EX PRAIRIE EAGLE II/2006

Hy guys,

to satisfy the tankies and all friends of heavy armour as well, let´s take a look to EX PRAIRIE EAGLE II, carried out by 4th Armoured Brigade from Osnabrück on the Drawsko-Pomorskie Training Area from 24th Septembre to 25.Novembre 2006.

This exercise was simply the best of all exercises I ever visited on the DPTA! You could see everything and we could feel free to go wherever we want on the range!

I will never forget that very day we actually wanted to move back to visit another exercise. It was a very nice and shiny autumn afternoon and we found ourselves somewhere in a wood where Warriors of Scots Guards leaguered up. I met some guys of their recce platoon I had big fun with on EX SWABIAN LANCE 2007.
One moment, their boss appeared proudly standing in the commander´s hatch of his warrior. He was more than happy to see us keeping his exercise on camera!
Once he heard that we wanted to move back this day, he said: You can´t go today - it´s my exercise, it´s a shame if you go! Tomorrow will be the best day! So you MUST stay one more day...!
Would you like to contradict a LtCol???? I think no!And it was quite a good decision!
He was right because the next day, we followed the battle group through the absolute outskirts from the DPTA what could have been somewhere in Germany! I think this was the first and the last time for this training area to see British Troops in that area!
It was crazy:deep in the area you found some Polish mushroompickers that made contact with British armour!

So, but now have fun and enjoy the impressions of my best FTX at the DPTA!









I love Chieftains!!!!!!!













Finally I´ve got to say:
Why hasn´t this FTX been carried out in a 443 area?I´s such a shame that I have to move hundreds of kilometres just to see my favourit army on a bloody training range...!
No army has retired in that way, even our German Bundeswehr has managed to get MBTs on the road even in the post Cold War Time!
I would give anything to see my army back in my environment but even QDG go anywhere to train but not in their former location....

But I have kept all those scenes on video as well so I can witness those moments a bit again and again.
When a Chieftain starts screaming I pump ob the volume!You can believe it!

Best regards, Tim!

Thanks Tim for these and your posting Ex Swaben Eagle - terrific. What memories they bring back. Also looked at your link - a great record of exercises by all the NATO troops well worth browsing.
Bob

Been out of it a long time but are they not Challengers and not Chieftains? Not a tankie so could be wrong?

The Royal Engineers used Chieftains, the Chieftain AVLB and AVRE. All the other ones are Challies, no doubt :-) !

This caption was dedicated to the Royal Engineers vehicles!

You will never forget the sound of a chieftain!

Greetinx Tim

Teabag wrote:

Been out of it a long time but are they not Challengers and not Chieftains? Not a tankie so could be wrong?

You're right of course teabag old horse. As said the AVRE are Chiefy-based.

Anyway, never mind all that.

That first shot, of a pristine MK Bedford. Lying on the roof of same, isn't it a (gulp) WOMAN ? !

I don't know what the army's coming to, they'll be letting Popsies into the damn navy next ! HAARRUUMPH !

You're right Brum, it is a woman. This is a Royal Signals Ptarmigan trunk radio detachment. Ptarmigan is almost phased out now, being replaced by Falcon, a 100% IP based communications system designed to inteface with Bowman, DII, etc to fully digitise the battle space. I need to get out more. Great pictures by the way Tim, exercising in the fields and forests of Germany was becoming financially and politically unacceptable, not to mention the German public concern over the huge amount of damage we caused. Saltau and Sennelager were too small and congested for big exercises so something had to give, Poland became available at just the right time.

Brum, you really must keep up to date!! A few years ago the term "Married Quarters" was changed to Service Families Accommodation, this is to accommodate the Civil Marriage Act - welcome to the new 21st Century British Military. That is why both soldiers in the first photograph aren't wearing Berets and carrying their personal weapon, like wot we did "back in the day".

I missed that young lady completely..Must have been cos she was lying on her front not her back

That guy will never stop that tank with those two yellow sticks. Brave like but stupid.

Missed the female myself. How the hell they concentrate on the war I will never know when you have totty around.

The 432's (or variants?) just bring it all back, smell, noise and usually freezing cold. Happy days!

Shelldrake wrote:

Brum, you really must keep up to date!! A few years ago the term "Married Quarters" was changed to Service Families Accommodation, this is to accommodate the Civil Marriage Act - welcome to the new 21st Century British Military. That is why both soldiers in the first photograph aren't wearing Berets and carrying their personal weapon, like wot we did "back in the day".

After my son was demobbed, back in the early 90s I confess I haven't taken much notice of the army.

Why don't they wear berets any more, (how the hell can you tell what regt they are ?). And not carrying a weapon, jesus, I had to have my equaliser surgically removed when I got back from NI !

Somehow, I don't think I'd like this present-day army.

brum wrote:

And not carrying a weapon, jesus, I had to have my equaliser surgically removed when I got back from NI !

Weapons are not issued if all you are going to do is test comms from a few locations, although on the training area, they might not have been part of the exercise. NI was an Op, so you lived with your personal weapon, just as it is in AFG today.

Don't they bother with black paint much these days either?

It was to an RSMs delight if he caught you without your PW on exercises..