be measured in metres & divided by 1.829".

Must have taken a genius to draft that instruction.

I wonder what the order would have been at Balaclava .... 'onward, onward, 2.41401 km, onward, into the Valley of Death rode the gallant 400'.
Don't have the same ring to it does it.

Len (Ciphers)

cartav wrote:

And being "You couldn't make it up " this could be applicable.............

Army followed the national trend & brought in metric in the 1970's. The Sappers were conversant with a bit of kit called the MGB, not a classic sports car, but the Medium Girder Bridge, a quick fix gap crosser with fewer bits than the Bailey. These bits came in 6'.0" lengths.

Seeking to avoid confusion between millimetres and inches, an order was drafted to clarify procedures. Near as dammit, it read:-

" For simplicity the metric system is to be adopted. To determine the number of panels required for an MGB, it will no longer be necessary to measure the gap in feet & divide by 6. Henceforth the gap is to be measured in metres & divided by 1.829".

Must have taken a genius to draft that instruction.

Being a late starter with the "Sappers and Miners" joining up again in 1975 and the MGB was all metric and 30 metres was the maximum gap without piers...happy days

brum wrote:

Shelldrake wrote:

Been listening to the News about the latest Al-qaeda plot to blow up an Aeroplane using an operative with a bomb in his underpants, needless to say the plot was foiled. I have had a bomb in my underpants for years and never experienced any problems with Airport security, right enough, mine has been defused for years.

Oh dear !

Never misses a chance to get phallic does he ?

Oh I don't know, I've had a bomb in my pants for years, and a noisy smelly one it is too.

Just recall one instance when I thought a colleague was making up a tale and was implying he was personally involved in an incident which I often related when the occasion arose...
It all involved a set-to with the RAF when we had to unload our own kit after German baggage handlers had gone on strike. In short, a squadron 4-tonner came too close to a VC10, so close that some paint was scraped off the Bedford RL. I was there, I knew my mate wasn't. If we hadn't have had so many strong lemonade shandies, maybe I could have taken him to one side later rather than confronted him in public...... I relented next day & apologised, but couldn't resist quoting chapter & verse about my take on the incident.

It so happened we were both right, we'd damaged two VC10s. In my case the truck had hit one of those floppy bits that hang from the trailing edge of wings, in the other incident, one year before, the fuselage had stopped the truck's rearward progress. Vehicles and personnel in attendance were prevented from straying off until VC10s had been inspected by experts, FMT 3s were completed after some head scratching. And no....... we didn't make it up !

brum wrote:

I remember seeing a Pig belonging to the RWF parked up in GCH Belfast, in '76.

God I hated being driven in Pigs.

We were there in early 74 and the weather was wet and windy.

No bloody windows, it was noisy, dirty, and bloody wet and windy!

Hated 'em.

Don`t like Pigs!

Why not, i love a bacon buttie

[quote="pete26

God I hated being driven in Pigs.

We were there in early 74 and the weather was wet and windy.

No bloody windows, it was noisy, dirty, and bloody wet and windy!

Hated 'em.

[/quote]

They were very good at keeping off bricks, bottles of paint, petrol bombs, bags of shit and all the other goodies the little bastards throw, though !

I`m very happy not to have had the experiance...

brum wrote:

[quote="pete26

God I hated being driven in Pigs.

We were there in early 74 and the weather was wet and windy.

No bloody windows, it was noisy, dirty, and bloody wet and windy!

Hated 'em.

They were very good at keeping off bricks, bottles of paint, petrol bombs, bags of shit and all the other goodies the little bastards throw, though !

[/quote]


Only problem was, they kept breaking down!

Shelldrake wrote:

Only problem was, they kept breaking down!

They used to have to rev like mad and only got to about 25mph.

Apart from draughty, they were damned noisy too.

If they had stripped them down to bare metal before they repainted them for NI service they would have been about 3/4 of a ton lighter and probably not have broken down so often

Was that not a job for the REME?(tic)

[quote="pete26"]

Shelldrake wrote:

That's not any kind of Pig I recognise, it's all one colour !

Probably waiting to be shipped to Oz to be taken on charge in Handlers MT Section.

[quote="brum"]

pete26 wrote:

Shelldrake wrote:

That's not any kind of Pig I recognise, it's all one colour !

Looks freshly painted to me.