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Not had a rattle for a long time Gordon......... This is a serious request, the detail of employment is lifted from the service record which I've been copied.

The thing about the beret is that every one looks different when worn. A bit of individuality is no bad thing.

Surely the most hated piece of headgear is the No 1 dress hat. (Called the No2 dress hat).
Hats, Hilarious, Hats, Hideous, Hats, Gas Meter Reading, Caps, Comical, Caps, C..., the list goes on. In Denmark, on a visit we found that the Danes had christened them "Salvation Army Piss Pots". (A bit harsh, we thought !).

Some of those wartime shots show berets worn in a variety of ways & angles. The "Spudsack ", the peakless cap of around 1944 & formed out of half a dozen bits khaki serge sewn together must have been hated more than the rest.

I think the headgear mentioned above gave rise to the nickname "Craphat".

Or twat hat

Quote :

This is a serious request, the detail of employment is lifted from the service record which I've been copied.

Get in touch with the originater and ask them what it is all about.

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

This is a serious request, the detail of employment is lifted from the service record which I've been copied.

Get in touch with the originater and ask them what it is all about.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enquirer is known to me. Info is required to enhance research being carried out into:-

359866 Spr. F.H. Duckett.

His trade of "Computer (SR)" was Pt II ordered in Oct. 1918 & he was rated
" Skilled ". Detail is taken from RE Only form recording Trade & Special Skills.


Latest communication from enquirer advises that he has found that, in 1918, a
Computer was someone employed to carry out routine calculations. That seems to end it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To add to Brum's detailed account of head dress, I would remind that , in RA at least, a side hat was known as a C... Cap. Examine one to see why. ( a cap, that is)

And surely the point of Uniform is that it IS "uniform" !. I never found that we were allowed to express individuality........... but I'm not saying I didn't have an urge to deviate when the rules seemed to have been formulated to add to my
personal discomfort !

I always carried one of these on Exercise, it was known as "The MT Sgts Mini Bar", it was on the G10 of all good Gunner Regiments.

Taken from the History of the Corps of Royal Engineers who quote it was a piece of survey kit...

In November, 1917, when the British and French divisions were sent to the Italian front, Lieut.-Colonel Winterbotham was ordered to go with three men to make geographical arrangements.....Lieut.-Colonel Winterbotham who had one good computer with him, converted the trigonometrical data of the British area into terms of the reference grid.

There you go
Best REgards
Steve

'Lo Steve...........

Guess yrs of yesterday just might have been in connection with my query about COMPUTER
of yonks ago, so thanks !

We did find out that in WW1 the RE trade of Computer (SR) was related to locating enemy
artillery by Sound Ranging. There was a TV programme about this in the non-too distant past....

I'm still baffled to some extent, but it seems like triangulation based on seeing the gun flash then noting the noise or air pressure generated on receivers placed at known locations.

Didn't they set out a series of microphones, each of which picked up the enemy guns on a different angle. I think those angles, when put on a map converged on the gun position.

There's a gent frequents these pages, aptly named Locator, who could give us the answer chapter and verse.

brum wrote:

Didn't they set out a series of microphones, each of which picked up the enemy guns on a different angle. I think those angles, when put on a map converged on the gun position.

There's a gent frequents these pages, aptly named Locator, who could give us the answer chapter and verse.

You should find the answer on here, unfortunately I was looking out of the window when this subject was covered!



nigelef..tripod.com/index.htm

Might have been a field radar lad Brum (like I was once for 8 baffling weeks in tech trg. In more danger from sparks which accompanied switching on the 3Mk2F than from a potential enemy).

But you're on the right track. Though I seem to recall the clever sod that invented SR started off with seeing a bit of toilet paper, or something like that, flapping about when distant guns were lobbing stuff over. And with the "SR" suffix to the Computer trade it seems probable that the REs had some other whizz kids who did calculations too. Surveyors of sorts, perhaps, before Gunners took them on board

As an aside, I must remark that, since I've been away, the input here seems to be of a higher tone now that the Scaleys aren't in evidence and the Gunners have taken over.

Heads down ! Incoming !!!

Don't be fooled mate, it's just a blip !

Probably the fore runner to this

Quote :

the U.S. military desired a mechanical calculator more optimized for scientific computation. By World War II the U.S. had battleships that could lob shells weighing as much as a small car over distances up to 25 miles. Physicists could write the equations that described how atmospheric drag, wind, gravity, muzzle velocity, etc. would determine the trajectory of the shell. But solving such equations was extremely laborious. This was the work performed by the human computers. Their results would be published in ballistic "firing tables" published in gunnery manuals. During World War II the U.S. military scoured the country looking for (generally female) math majors to hire for the job of computing these tables. But not enough humans could be found to keep up with the need for new tables. Sometimes artillery pieces had to be delivered to the battlefield without the necessary firing tables and this meant they were close to useless because they couldn't be aimed properly. Faced with this situation, the U.S. military was willing to invest in even more hair-brained schemes to automate this type of computation.

You could also try this if you can get hold of a copy.

Quote :

As an aside, I must remark that, since I've been away, the input here seems to be of a higher tone now that the Scaleys aren't in evidence and the Gunners have taken over.

Noted Cartav

I'm still putting my brass on a WW1 Computer being an intelligent squaddy rather than a box of electronic trickery.

When you think that something relatively simple like a rifle can't be made to put two rounds in the same hole over a minimal range, and no two mass produced rifles have exactly similar characteristics, what chance is there of getting two free flying arty. missiles close together after being lobbed much, much further? The para Gordon quotes doesn't mention individual barrel wear, slight imperfections in ammo. or that the atmospheric drag, wind speed & direction were fed down to the gun positions by Meteor Telegram and that such info must have been dubious when it was calculated by similar means to those weather forecasts we curse.

I'd gone back on to L70s by the time FACE came in .......... any of you young chaps got experience if that was more accurate than arty boards & displacement calculators ? And how was maximum range determined initially, anyway ? Couldn't have had a gang of lads with tape measures spaced out for ten miles down range could they ?

cartav wrote:

I'm still putting my brass on a WW1 Computer being an intelligent squaddy rather than a box of electronic trickery.

Couldn't have had a gang of lads with tape measures spaced out for ten miles down range could they ?

You reckon?

i believe everything i hear about gunners (tic)

cartav wrote:

As an aside, I must remark that, since I've been away, the input here seems to be of a higher tone now that the Scaleys aren't in evidence and the Gunners have taken over.

Heads down ! Incoming !!!

Cartav...while you have been away BAOR-locations (not the forum) was going down due the webmaster going AWOL...a Scaley knew another Scaley (not a forum member) who copied the website to CD this was sent to another Scaley who posted it to another Scaley who has now hosted the website as www.baor-locations.org

Well would you look at that, the only Sapper we've got and the bugger's a Scaley supporter !

He was a Scaley before he was a sapper....He reverted back

Sad to say, I've got to admit that we can't do without them.............. and I was one too for six months until I was adopted by REs to do something less complicated.

Expand a bit Cartav...Like.. we can't do without them..We really need them..They are the elite ...Etc.Etc.Etc.

I promise we wont blush.

Confession time. My Father in Law was a Scaley (TOT), my Son was a Sapper (Wedgie), Brother in Law REME. Thankfully no relatives in the ACC!

I promise there'll be no rude words, Gordon, nothing to make you sensitive, north o
the Border lads blush ...............................

But in all seriousness (for once ! ) Having read through Steve's account of why we still have something to fill lonely days, it looks like we've a lot to thank the Scaleys for. That's it,
congratulations on a job well done you lot !

Having got that out of the way I can revert to normal with a clear conscience.

Another serious bit........ quite out of character but seeing all these mentions of Wedgies, Scaleys, etc reminds me. One of my offspring is recently back from Afghan ( not military but technical input to replace all those uniformed experts who have been told they aren't needed any more )

In conversation with an RAF member, my lad's query on something related to flying was dismissed by " Don't ask me.... I'm a Crab ". So, you clever lot what's a CRAB in mil. speak?