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threeputt
24th Jan 2007, 21:41
Anyone got any good or otherwise TACEVAL tales? Marham, sometime in the early days of the Tornado GR1, unplanned opposition take-off with two jets going for it from either end on some form of "special" mission. The call from one, very cool, stick monkey was, apparently, "you go left and I'll go left," :ok:

Back in the early 80's in the UK. I'll keep some other's for when the thread slows down.

JG

ShyTorque
24th Jan 2007, 22:05
Oh yes, plenty (we've done this before though).

First ever TACEVAL of deployed SH squadron in RAFG, early 1980s. Senior Engineer on TACEVAL team (no heli experience, only Jaguars) says to Puma pilot about to start up to take off from a farmer's paddock: "Right - you have battle damage on your aircraft"

Puma pilot: "Where?"
Eng: "Right there!" (points to cabin door). "A four inch hole. What are you going to do?"
Puma pilot: "Nothing".
Eng: "WHAT?
Puma pilot: "It's non structural"
Eng: "WHAT? You have to do SOMETHING!"

Puma pilot immediately pulls jettison handle on door, removes door and hands it to engineer, telling him to hang on to it very tightly while he takes off on task.....

Speechless engineer didn't hang on tight enough, did he? As the Puma took off vertically, the downwash blew the door back into the engineer's face, giving him a bloody nose. :ugh:

dum_my
24th Jan 2007, 23:02
Scottish AD station. The Scottish Gp Capt is in the hot seat. He thinks it would be good to take to the airwaves at regular intervals to brief everyone how his war is going.

Tony Tannoy is born.

Sure enough, his tannoy warblings cause vastly more confusion than benefit. After a while, the TACEVAL team get to the standard part of the script which says: "Incapacitate the Stn Cdr, and let OC Ops take charge until Endex".

Records differ as to what happened next, but according to my sources:

a. Tony Tannoy refused to be killed off!
b. Half the TACEVAL team told the other half that because he is causing so much chaos, he should be kept alive.
c. So they left him where he was.

SASless
24th Jan 2007, 23:50
OSD Test II back in the 70's, testing whether a National Guard unit provided sufficient logistics and training could be combat effective within six weeks of call to active duty.

Translated....thousands being stupid in the woods of Fort Stewart, Georgia. Units of the 1st Cav (regular Army as aggressors) against Guardsmen (Weekend warriors) from the 30th Infantry Division.

Division Commander pax in a Kiowa....take me to this location...big thumb on map...yeppers..."no problem boss says I."

Along the way he says there will be a tank battle going on when we get to the location...."Oh, Cool says I."

We arrive and observe many tanks and lots of smoke and dust....Orbit here says he....I do and look down on the second time around the intersection to find myself bore sighting an aceytlene powered M2 Browning .50 Caliber.

The TC in the turret of the M-60 Tank lights off the .50 cal....and I have a Vietnam flashback kinda thing....and instinctively perform a "Lets get the hell out here maneuver" which slightly surprised the Boss. He went from looking down and left to seeing trees over the sky and the entire world spinning like a top then tree limbs flapping against the skids.

A very quiet period of time went by....and the boss looks across at me....all chalky faced and trying to put his stomach back down where it came from...and says "uhhhhhh....guess you been shot at before?"

I swear I saw tracers....

Dan Winterland
25th Jan 2007, 02:36
How we chortled when we heard the least popular Sqn on station had dropped a rather special sort of bomb (actually - a training device) and watched it roll across the HAS floor in front of the DI staff.

And how we didn't see the funny side when this incident got the station failed - the result being a three day exercise each month for 6 months while on notice for our next TACEVAL.

Wader2
25th Jan 2007, 09:29
Anyone got any good or otherwise TACEVAL tales? Marham, sometime in the early days of the Tornado GR1, unplanned opposition take-off with two jets going for it from either end on some form of "special" mission. The call from one, very cool, stick monkey was, apparently, "you go left and I'll go left," :ok:

Unlike the super cool tale I was told by my Wg Cdr Ops well pre-taceval.

Middleton-St-George. 16 ship Javelin formation running in. Lead looks up to see 24 ship Hunter formation in his 12. Super cool Hunter leader makes the same call except "you go left; I'll go right"

The Javelins broke right.

Wader2
25th Jan 2007, 09:37
The Scottish Gp Capt is in the hot seat. He thinks it would be good to take to the airwaves at regular intervals to brief everyone how his war is going.

Even further north, good game, about 1978. Baddies take over the guardroom.

GDOC makes tannoy call to tell everyone the guardroom has been taken over.

"Oh no it hasn't" comes back over the tannoy.

"This is OC Admin, oh yes it has."

and so on.

Then Endex was called. Oh no it isn't.

That's when they found the guardroom had an override function over the GDOC.

At least the next 30 minutes enlivened the troops as we were all in the picture.

Eventually the stalemate was broken when OC Admin sent out a message "Disregard all tannoy broadcasts"

That didn't work either :}

snapper41
25th Jan 2007, 10:03
I recall a tale of a Harrier sqn int officer on Day 1 of TACEVAL back in the 80s. Said Int O was in his tent at the Harrier hide 'somewhere in Germany', with the great and the good, plus TACEVAL team, assembled before him for the int brief. He goes to point at the map with his pointing stick, but forgets that a 12x12 tent hasn't got much room when packed with people, and manages to hit the Staish in the eye with the stick. Staish is CASEVACed off the TACEVAL, thereby promoting everyone else instantly, and producing an inject that not even the TACEVAL writers could have thought of!

Wyler
25th Jan 2007, 10:13
Walking from Ops site to feeder. Just off the track we see a soldier holding a red flag.

'What is he doing'? I enquire.

'Left Marker for the firing range' was the reply.

'What if he gets shot' I say, somewhat alarmed.

'We have lots of soldiers' was the reply.

Inspector Dreyfuss
25th Jan 2007, 11:35
Wyler - I think you should have also enlightened the punters about your invitation to dance with the Turkish officers and how you escaped through a window in the gents to avoid a bit of cheek-to-cheek action with large men with moustaches!

Wyler
25th Jan 2007, 11:44
hmmmmm yes, still have bad dreams about that. Big hairy blokes with guns, full of beer asking one to dance is not, IMHO, a good night out. Mind you, having climbed through the window in the gents I found myself 'downtown' in a very dodgy part of the neighbourhood. Lesser of two evils I decided and scuttled back to the Hotel.

On the plus side, it's the only time in my life that I have been to a dinner dance and known I was guaranteed a shag if I wanted one......:eek:

threepointonefour
25th Jan 2007, 11:58
I once div'd into Manchester and went for lunch at the BA cafe ... my gun set the detector alarm off and the security staff let me thru, so long as I passed it form right to left hand, around the detector!

I guess they'd already spotted it was 'only a Walther' and was less dangerous then the cafe cutlery!

LFittNI
25th Jan 2007, 12:28
Winter 1968, at RAF What-a-shame. Dark, loads of snow, very early a.m.
TACEVAL called.
QRA hanger erupts with activity as number 1 Lightning scrambled.
Squadron SEngO (Sqdn.Ldr. "Sh!tface" L*******, an awful excuse for a human being) turns up to rubberneck.
Sees an SAC operating the mini-snowblower on the paths and road leading to the hanger. Tears a strip off the SAC for not clearing it quickly enough, decides to set an example and takes over the snowblower.
Unfortunately, he insists on doing it his way, and at the end of every run he turns the blower exhaust shute round 180 degrees (get the picture in your mind's eye?)
So, as he tracks across the road, the snow he has been ejecting gradually fills up the spaces he has cleared.
Only after about 15 minutes did he realise what he had been doing. Perhaps it was the sight of the groundcrew laughing at him from the warmth of the QRA crewroom............:)

Dan Winterland
25th Jan 2007, 12:32
Speaking of Divs - day one of a three day TACEVAL with a DI staff on the jump seat. DI staff says "Bang - you've just been hit by a SAM. What are you going to do?"

"Divert to Leuchars" we say.

"Go on then" he replied.

So we did - and went U/S. Due to exercise manning constraints, it took two days to get the parts and the engineers up to porridge land. Best TACEVAL I can remember! We were in quite a lot of pooh when we got back from a boss who wasn't quite sure if we weren't pulling a fast one. But not as much pooh as the DI staff.

Wader2
25th Jan 2007, 12:52
Then of course there was the ultimate snafu, F4 one Fox 2 :)

As zee German doing a parallel attack who said "Zee RAF are doing it very realistically, I think'll I'll go home."

threeputt
25th Jan 2007, 15:51
In '88 I was a u/t member of the NATO TACEVAL team, learning the in's and out's of evaluating special missions with my mentor, a B52 Nav Rad who had a Masters in Atomic science. We were evaluating the guy's at Hann AFB in SW Germany. They flew the F16A's in the Tri-mission role (precursor to swing role) doing AD, Attack and Strike. Didn't do to well in the last category unfortunatley and, subsequently, the Wing Commander and Base commander had window seats back home to Washington.
For those of you not versed in USAF ways, they didn't scramble on the big launch because of an emb***erance called the "last chance checks" That meant that they would taxi to make their planned launch time, have the "take off" time noted by a member of the distaff and then taxi down the main and back to the holding point where the engineers would then check the ac and remove any offending pins, and finally arm any bombs or missiles etc. A bit girlie but then it was ultimatley safe! Picture the scene, Captain X taxying back to the gingers has a major Hydrazine leak, just passing ATC, so emergency shuts down and vacates Uncle Sam's crook F16A a bit sharpish and runs off upwind. "Bit of bad luck really," we all said later because, in his haste, he had forgotten to apply the handbrake and, as the ac was stopped on a downwards facing bit of concrete.....yes you've guessed it, bloody thing starts to roll, forwards, towards a huge hangar full of ac! Thankfully, for Captain X, it's progress was arrested and it eventually came to a rest with the pitot probe poked through the side of a vehicle. Turns out that it was the staff car of a senior member of the TACEVAL team:D Can't recall if Captain X also got a window seat. You really couldn't make it up!

3P

newt
25th Jan 2007, 16:32
Bruggen in Jaguar days.................Over the tannoy with a very Irish accent................"FIRE FIRE FIRE There's a dog in the fire section"
pause.......................
"FIRE FIRE FIRE There's a fire in the dog section"
Big round of applause!!
Happy Days

ShyTorque
25th Jan 2007, 17:23
Another SH RAFG one. Taceval team inject some chemical death and destruction, with casualties lying on the ground outside. At a similar time, a Puma lands. After a short delay, the Puma crewman appeared inside the command post, red in the face and angry. We're all in NBC kit in the barn, he is in normal flying kit. He didn't notice!
"I don't bloody believe it", says he. "Here we are on TACEVAL and the groundcrew are all outside lying on the ground sunbathing! I've put two of the buggers on a charge!"
:D

NRU74
25th Jan 2007, 19:04
Laarbruch - mid seventies - got a "2" for "Strike". The Di Staff, having given their reasons, then gave way to the Stn Cdr who made a short speech ending with - "and if Laarbruch don't get a "1" for Strike next time - my co*k's a kipper" at which this Luftwaffe Leutnant on my right turned to his mate, and said [something like] "Was ist - Mein Hahn ist ein Haring ?"

C130 Techie
25th Jan 2007, 19:05
Binbrook in the mid 80s. Survival scramble is called and 15 or so Lightnings start up and taxy. First jet away thunders off down the runway and as it rotates the canopy comes off and smacks the fin. Result - Taceval on hold and a large number of fuel guzzling aircraft queued up waitng to go whilst the damaged aircraft recovers. Aircraft landed safely thankfully.

Taceval Part 1 in the snow at Binbrook where in over 10 hours not a single aircraft was generated due to them all being stuck in the hangar behind tons of snow

Years later at Lyneham was one of the lucky ones on the B Line nightshift who were all killed off within 30 mins of arriving in work, the reason being that there were too many techies for the number of available aircraft. Best Taceval ever thats for sure.

Pontius Navigator
25th Jan 2007, 19:16
Years later at Lyneham was one of the lucky ones on the B Line nightshift who were all killed off within 30 mins of arriving in work, the reason being that there were too many techies for the number of available aircraft. Best Taceval ever thats for sure.

Yeah, I had one of those at St Mawgan. Hooter went.

Phone call - you are for Gibraltar Ops. Stay at home - simulated flight to Gib.

Two days later, phone call. Where the hell are you, the exercise finished yesterday?

How was I to know at St Evil :} if no one tells you. Brill.

airborne_artist
25th Jan 2007, 19:18
Back in the 80s I was a member of the TA version of the balaclava-wearing moustached organisation, and we had been given BH as a location to test during a UK-wide ex. Rules did not allow any offensive action.

One of our number was 35, but looked much older. A general's uniform (from WW2, complete with some WW1 medal ribbons) was procured, and a car-dealer member produced a shiny black Granada from his lot, and it was adorned with a 2* plate borrowed from a contact.

General is driven up to gate at BH, and out hops his "ADC" (ex RGJ Captain, now a Cpl, but the uniform still fitted) who explains that the General was just passing and wanted to look in on how things are going. Much bowing and scraping, General and ADC ask to go for a leak - ADC opens briefcase and leaves pseudo PE4 in waste bin.

More bowing and scraping and off they go.

OC guardforce most upset to be told by umpire his unit was now toast.

Later I'll tell you about the time when we appeared from the back of a Chin**k, one of our number wielding a running petrol-powered angle-grinder..

trap one
25th Jan 2007, 19:31
At the re taceval after Threeputt's rogue F16 I was part of the Taceval Team checking the ops and was playing the shot down pilot. Dropped off at the Golf course next to the Glow in the dark bunkers. Proceeded to dump parachute and run away.
Was specifically briefed if challenged only to react to official wording of "stop stand still or I fire" Also was informed that people in yellow Day-Glo were live armed.
Large gentleman in camouflage shouts "freeze mother F%£$%r". This being nowhere close to briefed standard, continued moving away. 3 rounds of LIVE 55.6 over my head brings instant brake application!!!

cynicalint
25th Jan 2007, 19:48
At ISK in late 80's after 10 years of participating, I was in the hallowed postion of observer during a minival; we had a Norwegian P3 as the defecting aircraft; it had parked up on the northen pan of the airfield and the crew was disembarking. F/L F**d H*n**y was the AEO Stn Int and was starting to deal with the crew. One of the uber-fit norgies decided he did not want to be interviewed by F**d and sprinted towards Findhorn foundation. F**d being keen took chase; well, a six foot 25 year old racing snake of a Norgie, shouting 'catch me' being chased by a 50+yr old F**d whose handlebar moustache was wider than he was tall shouting "come back, I want to talk to you!" is a sight,that could not be made up and still makes me laugh today.

Pontius Navigator
25th Jan 2007, 20:17
At ISK . . . the northen pan of the airfield . F/L F**d H*n**y was the AEO Stn Int he was then too but not relevant :).

One RAF Plod FS from Northern was half way up a grass covered hangar.

In those days Taceval dress was blues or come as you are.

Self, in blues, to FS also in blues "Who are you?" or words to that effect.

FS "Who are you?"

"Come down"

"No you come up here"

Armed as we were in those days with words and bugger all else it was a bit of a standoff until someone told him to stop b*ggering about and come down to get arrested.

Or all those pieces of paper stuck to windows "Sand bagged"

lsh
25th Jan 2007, 20:48
Re; the second post (SH Taceval)
I was the crewman!
Me and "spiny" Norm were sat on the step when someone ran across the field, we "shot" them but, said the DI-staff, they managed to place a timebomb under the wheel!!
OK says "DB" lets fly-away, this was when that door incident took place.
The DI-staff man insisted that "the paperwork" was completed!!!!, it was.
Once airborne we were called back to take the casualty to Rinteln hospital, doorless of course!
Obviously I shall have the good taste not to mention the incident with the farmers daughter and the NVG's!!! "Guten abend"!
lsh.

The Helpful Stacker
25th Jan 2007, 20:52
When I was a young LAC at RAF Locking I was 'lucky' enough to be stitched with being on the station Incident Response Team.

With Locking being a training unit and the main threat seemingly being those nasty reds attacking us with chemicals to kill off the replacements in training our version of a taceval was slightly toned down.

It turned out to be us poor sods on the IRT living in the basement of the building the commcen was in for a week, occasionally poking our heads outside the 'CLOPRO' (lines marked on the floor to represent the different areas) to carry out nerve agent checks, fill in pretend bomb damage and having to walk to the mess in 3R for meals, after decontaminating in another 'CLOPRO' up there of course.

NATO's front line we were.:rolleyes:

cynicalint
25th Jan 2007, 20:59
In those days Taceval dress was blues or come as you are.


Nothing quite so less warlike than a grumpy chf tech with blue woolly pully with saggy neckline over an enormous beer belly, DPM trousers two sizes too big and DMS shoes which had not seen a brush since basil died!!!! picture completed with a beret that was worn like a heli landing pad, which led to the phrase of a 'Chf techs beret' to describe a badly worn piece of badly designed slopp cloth on a badly coifferd head (along with copious amounts of dandruff if you were unlucky)...Glad we've moved on????

Pontius Navigator
25th Jan 2007, 21:11
Nothing quite so less warlike than a grumpy chf tech with blue woolly pully with saggy neckline over an enormous beer belly, DPM trousers two sizes too big and DMS shoes which had not seen a brush since basil died!!!! picture completed with a beret that was worn like a heli landing pad, which led to the phrase of a 'Chf techs beret' to describe a badly worn piece of badly designed slopp cloth on a badly coifferd head (along with copious amounts of dandruff if you were unlucky)...Glad we've moved on????

I spent one taceval at ISK in the fire section wrapped up in a white suit. From time to time Fred Kano's army would turn up, the SRF, with one evil b*gger carrying an LMGand wearing Belgian parachutist's uniform.

Professional trained killers :)

Green Flash
25th Jan 2007, 21:17
Urban myth? Dunno, but here goes .....

Late '80's in Germany, the Harrier Force is out camping and it's being Taceval'd. Two herberts at the control of entry point to a flying site. It's dark. It's cold. Very cold. And it is absolutely hissing down. As the rain drips off the end of noses and muzzles our two heroes are well into a sense of humour failure and still alot of stag to go. In the darkness the only sound is of the ice cold deluge and the growing sound of many large deisel engines getting closer. This was a German Panzer unit arriving to take over the range the following day. One of them has become detached from the pack is blundering about the pitch black sodden forest. It's getting much closer now, trees can be heard snapping in the dark and the driver is playing tunes on the gearbox. Closer the beast comes, the woods are filled with roaring engine. Suddenly, with a scream of tortured metal, a Leopard MBT lands on the track in front of our two. It sits there for a minute, the rain hissing off the exhausts. Slowly the turret hatch opens and a head carefully emerges. 'Halt, Airforce' says our man, pointing his SLR whilst looking up the barrel of a bloody big tank gun. 'Ah, Britisch', says matey on the turret, & then looking at the rifle, 'but I think mine is bigger than yours!'. I suppose you had to be there.

Melchett01
25th Jan 2007, 21:50
Not a personal experience, but one that was related to me by an ex Gp Capt from his first days out of the factory.

Said (then) JO rocks up at his new unit, then the second best radar unit out of 2 in the RAF, keen and eager to impress. The Stn Cdr decides that it was about time the Stn's wartime response plan was tested and gave it to our hero as a project. The time and date was set, all that was required was an enemy force.

After much pondering on how he could make things go with a bang and get his new boss' attention as a first rate chap, things weren't going too well, but one night in the bar got chatting to a visitor to the Mess. Apparently the visitor was in the Marines and claimed to be able to help our hero out. Phone numbers were duly exchanged and a couple of days later our hero got a phone call asking if a couple of chaps could pop over to the unit to do a recce. On arriving, a couple of long haired chaps who looked as though they had stood about a foot too far away from their razors in the morning got out of a car. The fact they were wearing the then equivalent of North Face jackets, boots and jeans should have started alarm bells ringing but it didn't. All our hero could think about was getting these scruffs off the Station before the SWO, let alone the Stn Cdr saw them.

In the end, the recce took less than an hour and all they seem to be interested in was did the Guard Force have dogs. Again, alarm bells should have now been ringing loudly, but our hero, being fresh out of the factory still thought he was on to a winner.

The day before the exercise, he pops into see the Stn Cdr; everything is sorted, an enemy force has been arranged, the exercise will start at 0700 tomorrow morning. Only our hero and the Stn Cdr knew what was going on.
By 0650 the following morning, the Stn Cdr and our hero were stood on the highest point in the unit waiting for the off. 0700 comes and goes. Nothing. The Stn Cdr turns to our hero and asks what is going on. By 0705, the Stn Cdr is getting annoyed and our hero is starting to panic. He needn't have.
By 0715, the exercise was over. The Stn had fallen to enemy hands, the Stn Cdr had been shot and the rest of the minions gassed, shot or taken prisoner.

What our hero hadn't realised when he was organising the exercise was the provenance of the enemy he had arranged. The Marine he was chatting to in the bar was in fact stationed at Arbroath along with his long haired North Face wearing chums, the signficance of which our hero failed to appreciate. So just after 0705 when the Stn Cdr was starting to get really impatient with our hero, and as both were looking in the wrong direction, neither noticed the flight of Sea Kings loaded up with SBS coming in over the coast about as low as you could go without stripping the paint off the bottom of the cabs. The first thing anyone knew was when one cab put down in the Car Park next to HQ, stormed SHQ and the nearby accommodation whilst the occupants of the other cabs were busy neutralising the Stn Guard Force and securing the perimeter.

On the plus side, they managed to avoid the usual tedium of exercise injects that make no sense whatsoever. On the minus side, the AOC was none too impressed and I believe they had to re-do the exercise a few weeks later. Mind you, the Stn Cdr had second thoughts about getting our hero to organise that one!

ShyTorque
25th Jan 2007, 22:24
Re; the second post (SH Taceval)
I was the crewman!
Me and "spiny" Norm were sat on the step when someone ran across the field, we "shot" them but, said the DI-staff, they managed to place a timebomb under the wheel!!
OK says "DB" lets fly-away, this was when that door incident took place.
The DI-staff man insisted that "the paperwork" was completed!!!!, it was.
Once airborne we were called back to take the casualty to Rinteln hospital, doorless of course!
Obviously I shall have the good taste not to mention the incident with the farmers daughter and the NVG's!!! "Guten abend"!
lsh.

Ah, lsh - so that was you, certainly DB was the pilot! PD was the angry crewman putting GCs on charges.

"Guten abend" indeed! I'd forgotten that one! MALM "AT" was involved in that, if I recall correctly?

Wasn't that the 'A' Flt barn location, when a certain Beefer saw a rat running in the hay and made the mistake of showing how scared of them he was? We spent a long time on shift that night, squeaking like rats in the dark, to various expletives and torchlight from said Pilot! :E

The same site where I landed in RT silence to the sight of everyone else in full NBC kit; we had heard nothing about an increased NBC state. I then received a message via a piece of paper held to my window by Sgt Caffyn in S6 respirator which said: "DO NOT LAND - YOU ARE CONTAMINATED!"

We took off again vertically and scattered the entire contents of the TACEVAL team leader's file into the adjacent trees! We arrived back half an hour later to see them still trying to poke sheets of classified A4 out of the tree branches with a long stick. Ooops.

Oh, happy days!

RETDPI
26th Jan 2007, 07:55
Urban myth? Dunno, but here goes .....

Late '80's in Germany, the Harrier Force is out camping and it's being Taceval'd. Two herberts at the control of entry point to a flying site. It's dark. It's cold. Very cold. And it is absolutely hissing down. As the rain drips off the end of noses and muzzles our two heroes are well into a sense of humour failure and still alot of stag to go. In the darkness the only sound is of the ice cold deluge and the growing sound of many large deisel engines getting closer. This was a German Panzer unit arriving to take over the range the following day. One of them has become detached from the pack is blundering about the pitch black sodden forest. It's getting much closer now, trees can be heard snapping in the dark and the driver is playing tunes on the gearbox. Closer the beast comes, the woods are filled with roaring engine. Suddenly, with a scream of tortured metal, a Leopard MBT lands on the track in front of our two. It sits there for a minute, the rain hissing off the exhausts. Slowly the turret hatch opens and a head carefully emerges. 'Halt, Airforce' says our man, pointing his SLR whilst looking up the barrel of a bloody big tank gun. 'Ah, Britisch', says matey on the turret, & then looking at the rifle, 'but I think mine is bigger than yours!'. I suppose you had to be there.

A very similar incident certainly did happen one night on HF in 1977 during the summer camping hols. The following morning I strolled across to said Leopard and climbed up to talk to the commander. I mentioned the irony of the plan for the Brits and Germans to fall back together should the next big misunderstanding take place.
"Fall back be b*ggered" he replied in perfect English ,then tapping the side of the turret, " This machine is going to Berlin!"
Its something in the genes I think.

teeteringhead
26th Jan 2007, 08:01
In those days Taceval dress was blues or come as you are.
... puts me in mind of the Air Trafficker (now a successful Estate Agent), a shelter marshal in the war games, who was called in for a TACEVAL whilst on terminal leave.

"But I've binned/sold almost all my uniforms!"

"Come in in what you've got" ...... a shelter marshal in No 1s is quite impressive.

.....and I think I remember AA's "angle grinder out the back of a wokka" story also.....;)

In Tor Wot
26th Jan 2007, 08:27
Not quite TACEVAL but . . . During Ex Grave Defender (1988?) I was a guard on the entrance to the ops site at Boulmer, in my concrete tube sangar covering the RAFP doing the main gate. A car full of people pulls up at the outer gate and is let in. The second barrier was an electric pole one about 15-20 yards inside the outer gate.

Our snowcapped hero goes up to the driver's side and his mate has already started to raise the inner barrier now the outer gate is closed (I didn't say they were members of MENSA). as soon as the inner barrier starts to lift the car speeds up as the members of the OPFOR in the car can't believe their luck. Snowdrop 1 pulls out his (empty) pistol takes careful aim and clicks to his heart's content whilst shouting 'bang'. OPFOR are by this time through the second barrier and laughing at the diminishing shouts of 'bang' coming from behind them.

Snowdrop 2 is having a 'fed' moment trying to work out which button is the 'down' one while Snowdrop 1, is f'ing and blinding, and in sheer frustration throws his pistol at the (now) fast receding car. Unfortunately Snowdrop 1 forgot the lanyard around his neck that the pistol was attached to. He remembered it just after it had travelled out the full extent then swung violently into his wedding tackle.

A temporary truce ensued as Snowdrop 1 was on his knees throwing up in the middle of the road and his 'mates' tried to wipe the tears of laughter away, the hysterical laughter from OPFOR's car only rubbed salt into the, now swelling, wound.

Tommy Tipee
26th Jan 2007, 08:43
At Lyneham in the early 70's, and "AIR RAID WARNING RED" came over the Tannoy so all personnel were ordered to take cover in their slit trenches.
Said trenches did not actually exist, but were realistically simulated by white tapes on the grass. Shortly afterwards a bemused TACEVAL umpire enquired of a bunch of tired, cold and generally pi**ed off techies why they were standing on the volley-ball court.
On the same occasion, a couple of Lightnings were sent over to make lots of noise to add 'realism' to the scene by simulating an enemy air raid. Unfortunately, the weather was so c**p that they had to request a GCA appraoch to locate the target!

Krystal n chips
26th Jan 2007, 09:06
Again, a not quite TACEVAL, more a snow clearing in Germany moment. Bruggen in the Jag days. It snowed as it does and all the little beasts ares stuck in the HAS due to the depth of snow. Snow clearance on the Sqdn in question is by the one broom / one shovel method and forced labour.

Enter the cunning plan to end all cunning plans c/o a certain BEngo. Position Jag "x" ft from HAS, start engines and bingo ! snow will vanish. Great in theory,,but just one tiny glitch. Jag is duly positioned and all the troops attend--this being deemed compulsory to remove Air and Ground crew from the comforts of their respective crew rooms of course.

Jag starts up---mighty Adours perform and snow melts into slush and pools of water. Spec reps all round you might think----er, no.. The little glitch was an OAT of around -13C---hence, no sooner had the snow been melted, then we had a surface of corrugated ice which, er, ensured said Jag remained in the HAS in question for a lot longer than, cough, "was anticipated "!.

We could only marvel at the German efficiency the other side of the wire as the Elmpt to Roermond road was, er, free from snow and ice. :E

maxburner
26th Jan 2007, 09:10
Coningsby, an F4 squadron getting tacevaled, generation phase. The boss was away on leave. The Flt Lt on ops turned to the taceval man and said that he had the boss's contact number and could recall him if required. What did Mr Taceval want?

'Do what you would do for real.' was the instruction.

'I can't get a nine mil round down the phone line!' was the memorable reply.

The whole ops room fell about laughing.

Wader2
26th Jan 2007, 09:24
Maxburner, and did the boss in question retire as an AVM?

maxburner
26th Jan 2007, 10:04
Wader,

I regret that I lost contact with the gentleman and have no knowledge of the rank he finally achieved.

He was the one, however, who announced to the whole squadron that Wg Cdr XXX is dead. Mrs XXX was very surprised when messages of condolences arrived. Wg Cdr XXX was alive and well.

Chilli Monster
26th Jan 2007, 10:34
Giutersloh, either 87 or 88.

Next day is a station stand-down, so the whole station goes on a bender. Officers Mess v Sgts Mess games night, plus various do's in the bowl, Malcolm club etc. Possibly the only staff sober are the RAFP on the gate and the Duty Ops Officer and two Ops staff in the COC.

3 in the morning, entry phone rings - "Taceval team here - part 1 initiation".

Awake Ops Clk tries to wake sleeping Ops clk - "X - Taceval team, wake up". X says "Pi$$ off", X very rapidly wakes up when he's kicked and is told it's no joke. X wakes up Ops O, both start the Exec callout (many of whom probably said the same thing!) and the Taceval Team are let in through the airlock VERY slowly, being individually checked, one at a time. (Much to the chagrin of the team leader whose cries of "I can vouch for my team" fell on very deaf ears)

Staish arrives, not a happy bunny - "Gentleman - I am spitting blood!" Seems Flt Lt Ops was meant to notify Ramstein of dates when we weren't available for part 1, and managed to leave this one off the list. Sods law....................:D

Anyway. Station still managed to get to deployment status in the required 8 hours. Nobody got done for drink driving due to judicial use of RAFP to guard the road which ran past the gate. Taceval team awarded the station "1's" for everything with the additional comment "We can guarantee that complete surprise WAS achieved!"

And Flt Lt Ops? Was VERY intimate with the duties of SDO for sometime after the event. Needless to say that mistake was never made again ;)

Il Duce
26th Jan 2007, 11:48
Coltishall, mid-80's. 5 a.m. Still fairly dark. Exercise IED has been discovered and the relevant sections are evacuated. A makeshift cordon is set up and manned at all the routes in. The cordon is marked with whatever can be used (no such thing as "Police. Do Not Cross." tape). Sqn Ldr distaff goes rushing down the road on his bicycle in order to gauge how the IED situation is being dealt with. As he approaches the cordon two chaps on control of entry duty step forward. "You can't go that way, sir, there's a...."
Sqn Ldr doesn't slow down, but yells, "Yes, I know there's an IED. I'm distaff, out of my way!"
"But sir, there's a.."
"Step aside, man! I'm distaff!"
"But sir, there's a..."
WHACK - Sqn Ldr is caught around the throat by a rope strung between two lamp posts as part of the improvised cordon. Sqn Ldr is now flat on his back as his bicycle continues towards the IED incident and the two chaps roll around in agony trying to stifle their laughter.

Wyler
26th Jan 2007, 12:02
I was a Pilot Officer at Buchan in 82 when during a very boozy night in the Mess, the sirens go off hailing the start of our Pt 1.

The staish, a certain Gp Capt Bunny St A***** comes over to me, hands me the key to his car and tells me I am driving him and the Execs to the Ops Site.

'I have been drinking Sir' was my reply.

'Yep, and noone cares if a Plt Off goes to prison' was his.

Not Taceval, but, during a visit to a German Armoured AD Sqn in 87 we are sat having coffee and stickies with the German boss and his execs. Our Boss, an F4 Nav (Ned K****) asks two questions to keep the conversation going:

1. 'Do you fuel up in the field using Jerry Cans'

'No, we use Tommy Cans'.

2. 'Do you deploy regularly overseas'?

'Not since 1939'.

We all looked embarassed and the Germans were wetting themselves laughing.

Akrotiri bad boy
26th Jan 2007, 12:23
All is quiet, all is dark. Groundcrew sitting outside mess tents prior to turning in when the night is ripped asunder by the lights of a Land Rover turning into the site. Hides are lit up, comms centre is illuminated, and, heaven forbid, the beer stash is exposed.
The site commander jumps from his seat screaming "Turn those bl***y lights out!" as he storms towards the offending vehicle. THUNK, the lights go out. SPLASH "Turn those bl***y lights on!" BLINK, the lights go on and there to the amusement of all is the site commander up to his chest in the slop trench outside the mess tent.:E

Wee Jock McPlop
26th Jan 2007, 12:38
Wattisham wing, mid-80s. Launched a number of F4s to attack Leuchars - who I think were on TACEVAL/OPEVAL at the time. Wattisham groundcrew and aircrew had conspired to load the airbrakes/speedbrakes (whatever they were called - I'm sure I'll be corrected) of aforementioned F4s with large amounts of bog roll. Off up to Leuchars for briefed airfield attack, over the HAS sites, pop the brakes out and numerous bog roll bombs fly gracefully down onto terra firma.

May just be fokelore, but seem to remember it caused a minor ruck at the time?

WJMcP

November4
26th Jan 2007, 12:41
Yeah, I had one of those at St Mawgan. Hooter went.
Phone call - you are for Gibraltar Ops. Stay at home - simulated flight to Gib.
Two days later, phone call. Where the hell are you, the exercise finished yesterday?
How was I to know at St Evil :} if no one tells you. Brill.

Secret Wiltshire transport base TACEVAL about 1985.....

I was down as reforce to Gib Movs flt.

Real flight in Albert...arrived to be told no idea why I was and the other 2 were there as they had no aircraft so have 4 days on the beach. turned into 5 days as flight back went u/s. Best TACEVAL I did.

Dan Winterland
26th Jan 2007, 13:28
he TACEVAL team used to stay in a pub some 20 miles away from 'El Adem With Grass' so that they would retain the element of suprise on the day. However, due to the fact that the landlord's daughter was married to a Victor captain, the element was often lost!

denachtenmai
26th Jan 2007, 15:20
Back in the 60's at Wyton the Tac. team, and the other squadrons, used to get mad, 'cos we didn't play those games;)
regards Den.

A2QFI
26th Jan 2007, 16:23
For reasons too boring to explain, officers were not permitted to make official calls to their off base homes from the Squadron, even if they paid for them. However, the TACEVAL callout relied on a cascade telephone system. An officer much agrieved by not being allowed to phone home was one of the 2 people first called in the system. When his phone rang at 0300 hours to initiate a call out he told the Ops Officer that his was a private telephone and he didn't take Service calls on it - unpluggesd it from the wall and went back to sleep. Half the aircrew on the squadron turned up for for work at 0830, many hours late but with the excuse that they hadn't been contacted. Rules re home phone calls were relaxed pdq! The officer concerned was a VERY stroppy navigator of South African origin and a real top bloke! Al ?????? if anyone remembers him.

Tinymonkeys
26th Jan 2007, 17:16
Why was it that the SH force generated so many! Such happy days. Anybody remember the poor herbert getting the Unimog bogged down on the farmers pristine lawn, then said farmer holding guy at shotgun point.
How about when Prince Big Ears came to see the Gordon Highlanders in the field and his lovely red chopper came to our site for a refuel. Then treated to the site of the pilot picking his way across the mud, not in flying kit but blues, with a china cup and saucer to ask if he might have some tea.!!
By the way I was on shift at secret airbase in wilts when oncoming shift got taceval killed, there was nearly a bl***y mutiny with the shift that had to stay on for another 12 hours

SaddamsLoveChild
26th Jan 2007, 17:32
Having diverted into E Mids from an Exercise up north we popped into the cafe for a coffee. Security guard got a bit high and mighty over our aircrew knives that were attached to us for the purpose of stabbing the dinghies that we werent carrying, any way he wouldnt have any of our explanations so I was despatched back to the aircraft to get the other weapons and hand them in for safe keeping for an hour. Two x GPMG's, 4 HK 33's and a 6 pistols later he had had a heart attack and called the local politzei who told him not to be so stupid and that they would keep an eye on the airtcraft if we wanted to get a brew.

Saw him at an E mids party later on in the year but he didnt find it funny at all........some people!;)

trap one
26th Jan 2007, 18:00
81 in Belize at the 6 monthly exercise we had to man everything for 72 hrs with 1 shift, whilst the ready battalion GR3's etc in UK saddled up and moved across the pond. Sat at Butcher radar as the only 1 left alive cause I was down at JOC whebn the OPFOR wasted the radar site. Spots a slow moving contact on the AR3. Informs the rapiers who blind fire and splash 1. But due to exercise constrants i.e. there was only the 1 servicable Puma is allowed to continue its attack. Puma come to a hover over the main and muggins gets call from the Rocks to put some flares up. So I load the Very pistol and let fly. great says the rocks we can see now, as this is the days of stage 1 NVGs and the sodiums around the Williamsom comlex was "whiting out the NVG". Only thing was the para flares were comming down into the rotor disc of the Puma. So a V V irate Puma mate calls on the radio to stop the flares before they do serious rotor damage.

On the subject of blunt dinghy knives used to turn up the Waddo check in to have the Plods confiscate them and then parcel them up to give to the NATO ALM on the TCA. Being german and with no sense of humour he promptly refused to take them from the plod and gave them straight back to us.
Told every skipper I ever had that if we ever had a Plod pax I wanted to do the Pax escort and do the baggage check on them right on the pan!!!

ShyTorque
26th Jan 2007, 18:12
Another one from Gutersloh - this time in the generation phase.

Myself and a couple of other crew were making our way out of the rear door of the hangar when we spied, next to the footpath, an olive drab round object, about 18 inches in diameter lying in the grass, behind the standby diesel powered generator trailer, which was running full tilt due to a "mains failure" inject.

"AHA! a TACEVAL land mine." said we.

I went back inside to report it to Sqn Ops whilst one of the other guys guarded the door and the other went round the other way to prevent pedestrians getting close to the scene. Our tame Rockape ambled over to inspect it, and the technical opinion was "£uck me - it's a bomb!"

The tannoy message went out to evacuate the hangar. As we all legged it, the TACEVAL Team Sqn Leader said quietly to the duty Flt Commander "Er...by the way, it's NOT actually one of ours..... :ooh: !

A real bomb scare then ensued, with much concern caused for hours. Disrupted many of the TACEVAL team's planned injects.

However - it was eventually found to be the only top of the air filter housing which had fallen off the standby generator's big diesel engine! The wing nut supposely securing it had vibrated off its thread and the top of the canister had fallen down and rolled 15 metres neatly into position.

Looked just like a pukka landmine, even had the EOD team going for a while :p

Cornerstone958
26th Jan 2007, 18:15
Funny story relating to a Hospital located near JHQ 70's ish.
Flash signal arrives announcing Taceval. OO replies 'Hospital received direct hit can no longer participate in exercise'.:D
Happy days.:)

RETDPI
26th Jan 2007, 18:26
Late 70's Wildenrath snow clearance call-out plan. One of the new generation realises that to send MT to the lucky stand by's on all the remote marriage patches is inefficent . Surely much better to reorganise the plan so that each patch in turn is "on" so that only one bus is required. Clever Boy.
One day, as night falls, it begins to snow. As usual the prevarication option kicks in as the "will we,won't we?" discussion mounts.
Finally the decision is made to send the bus out to the lucky guys at "Gielers" ( about 25 k away.)
Unfortunately, it couldn't get through the snow.
Result: F4 Aircrew on QRA helping snow clear the operating areas, including the main runway.

ARINC
26th Jan 2007, 19:32
Yet another Gütersloh Harrier Farce....

Sennelager mid 80's 4Sqn out camping and photographing inner German Border. Myself and fellow HSF Electrician on guard; sat comfortably in green deckchairs, small hours, sipping coffee enjoying peace and quite.

Next minute much grinding of gears and billowing of smoke, weapon convoy turns up. Halt who goes there etc etc..

Di staff emerge from nowhere...

"Right lads your chemical detector has gone off this convoy is contaminated what you going to do ?"
Us in unison

"Call the guard commander"

So we both looked at each other, a little history existed between us and said guard commander and it was just to good a situation to miss, so I called him on the batphone.

Me-

"Hello is that the Guard commander ?..........hissss crackle static noises..."

Guard commader-

"Speak up speak up...."

Me-

hisss crackle....your breakking up sirrrrr....there's a contaminated....pause...silence....

Guard commander

"Speak up whats the problem..."

and so it went on...Eventually he turned up just as we we're being relieved.

charliegolf
26th Jan 2007, 19:36
Gut, 84 ish. The station had 2 minivans (remember them?) which MT maintained 100% since they were the married patch tannoy wagons ready for Ivan's arrival.

Mrs Golf was the station's civvy internal mail person, using said minivans to constantly run around the Sqns and sections dropping off the mail. Every day the MT sarge (anti civvy, anti women drivers etc) warned her about the minivan status. She's a strong character, and often commented that he ought to STFU for a change, and stop droning on.

This day, the one where Mrs G finds out she is warming a bun in the oven, she comes over all uncharacteristically weepy.

In this lowered alert state- hers not station's- she returns to MT, only to crash her minivan. Into the other one! Sarge goes tv rental, Mrs G cries, sarge melts enough to tell her to get the f... off home, and the night shift gets a special treat.

Those were the days.

CG

Green Flash
26th Jan 2007, 20:57
Yet another Gutersloh one (or two)!!

As a variation on Chilli's post earlier but I'm sure I can remember a generation game the morning after a big do on camp. Everyone was still suffering from a surfiet of Wobbly so the whole thing was called off after an hour or two until we could all walk and see again!!

Another generation game involved everyone getting all the kit together, being marshalled over to the other side of the airfield (near the golf club/off road driving area) and then Staish says game over, go home. This time Staish says - 'Sennelager! Oh, borracks, says we ....

Exrigger
26th Jan 2007, 21:02
Like others I can remember lots of tales from exercises

RAF Wyton 1978: Two guards on taxiway barrier duty under ‘Air Raid Black’ armed with pick axe handle when a car pulls up, a voice calls the two guards over and asked are they aware of the state of the station, we are under NBC conditions was the answer given. Next question was “where is your helmet and NBC suit”, both pulled out a bit of paper, it turned out that the person in the car was the CO and was not amused and wanted to know if they were being insubordinate, when it was explained and corroborated at a later time that we have never had suits or helmets he was not happy as nobody had told him.

18 Sqd: deployed on exercise, gets the taceval BDR inject, the only bit of helicopter we had to use was of some small helicopter with small winglets on the tail boom. The metal almost fag paper thin attached to the framework with tucker pop rivets, BDR (expert, fixed wing only) punches a hole through the skin and asks what are you going to do, answer “ put a speed tape patch over it” expert announces that we have failed the BDR inject as the correct course of action was a large slab plate attached with a double row of jo-bolts (as per fixed wing BDR repairs to wing structure) IAW the ‘formula’ in the BDR manual, When it was pointed out what would happen to a helicopter if it was repaired in this way he was not convinced, we asked him how we would repair blade damage his answer again was slap a patch on with double row of jo-bolts as per the ‘formula’, at this point we gave up and accepted our failure.

18 Sqd again: deployed, in a farmers field somewhere in Germany at night when a couple of Health & Safety personnel turned up in the evening and promptly informed us all that climbing onto the top of a Chinook was dangerous as it comes under ‘Working at Height’. Questions were asked and their response was that we had to attach a wire rope between the two heads and then get some safety harnesses and then attach them to the wire rope and there we were all safe and sound. When they were asked how do we get up to attach the wire rope and then attach the slings to it, their response was well you climb up the side and walk along the top and then when it is attached you are then safe, we then asked what happens when we scramble, it was at this point they realised what a stupid idea it all was and left.

18 Sqd again deployed and we had our annual army support for training practice who used to man one sangar, sat in the ops truck at night when the officer comes in holding his hand over one eye, I asked if he needed medical attention and his response was "thank you, but no I am just maintaining my night vision" after his coffee he went out with his other eye covered, fell down the last two steps and still declined medical attention.

27 Sqd, Marham: We occasionally had some trainee officers from Cranwell who supplemented the guard shift, it was quite amusing as in the crew room between shifts you heard them saying things like "this is great fun" and "pity we are not here longer" and they could not understand why the groundcrew were so cheesed off with guarding.

h73kr
26th Jan 2007, 21:30
and some non-aircrew / non-officer memoirs ....

some personal memories from the 80's...make me laugh anyway....

1- After 50 hours straight awake in Denmark as Jaguar ground crew/ Mobile Reaction Force, finally succumbed to the pleasures of sleep. Will never forget being shaken awake by Sgt 'RAF Regt'., who insisted on waking me just so he could show me his ID, fair enough I suppose, as I was 'guarding' HQ at the time!

2- Will never forget sitting in the back of a 4 tonner in Denmark, with two rows of NBC masked people all staring at me, because I had decided not to play anymore and just didn't bother putting mask on. I had months left to do by then, and it showed! Felt a bit sorry for the Sgt., put him on the spot a bit.

3- Again, Denmark, walking across dispersal, two Buccaneers come streaking across very very low. Turns out later, they'd come all the way from Scotland to do an air raid on us, except no-one had the courtesy to tell us it was an 'air-raid' prior to their arrival - bless!

4 - Coltishall, TACEVAL staff set off a smoke generator in the hangar. Corporal Bloggs next to me does nothing. DI Staff comes bounding over shouting 'Come on, look sharp, there's a bloody fire over there'. Corporal replies 'No there isn't, anyone can see it's just a smoke generator' and does nothing. He instantly became my personal hero.

5 - BT were doing some work at Colt, just as an exercise was called. Air raid siren goes off, we disappear in to Sanger. BT van pulls up at check-point, waits a bit. Starts to get annoyed. Gesticulates to us to come out and let him through. We mumble back (NBC masks on) 'auiw waid! auw waid!'. BT van starts to get p#ssed off. Bt guy get's out, opens barrier himself and drives through, shaking head in disbelief.

Pretty low key I know, but it's all I've got.

SirToppamHat
26th Jan 2007, 22:14
That last one reminds that a couple of years ago I was sitting in the office at STC. It was a perfectly normal day, when a big red fire engine pulled up at the front of the bldg and assorted chaps clambered out and into the front door. Stepping out to go to the Registry down the corridor, I found this motley crew standing in the entrance area surrounded by smoke. I looked around and then carried on the way I was going ...
"Err excuse me" says their leader "what do you see here?"
"Unless I'm much mistaken, it's a smoke generator that you've plugged into the wall," says I.
"And what are you going to do about it?" says he.
"Well under normal circumstances, I'd call the Fire Brigade," says I "But as you appear to be here already, I assume you've got it all under control!"
There was about 10 seconds of grimmacing from the assembled fire chaps, and I am sure I could hear growling, whereupon I simply said "You want me to set-off the fire alarm don't you?" Just about saved me a kicking!
Coming back to Tacevals, there was at least one occasion in the early 90s when we were all called out on a Friday morning (our day off) still pissed after a Sqn do. The boss demanded egg banjos and the chefs managed to produce them PDQ. Not sure we were safe to control, but we felt better for them, and shortly after were sent home for safety's sake! I also remember at Neatishead the patch down in Norwich (Horsham St Faith) had one of the old v. loud sirens that could be set-off from the Ops Room 15 miles away. Unfortunately, it had a tendancy to stick in the on (v. loud) position and couldn't be switched-off locally so the person in the nearest house was issued with a big axe to chop through the cable if necessary. Couldn't imagine that happening now, what would H&S say?

Exrigger
26th Jan 2007, 22:42
Down the Falklands I was due to go home on the Tuesday, boss told me Sat Afternoon that I had been extended for a week as my services were needed. Sunday was still the Sqn BBQ and my leaving do. Got pisssed Sat night, tried to drink myself into oblivion Sunday. 06:00 Monday morning an exercise was called, great that was all I needed, managed to keep out of harms way untill shift change at 12:00, asked and then told that I had to tow a Chinook of the line and put it in the hangar for the other shift. Despite trying to tell them I was Pissed, all to no avail, got behind the wheel of the tractor complete with NBC suit, tin helmet and SMG and off I went, decided to remove the need to keep swapping ends with the tractor I opted to push it all the way, just as I was trying to line it up to push it through the hangar doors (the other shift had arrived and decided that my driving skills merited an audience) the SMG got tangled in the steering wheel, tin helmet kept falling into my eyes , I was also suffering from a relapse. Chinook ended up at an angle to the hangar, towing arm was at nearly right angles across the back of the cab and the tractor was also full lock in the other direction. Handbrake on threw the keys at a tower on the other shift and climbed in wagon with the words "take me home", not a word was officially said thankfully.

windriver
26th Jan 2007, 23:20
Marham mid 70's - 5 am Tannoy. Guaranteed to catch me at my lowest ebb... ... A long day mending Victors then at knocking off time instead of going home I was detailed to do some guarding of a critical airfield installation. Not a problem as I was pick axe handle qualified.

It was very very dark.. and I was very very alone and very very susceptible to anything out of the ordinary.

Suddenly there was the most almighty noise.. nearly ***t myself... Thought my time had come.

Later on sources close to the bar told me it was a couple of Buccaneers... very very low and very very fast.

So if whoever was responsible for said Buccaneers happens to be reading this .. thank you very much for completely spoiling my day.

bwfg3
27th Jan 2007, 12:56
I was called in at Coningsby mid 80's from my quarter despite the section having to send MT because my right leg AND arm were in plaster after an argument with a tree whilst parachuting! On arrival at work I was tasked with reinforcing the Guard force despite the obvious protests. An RAFP Fg Off was in charge of said force and as I pointed out my obvious limitations, he said " OK I'll stand you down for the duration once I see your sick chit" :ugh:

lsh
27th Jan 2007, 16:34
Same exercise as "The Farmers Daughter/NVG":
The "porcelain" where, if you were quick, you could see the "fruits of your labours" arriving in the stream. (Near the "spectators" bridge!)
DI-staff putting out wooden blocks marked "IED", our GLO Major following him round picking them up!!
Eventually the DI-staff gets annoyed and rebukes him for ruining the exercise,
the Major replies that he is "an ATO with a tour in Ireland"!!!

"Theres more, lots more" SADLY!!
lsh

wiggy
27th Jan 2007, 17:31
Early 80's, Day one (?) of a Part 2 at a certain East England UK Air Defence Base..the wing goes flying, the weather unexpectededly goes seriously South, and the wing diverts,en masse, to the other East Anglian AD base..and sits there for several days waiting for the weather to clear. Part two completed "by proxy" whislt many beers were drunk and many songs sung .......

allan907
28th Jan 2007, 01:43
Early 80s when the mighty Bucc still resided in East Anglia we had a TACEVAL which was going wrong for all the right reasons. At the end of the debacle we had the usual mass de-briefing in Ops where the TacTeam went into great detail where we had all stuffed up. Then came Harry Staish's summing up and thanks to the TacTeam.

The Harry Staish was a top bloke well regarded by all and he had our best interests at heart. His summing up went along the lines of "Well, we might well have failed in significant areas but we all know that when the chips are down we can do the job ..... so we don't need to take much notice of this little glitch"

The entire room sank slowly into into their chairs and pretended we weren't there.

Lots of station exercises followed!!!

Second memorable incident:

Oh Dark Thirty and the hooter had gone off not long previously. We were setting up the Flying Eye ground defence incident control and had posted guards with pick axe handles to guard the hangar and aircraft before we dispersed over to the other side of the airfield. I noticed a bit of challenge and ignore incident in the darkness outside of the window. I went out to investigate and was confronted with the hangar door guard trying to stop a determined looking thug from advancing with his semi automatic gun. As the guard was singularly ineffective I went to grab the gun off the bloke and, to my surprise, he let go one end of it.

At that point his training kicked in, literally, (TA SAS) and I received a mind numbing crunch to my wedding tackle as his size 11 DMS boot contacted. Needless to say I dropped to the ground uttering undecipherable grunting and groaning noises.

My assailant did come to visit me in the SMC later on to apologise for his reaction! However, no lasting damage and I was back on task a few hours later - but sore!

BANANASBANANAS
28th Jan 2007, 04:58
Slight thread creep here but If the staish you are referring to went by the initials "MS" then I totally agree - top bloke. I was holding on 208 as the lowest form of life (Acting Pilot Officer) and got a trip in one of the T Bird Hunters with the Staish - and threw up all over him - twice! He was a total gent about it all. Even arranged to meet me in the OM bar later for a beer - after I had cleaned up the cockpit of course!

Oh to work for a guy like that today!

allan907
28th Jan 2007, 05:31
The very bloke! Heard that he contracted multiple sclerosis later on - bloody shame. Wonder what happened to him?

airborne_artist
28th Jan 2007, 08:51
At that point his training kicked in, literally, (TA SAS) and I received a mind numbing crunch to my wedding tackle as his size 11 DMS boot contacted.

We aimed to please :E

Shackman
28th Jan 2007, 11:07
Where to start - so many tales where it went wrong for us, but much more amusing as aggressor or s:mad:g other peoples:
Firstly Coningsby mid 70's: Sunny Friday Afternoon - The Phantom wing had just launched the survival scramble and got almost 100% airborne, endex is called and we (AEW Shack with a few F4 'observers' on board to watch it all happen on radar) get back into circuit first with quick run in and break. Unfortunately the self castoring tailwheel doesn't, and first we know is when tailwheel lets go on landing, calls of 'Fire' from the tower and we come to a stop in the middle of (Coningsby's only) runway. Now the fun really starts; the rest of East Anglia appears to have gone home, and the only place for the jets to go is Leeming (a Master Diversion for those that remember when we had enough airfields), which, despite a few fuel priorities they all make. Now part 2 of the problem starts. It is the night of a major Dining In night at Coningsby - lots of VIPs, Senior Officers and WW2 (and possibly WW1) veterans, with the aircrew some 3 hours away by road. MT now rises to the occasion, and a couple of very old MT coaches (the ones that slowed down to 5mph up hill, and filled up with diesel fumes down hill) were provided to bring goon suit clad crews + copious liquid refreshment back. By the time some very pissed - and pissed off - crews get back to Coningsby a very unpopular Shack crew have gone to ground in local village pub, where we stayed until our very professional groundcrew, who had also driven down from Lossie, quickly changed the t/wheel allowing us to get out of there on Saturday before most of the F4 crews recovered. However, we didn't go back for some time.

Second - Marham mid 80's, now with a Chinook. Middle of the night, having picked up a load of paras from Aldershot, all dressed in soviet kit and carrying AK's. We come in lights out on NVG, and drop them in close to the HAS's where they start to create total havoc (those that were on the crew bus going for their centralised messing meal might care to comment). Meanwhile 2 x RAFP have been attracted by the noise the Chinnie has made and start to walk across towards where we had landed together with their very ferocious looking guard dogs. Unfortunately we transition over the top of them, and as we pass crewman chucks a couple of thunderflashes out the door. Dogs immediately take off for pastures new - I was told it was nearly 24 hours before they reappeared.

More will follow

ShyTorque
28th Jan 2007, 12:25
Was once tasked to fly a group of "enemy" (our Sqn Rockapes) into Bruggen's TACEVAL by Puma. We used some obscure mission number callsign to contact ATC to check for circuit traffic, using the pretext that we were in transit and wanted to cross the MATZ panhandle, heading for the South. We then went "on route" and dropped down to operational height before coming in over the airfield perimeter at well below fifty feet. We flew straight to the Commcen, quickstopped over the middle of the flat roof, disgorging the Rocks. The two machine gun positions were well cammed, so much so that they couldn't lift the guns around to face inwards. :ugh:
The Rocks took out both positions very quickly. A nice bonus for them was that some helpful person inside the Commcen opened the roof door to see what all the noise was about........ so the Rocks ran in and took out the whole lot.
We were supposed to then stop for a refuel but we decided to go to Laarbruch instead, the natives seemed a bit more friendly......

NutLoose
28th Jan 2007, 14:54
@ an Airfield in the South of England...

Group of 8 sitting watching TV, in walks a member of the distaff....

flash bang outside the window, walks up to an Airman points to the remaining seven and informs him they are seriously injured and asks the Airman who is by now missing his favourite soap opera on TV what are you going to do?

Quite calmly the Airman walks over picks up his rifle, cocks it and proceeds to shoot the remaining seven, then returns to sit down having made his weapon safe and carries on watching his soap..............:O

Asked what the hell does he think he is doing, he calmly replies, they are seriously wounded as pointed out, chances are they will never survive and if they do they will take up valuable resources looking after them, therefore he has exercised some logic and has rectified that predicament!

:E :E

threeputt
29th Jan 2007, 20:49
I will need some help on this one but, at the time it was a classic. 4x Vulcan B2 cocked and at 15 min readiness sitting on the ORP.The rest of the ac (extra 25+ ac) are similarly at readiness but, disispersed around the airfield prior to the expected "elephant walk through". It then becomes a bit cloudy in my memory but, what I seem to remember was that we had a " This is the bomber controller for Bomblists Charlie, Delta etc, etc RS 02, I authenticate etc,etc." This was followed by " This is the bomber controller for bomblist Charlie, scramble I authenticate Blah, Blah etc, etc" Lester Ja****n, in finger one on the ORP, then authenticates back to Ops and is, ostensibly, cleared to go on the real mission (getting more difficult to remember what really happened next). This wasn't what "Fingers" Macey really wanted at all and so either he or OC Ops jumped in their waggon and hared across the grass and plonked himself in front of Lesters jet which, by this time was at about 60%, lined up and ready to go! Lot's of pointing and himself and mouthing "It's me, don't go" eventually had the desired effect and the launch was aborted. Talk about Dr Strangelove; please correct/ammend where necessary.:confused:

3P

Pontius Navigator
30th Jan 2007, 07:36
3putt, I wasn't there but we had a similar Charlie Uniform at ISK at that time.

Exactly the same situation except this time the airfield is covered in Nimrods. We are in a non-flyer parked in the wash bay and nose in to the wire.

OC Girlies orders a tug for a push back and in the process we get the 'scramble' order. Everything rushes into sharp focus and sqn cmdr sees red. We get out, lined up on the apron, start engines and go like b*gg*ry, down the taxiway, onto the runway, and go. Everyone followed in turn.

Apart from the fact we were in a non-flyer, it was supposed to be a taxi-scramble and return to dispersal where we would sit for 3 hours as the fallout swept the airfield.

Instead there were 15 plus Nimrods all in their war hold areas in the ***** *** burning up Betty's gravy and eating her nutty.

It all fits.

BEagle
30th Jan 2007, 08:11
The last Taceval I recall being particularly anal....apart from the flying, of course. All the ground play was as tedious as ever - the usual flapping bits of ripped black polythene and old blankets masquerading as blackout etc..:\

The exercise concluded with the usual NBC phase. Large numbers of sqn personnel were bussed across to the old Rapier hangar at the Covert Oxonian Aerodrome. Where we sat around for about an hour in full IPE. For what conceivable purpose, I cannot imagine. Pure blunt embuggerance. Being aircrew, however, we'd spotted a rolled up carpet on top of a set of lockers which we unrolled and sat on, rather than having to sit on the cold concrete hangar floor...:rolleyes:

Eventually one highly pi$$ed off engineering ChTech could stand it no longer. Off with his respirator - which he punted into a far corner of the hangar with some feeling. Some junior DiStaff member set off to remonstrate with him - until stopped by a rather more grown up DiStaff bod who advised him not to bother unless he fancied probably the same thing happening to him!

Some exercise silliness was pure theatre and highly amusing - but ask the ex-RAFG guys of the late 70s what it was like during a 'Taceval Twitch'. Paranoid Stn Cdrs banning people from going more than a few miles from base and enforcing leave embargoes for weeks on end. If they didn't get 'Ones', they wouldn't get promoted.........

At least in the V-farce we didn't have such embuggerance and were merely required to leave 'recall' phone numbers with Ops if we were away on leave or whatever when a Part One was called. Happened to me once when I was on holiday at home in Menorca. I'm told that the Sqn Ops bod picked up the phone and dialled..... "Teesside Grain Company, can I help you?" came the reply. It seemed that the ancient pre dial-a-mate phone system couldn't cope with overseas calls! OC35 thought it highly amusing, I gather - but they bull$hitted the Taceval people into thinking that I'd been successfully contacted.

Wader2
30th Jan 2007, 09:09
All the ground play was as tedious as ever - the usual flapping bits of ripped black polythene and old blankets masquerading as blackout etc..:\

I wonder what all this practise bleeding actually proved?

From what I can recall, there was no difference between an airfield with lots of well lit hangars, street lights, offices etc and an airfield with no lights whatever. They both looked bright green at the hangars with a black pool on the airfield. Anyway, with radar offsets we probably wouldn't look at the airfield anyway.

As for a Kennel, Kitchen or Kelt they wouldn't even look.

ORAC
30th Jan 2007, 10:47
1975, Coltishall is on Taceval, Neatishead is doing a SIMEX (simulated exercise). The Conex (previous title for the MC) at Neatishead was an old Irish man called Paddy McGurk.

A shack checks in with the Fighter Marshall and asks to speak to the Conex, they then explain that they are simulating a defector for the Taceval and could we tell Coltishall that we had a defecting Bear bomber and had been ordered to direct him to land at Colt.

Paddy phones Colt and explains about the defecting Bear. Just as a cross-check, Colt asks Paddy to confirm if this is Exercise or Live. It is at this stage the confusion sets in.....

Paddy, since we are in the middle of a SIMEX, intends to clarify that it is a real, live, aircraft, not a paper inject, and states that it is Live. Colt asks for confirmation which is given.

At Colt, where the question had been aimed at clarifying if this was Exercise (Taceval) or Live (a real Bear), panic now ensues. The Taceval is suspended, a frantic rush to assemble a live armed guard force is made and everyone rushes around with their heads on fire. They then wait expectantly beside the runway - and the Shack comes over the fence and lands.

Mind you, they did have red stars stuck on their cap badges and cotton wool stuck around the toes of their boots.

It certainly made for a few interesting telephone calls and a good happy hour....

Wader2
30th Jan 2007, 11:06
Ah yes, the live/sim fiascos.

In Cyprus the staish, Air Cdre Stacey, was always a couple of jumps ahead of the game.

As the station normally had live armed guards he could see a potential for disaster if some wepons were live and some were not. His soultion was to order live ammunition for all> This was in the days before we had honed the make safe procedures.

Brilliant exercise, hardly any intruder play.:}

ShyTorque
30th Jan 2007, 13:13
They briefly toyed with the idea of including NI in TACEVAL in the 80s. Not a good idea to go lurking around when all the guards are live armed and looking for some target practice.

An ex-colleague of mine saw someone pointing a handgun at him in the dark as he drove round the peri track at Aldergrove. He accelerated to top speed, squealed to a halt outside the guard post and called the boys out.

The RAF policeman holding the speed gun on the peri track didn't half get a nasty shock. :eek:

Yes, he did know it was a policeman all the time :ok: .

Yeller_Gait
30th Jan 2007, 18:28
Can't remember the exact year, and it does not really matter, but half of Kinloss deployed to St Mawgan for taceval; the plan being for 6-8 Nimrods and half of all crews, and half the station personnel to deploy to sunny St Mawgan in June for a week of fun and frolics.

Now everyone knows that the weather in Cornwall in summer is always lovely, so come the second day, when the majority (remaining 6 or so aircraft) were due to land, how we laughed as we sat on the ground at STM listening to aircraft overshooting all day in an attempt to land. The legendary 30 kt, across the runway, fog had come in and stayed for the next 48 hours.

Thursday night, Friday night and the rest of the weekend were spent down town in Newquay, and to round off a thoroughly good taceval for our crew, we diverted back to Kinloss on our first flight on the Monday. Numerous other aircraft were also spread across airbases in the south of England as the fog returned each evening.

Funnily enough can't ever remember Kinloss deploying to STM ever again.

Y_G

BusterHot
30th Jan 2007, 20:13
Binbrook, early 80's. Air Raid Warning Red, so occupants of the line hut rush out and stand within a 12x2 white rectangle which is supposed to be the "Exercise Slit Trench"(!):yuk: .

Taceval member standing by with clipboard making notes when a horn sounds and everyone looks around to see the "Roach Coach" (NAAFI Wagon) approahing on it's morning visit.

Taceval man looks on speechless as the "Line" pick up the tapes marking the slit trench and trot off and form an orderly queue behind the NAAFI wagon for their coffee and pies!:D

paf1950
1st Feb 2007, 16:55
Does any body else remember the famous Sunday at Waddo when to pre empt the call out everybody was ordered into work at midday? Forethought had not entered the equation, with the Raven Club bars being left open with obvious consequences. Hardly anybody fit for work, mega carry outs from the bar when closing time was reached, and one of the best booze ups I can ever recall attending. Never got called in early again though.

jayteeto
1st Feb 2007, 18:17
St Angelo in NI, Flt Lt Jayteeto servicing the Puma on the top deck with the crewman doing downstairs service. Man with gun and balaclava running towards guard hut, pointing at the sangar. I jumped off the top deck and with my fuller figure, I nearly broke both ankles, scrabbled for pistol, loaded and made ready to be a hero. Said "terrorist" had stopped and was chatting to a WO2 at the gatehouse. When they realised how close we had been to me shooting the exercise terrorist, they both turned grey. I was my normal reserved self!! and there was an embarrassed pongo flown home the next day.

Exrigger
1st Feb 2007, 18:17
Wyton circa 78: Someone got a heads up that a Taceval was in the offing in the early hours of Monday morning. All arrived Sunday afternoon, briefed and went into 'war mode'. When the Taceval team turned up and found the station was all ready there was hell to pay. No bars Sunday for us though :*

Edited to change 88 to 78

charliegolf
1st Feb 2007, 20:48
"Flt Lt Jayteeto servicing the Puma on the top deck with the crewman doing downstairs service."

Shouldn't this be in the
'Events you never thought would happen'
thread?

CG

jayteeto
2nd Feb 2007, 07:03
With crewmen like ABIW about, I was too scared to 'go and do the paperwork'!! My coffee would have been unfit for human consumption...... Cappuccino Sir??

Speaking of which, a story from Richie Rees, who sadly is no longer with us. The Puma landed by a field 'T' on Salisbury Plain one horrible winters night. A cold crew tried to get a warm in the MAOT landrover, but Flt Lt No***es made them all squeeze in the back while he hogged the 2 front seats to himself. He ordered/demanded his army signaller to make him a coffee, no please or pleasantries. The siggy brewed up and added a huge gob of spit to the cup and passed it forward to the RAFs finest. Richie collared him and said- "He will notice that!!", the reply was....... "He hasn't noticed for the last few months!!".

JagRigger
2nd Feb 2007, 09:18
I gave up when they sounded called recall at 07:01. We all rush in an hour early ( 2nd line ) and get on with it. After an hour or two, hunger starts rearing its head. Mess get a call "can we have some banjos etc please?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"recall went off after 07:00 - we don't have to feed you"

And there's us dilligent, fast reporting, unshaven, un breakfasted, un-butty box equipped souls left hungry.

Next reacall - shower, shave, breakfast and get in at slow time.

DSAT Man
3rd Feb 2007, 08:28
A novel way to initiate a callout: the whining sound of the siren is completely drowned out by what, at silly o'clock in the morning, sounds like a whole squadron of Nimrods being fired up in the Engine Run bay. Said bay was fairly close to the MQs and the noise was deafening. It did the trick but it never happened again!
But I digress. A quick s, s & s and I'm on my bike cycling past the Officers' Mess on my way to the Passive Defence Cell in the GDCC when I notice a supposed crashed Land Rover across the road with a driver with an orange arm band lying on the floor. The medic had arrived to see to his 'injuries' a few seconds before me. I naturally stopped to see if I could be of assistance. The following exchange took place:
Medic: Is this NODUF or is it an exercise inject?
'Casualty': What the f*** else do you think I'd be doing, lying here freezing my bollocks off at 3 o'clock in the morning?

oldbilbo
3rd Feb 2007, 11:47
During the early 70s, the 'Kipper Fleet' were brought, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century and into Strike Command. I was at St Mawgan, home of the Flighty Punter and its OCU, but serving on a Canberra sqn that had been lodged out of the way there - 7 Sqn. Of course, the sub hunters took themselves very seriously, and the 'canny' types - being upstarts - took the p*** mercilessly.

Came the day we were all informed that Strike Command's favourite executive team-building prog would start to apply, but gently, and we 'cannies' were intrigued to find out what we'd be required to do. 'Nothing much' was the answer from Can SqnCdr BB, 'we don't have a war role. This is just to 'ease the springs' of the Nims. But we'll be ready....' And a set of cascade/generation plans were readied , briefed and kept on the SqnOps desk within the Station Ops Block.

Now, half our sqn was hairy-arsed ex-RAFG, well-practiced in this stuff, married and mostly living around in places like St Evil - and t'other half were punchy young first-tourists living mostly on base. The Nimrod guys, having been there since Montgolfier balloons and Shacks, mostly lived in their Newquay hotels and boarding houses ( for many of them, the ScareForce was a kind of part-time hobby ). So we sat back to see what would happen.

I came back on a Sunday night from a GF visit up-country, and drove up to the Ops Block to check the Monday am FlyProg, to see if I was on it, before dropping into the Mess bar. I'd just said 'Hello' to the Duty Ops O and signed out the Sqn keys when the GuardRoom phoned to say that the TacEval team had arrived and was on its way up the hill. I ran the 30 yards down the corridor to 7 Sqn's Ops Room door, lifted the phone back to StnOps and reported '7 Sqn Ops manned' less than a minute after the TacEval team had started the clock ticking. Then I phoned the O/Mess bar, and a dozen of the guys were in there, who jumped straight into cars and hared up the hill. They arrived about the same time as the TacEval team, who joined the queue to get in via our open and lit door. Three of our guys were on the phones to start the cascade before the TacEval team had even got to StnOps ( they had to ask one of our guys to guide them there ) and we had 4 aircraft reported manned, ready to go - Cockpit Readiness - on the StnOps board before the first Nimrod Ops guy turned up. Our cascade/generation plan had 18 crews in and all 10 'S' aircraft ready to fly before the first Nimrod was posted as available. Of course, they had no such plan....

After a bit, the TacEval team leader stood us down with 'It's not really you guys we're interested in. If the Mess bar's not shut yet, you'd better go and have a debrief ( wink! )'

The next day was, for us, a load of slapstick, as we were in 'lurkers' mode. The boss had cancelled our tasking and sent the marrieds off home, keeping the singlies on the sqn and out of trouble, so we just sat around outside on the pan - in chairs a la WW2 - being obnoxious to the harried Nimrodies. Periodic noises over the Tannoy about 'SST and EOD', 'Practice fires' and stuff. Then came the 'Survival Scramble'..... Oh, dear, Oh, dear.

There was a Tannoy message, followed some minutes later by one 4-jet starting up, then another, and another...... then the unmistakable sound of a 'wind-down'. From the Nimrod dispersal - along the disused runway - came a procession of Flighty Punters. Some turned right for the long taxi to the downwind threshold, other turned left for the short way to the upwind end. 'Interesting', remarked the Older QFI to the Younger QFI. 'I think I'll observe this from a safe distance', and he wandered off to watch from The Tower, making himself immune from serving on a Board of Inquiry.

Two got off downwind - just. The other procession whined its way at a 'fast walk' past Ground Zero, as we had named our patch of tarmac in front of Station Ops, and we noted that the leader had three engines running - not four. Apparently a fouled-up start sequence that they then decided they couldn't fix, so - instead of continuing, crossing the runway threshold onto the north-side taxiway, and out of the way, this berk decided to taxy onto the grass to let the others past.... With predictable results. A string of Nimrods, with practice ( ? ) 'sensitive weapons' loaded, engines running, stuck on the taxiway. No reverse gear....

Only four, eventually, got off. One with only two Sensor Ops, another with sixteen of them. And none of them with any Codes, for they'd not written that into any plan. The rest were towed back to their dispersals.

Our Boss wandered off to have a word with the TacEval team leader. 'They've made their point, and there's going to be blood on the carpet over this', he shared with us. 'I wanted to get us all airborne, with a simultaneous startup and stream take-off a la RAFG, then some sqn formation overhead and a display - but they veto'ed that. Said they didn't want two Sqn Cdrs on the train up to London in the morning...... But we've been cleared for the three air tests we need to do.( Wink! )

So half-an-hour later, the two QFIs and the Sqn Display Pilot started up, taxied and streamed, then gave the best 3-Ship and Singleton Canberra display the West Country had seen - above the still snarled-up, parked-up Nimrod fleet.

:)

Pontius Navigator
3rd Feb 2007, 16:18
Laarbruch, '74, NATO Part 2 and the Ops bunker had been taken out. All the station execs were now spare parts and incommunicado.

Then, under a desk, I spied OC Ops Wg on the telephone - verboten - and someone else sureptitiously adjusting a tote display.

"Oh it just fell off."

and OC Ops?

OC Ops explained to the TL that it was hos wife on the phone. She had just driven past the gymnasium and had rung to complain that there were a lot of men outside all exposing themselves.

The temperature was zero and they were a load of Bundeswehr intruders caught by the SRF :)

OC Ops could not explain why he had been on his hands and knees under his desk though.:}

charliegolf
3rd Feb 2007, 16:31
Oldbilbo

A great story in the 'I love it when a plan falls apart' genre!
Don't care if it's true either.
CG