C*ck ups

Don't blame me for Trudeau, I voted for Bob Stanfield .. I noticed Pierre's kid was on TV today being interviewed, he is about to right all the worlds wrongs ... talk about jobs for the boys .. I might respect him (although I doubt it) if he did a stint in Afghanistan ..

Len(Ciphers)
Yes, I'm, still around

Not so much a cock up, more a failure in communications. On second thoughts, a cock up as the hofficer involved was to arragant to listen to a mere corporal.

Picture the scene, Horse Guards parade. A beautiful june evening. The light Division are to beat retreat. HM the Queen Mum to take the salute. All troops and spectatorts awaiting her imminent arrival.

said officer collars me and chalkie, takes us through the arch, briefing goes thus,

HM will arrive by car via whitehall, car will stop in the yard. HM will be greeted by all the Top Brass (lined up ready and waiting by the gate), they will then walk through the arch onto Horseguards. You two will then close the gates and stay outside till the finale, then let her car through to pick her up.

Me. Right sir, but if her driver sees the gates open won't he drive straight through onto Horseguards. Should we push the gates to now, just in case

No her driver has been fully briefed, he knows what to do.

HM arrives, her driver goes straight through the arch, followed by
the fastest group of brass I have ever seen.

Oh Did me and Chalkie laugh

ciphers wrote:

Don't blame me for Trudeau, I voted for Bob Stanfield .. I noticed Pierre's kid was on TV today being interviewed, he is about to right all the worlds wrongs ... talk about jobs for the boys .. I might respect him (although I doubt it) if he did a stint in Afghanistan ..

Len(Ciphers)
Yes, I'm, still around

I voted Stanfield to. But I guess it t'weren't enought Len.

Now this one I got 2nd hand, but apparently it happened.

Summer concentration in Wainwright 63. A British regiment was on Exercise with the Canadians. A young British Liaison officer arrives at Bde. H.Q's and leaps out a Canadian issue jeep with head set on and reels out an extended head set cable from his 42 set into the HQ's tent with his head set firmly placed on his head. Very proud of this buck shee set up he has. After a while the Brigadier asked if there was a vehicle available to run a msg some where. Young officer volunteers his jeep (you know where this is going don't you). Walks out gives the msg to the driver who smartly takes off. The young officer realizes his error, holds his hand up and said/shouted , " Unngghh" as the cable twisted around his leg and head. He survived only his pride was wounded by all the colonials larrfing.

LOL, I can just picture that. LMAO. I got lost doing a step up once, ended up in totally the wrong part of the ex area and off the maps. That was fun, but I got away with it, no one noticed.

On a 92 (Reserve Shadow) Company RAOC ex in Norway. 4 Eager Beavors dropped of at company location with no forks. RCT promise to get them to us. In the meantime I hear that 1 x EB was rolled and was a write off at another location, so drives EB less forks, 25 KM to other location and liberates said fork set, and tool kit for good measure, and returns to location. RCT inform us that forks are still in UK so for 2 days we were to make do with one usable fork truck.

Well 2, as that evening the RCT forward sqadron 'lost' one of its fork sets, which turns out to be marked with OUR EB Registration Number! Turns out it was not 92 Coy's forks that had been forgotten.... so by the next day we had 3 sets, and a very red faced RCT transport officer.

After this our Eager Beavors, had a mod done that carried forks to the rear of seats above the valves etc, and could be locked in place. Plus we ended up with a spare set after Norway. Result.

I'm sure each one of us could write a book on the cockups we've seen.
My first major one was in the very early 60's. We were taken to watch a firepower demonstration, probably SLTA. To the side of the spectator's area was a static display, in the middle of which was a Corporal missile. Being early, we settled down to watch the Range Wardens driving around the impact area wetting everything down.
The demo started with an Arty concentration followed by an Infantry and Armour attack, usual stuff but some Colonel Blimp had decided that the climax was to be a couple of Supermarine Swifts flying in from Belgium and putting in an air strike with napalm.
Suitably impressed with the napalm we suddenly noticed that the woods had caught fire and the wind was blowing the flames across our front towards the display area. Now most of the kit in there was a case of "hook up and f... off" but a Corporal missile takes a bit more planning to bring out of action.
The terrified looking crew got the missile away with a couple of minutes to spare but I bet that was the fastest that had ever been done!
I don't think I ever saw napalm used on those ranges again.

Jesus, playing with Napalm, that must have been horrific. Talk about idiots.

Napalm (naphthenic and palmitic acids) is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in military operations, and is simply jellied petrol! But nasty stuff as it sticks to you. Best remembered as used by the Yanks as a 'Fire Bomb' in the Vietnam War known as Napalm 877.

"Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Napalm generates temperatures of 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius."

Modern napalm is composed primarily of benzene and polystyrene, and is known as Napalm-B, burns for longer and is more localised other than for fire spreeding of course! and harder to extinguish...

We used to use White Phosphors in grenades (No80) and Morter Bombs etc, as a Smoke Screening Agent which was just as bad as Napalm and set fire to Salsbury Plain on a regular basis, and in some areas you can still dig it up, and it bursts back into flame if exsposed to oxygen in air. We of course 'never' used it against people''

P.S. I hope it was a DP Corporal missile with a Drill Warhead 'without fuel' or that would have been fun!

Tea Bag that one about the two guys arguing and a helicopter burnt, i was in HQ AAC 1(BR) Corps when it came through and Brig Jamie Crowe(Deceased) Nearly had convulsions on the spot. Well here is the proper story:

A certain Airtrooper Brain of Bowser Troop was told to show a young lad how to refuel aircraft, and he stated that Avn Fuel does not burn(which is right but the fumes do) so he got a small saucer of fuel next to an Aircraft he had just refueled with a few others next to it and set light to a match to demonstrate the said theory, but by the time the match got near the saucer of fuel the fumes went up and so did one aircraft, luckily they got the rest of aircraft away from the burning one and saved a lot of embarressment.

Brain was then cordially invited to the guardhouse for 28 days, and shortly after he came out of the pokey, Brig Crowe decided to visit the Regiment, he landed his aircraft who was there to refuel him none other than Airtpr Brain. needless to say said airtpr was on a plane back to uk by 4pm that afternoon, and the CO had a big flea in his ear.

Here is anaother one for u, certain SNCO's of AAC were out on scheme trying out the New Clansman Avn Radio in the late 70's and it was a hot day so they went into a pub for some light refreshment and when they came out they saw a soxmis car driving away, and said landrover minus one Clansman Avn radio unit. What a cock up. p.s they never did get it back

Talk about this as a cock up then , we were on scheme from UK 3 Regt last regimental concetration before it was disbanded and re-constituted in BAOR as supporting 3 Armd Div.

We were sent on a night move to a new hide, we arrived settled the Aircraft and dug in, all super hero like. then about 3 am in the morning this guy with a funny hat and feather in it started walking towards the SHQ command post, ranting and raving when he finally stopped he explained that we were in a Wildlife & Water conservation area, and we had to move, so there we were filling in slit trenches and thunderbox (Offr use only) getting the aircraft ready to fly out. it turned out apart from the embaressment some dopey one pip wonder at RHQ had given us the wrong grid, so there u had a bunch of 80 hairy squaddies trying to fill in trenches get Aircraft moved and vehicles especially the fuel bowsers out by first light and into a new hide, well we failed miserably. That one pip wonder was never heard of again. I wonder why

LOL Taffy, you seem to have a whole host of cock ups there.

Oh i got a lot more too as befits the British Army but all done in the best possible taste LOL

LOL Indeed mate.

here is a good one, we had an EME a captain who was full of him self and we were on one exercise where the boss wanted a full porcleiner as he was fed up with shovel recces, so we pulled the Sqn into a lovely farm yard and we did a deal with the farmer (nuff said) and we also had a shower as well, which was brill after being in the field for a month (we were a bit rancid) but only problem was as u got out the shower there was a plain glass window and you could show all what u had to the farmers daughters and of course us lot being shy forgot to tell the eme about it (as at endex he was off back to UK to get married) so he had his shower stepped out and proceeded to dry himself off so the whole sqn turn upin the yard, and when he came out we cheered him, 'shouting we know what she is getting' this included the oc and ssm, he went so red u could have fried an egg on his bum lol, then he tried to get his own back until the Oc told him to wind his neck in and grow up, your with proper men now. no in the offrs mess with the kids. lol

yet another:

On scheme in season, again, i was doing my stint on guard in a sqn hide, when i saw these little yellow lights, thinking what is that, it turned out to be a wild boar,and started running at me well, i was up the side of the MK faster than a rat up a drain pipe, it actually turned out we were camped in the Boars nest, not a good decision. so when i was relieved i went for a gonk, and none of us could sleep due to all the grunting we kept hearing, thinking it was the Boar we refused to move, then we found out the grunting was the SSM and AQMS they were sharing a tent. needless to say we took the mickey out of them for the rest of the scheme, but they got there own back on us. as all good Sarn't Majors do, but in subtle ways.

p.s

meant to say they were snoring nothing else

TaffyS wrote:

p.s

meant to say they were snoring nothing else

Had me worried there for a minute. Not sure about the burnt helicopter. Either was in comcen when signal was sent or was informed by someone who was. For some reason I thought he got a lot longer in the clink but bow to your greater knowledge.

TaffyS wrote:

p.s

meant to say they were snoring nothing else

Yes, thank god for the clarification.

jim wrote:

LOL, I can just picture that. LMAO. I got lost doing a step up once, ended up in totally the wrong part of the ex area and off the maps. That was fun, but I got away with it, no one noticed.

No-one noticed? Must be great to be indispensible Jim!

Ah but I said the shot was out, worked every time mate.

NOT BAOR,but worthy of a mention,we had an officer pilot in hong kong,[a sandhurst type officer],for some reason his welcome speach to all new commers was that dont think that because your in HK you can enjoy yourself your hear to work,in 1977 during an exercise witch involved a night move[very rare in HK].he duly took off in his gazelle and made his way to the new location,tolo harbour,a bright moonlight night the moon reflecting off the water,and he made a landing on the water,he and his passengers survived but the gazelle was cat 3,[got what he deserved the misserable barsteward.

LOL Dandc, I like it. They were lucky though.