Mallet Blow

[El Grifo]

Apologies for the intrusion but can anyone tell me if the Mallet Blow excercises
still take place these days.

I have spent many chilly hours up at the simfire unit on Otterburn range shooting pictures in conjunction with what was then RAF Strike Command, High Wycombe.

[fake wafu]

Blimey, there is a blast from the past. I dont think there has been one of those for MANY a year. Very much a cold war ex so not much call for it these days. I stand to be corrected from folks in the know.....

[Take That]

Mallet Blows are indeed no more. Shame, used to be great sport seal clubbing F-111s in the High Speed Corridor off Flamborough Head.

[El Grifo]

Yeah i've been away for 14 years but we had some laughs and cries at Otterburn.

They used to take place four times a year if memory serves.

Do they have any similar regular excercises on the range these days.

[Green Flash]

While we're at it - how about Elder Forest?

[El Grifo]

Goodness that sets bells ringing.

Was that not a more US led excercise with a large naval involvement.

Brain fade :(

[Green Flash]

Thought EF was a big AD ex in N England. As regards the naval ex - are you thinking about the JMC (Neptune Warrior)? I remember GAF Alphajets (from Husum) deploying to Linton for an MB or EF, can't think which.

[El Grifo]

Fourteen years living in the Sun has taken its toll .

Brain must be frazzled to a raisin by now :sad:

They never called me to cover Elder Forest. Was it as extensive ?

erewego http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/central-enterprise.htm

[Dan Gerous]

Sorry to say there isn't a lot of fast jet activity or even helicopters at otterburn now. There is a fair bit of FAC training done but it is a bit staid compared to MB.

[Sentry Agitator]

Mallet Blow, Elder Forest and not forgetting Elder Joust

I remember assisting the Controllers who were having lots of fun during those fine Cold War days when we knew the enemy were beyond the wall and not in Whitehall!

The days when the TB would echo those great words...survival scramble, survival scramble and all hell would break loose for the next 90 minutes.

That was the sort of thing that got me into this controlling lark?

Were they not replaced by the NATINADS series?

SA

[winkle]

there is a tear rollin down me cheek. ah happy dayz. gr1 music playin trying to find those little targets on otterburn

[SRENNAPS]

Mallet Blow, remember it well.

Who also remembers the Salmon Trophy and the infamous “Exercise Lionheart”........now they WERE cold war exercises?

[Background Noise]

Salmon or Salmond?

Mallet Blow became something else - similar profiles different name, can't remember what it was though. Brave Invader? - something like that. Spent time on the ground for MB though, prepping targets and other jolly stuff.

Did Lionheart too - in a tented camp in BAOR.

[Wingswinger]

Actually it was the SALMOND Trophy. Won it for my sqn in 1986. As sqn QWI I instructed the boys all to drop the FRA bombs TOO Rad Alt instead of phase 1. The navs cursed and hated me for it but the sqn stats showed that method to be the most accurate. The boss said I'd better be right. I was (phew).

Mallet Blows? What larks, Pip!

Anyone remember Ex "Priory"?

[Green Flash]

Priory! Gawd, all these old Cold War ex's are flooding back!

Remember those days folks? There were lots of us, and we smiled and laughed alot ..... :sad:

[SRENNAPS]

Background Noise & Wingswinger

My apologies, it was called the Salmond trophy. It was a long time ago.

However in my defence I seem to remember that the trophy was awarded to a certain Bat Sqn when they first arrived in Germany (RAF PR stunt).

The real winners were the “Star” Sqn who were disqualified for allegedly tampering with JP233. This “tampering” was subsequently accepted as a legitimate modification.

After the exercise the Bat Sqn presented the WO of the “Star Sqn with a tin of pink Salmon which, as you can imagine, did not go down to well ...............true story.

PS 1986 seems to ring a bell....... Wingswinger were you a "bat" or a Laarbruch man.

[Sentry Agitator]

Background

Wasn't it Brilliant Invader?

[Maple 01]

Aiming Fist, Flintstone or Ricochet anyone?

[BEagle]

Cavalcade
Ocean Safari
Priory
Blue Moon
Datex
Brown Falcon
Cloudy Chorus
Solar Flare
Northern Wedding
Highwood
Macex
Flintstone
Mallet Blow
Whiskey Troll
Roebuck
Bold Gauntlet
Central Enterprise
Western Chance
Elder Forest
Scotadex
Imminent Thunder
Brilliant Foil
Minibus
Hulkex
Salty Hammer
Shetland Bus
Brilliant Invader
Pegasus Strike
NAM2000

Plus all those Profits and Coffee Charlies....

I'm sure there were others!

[Wingswinger]

SRENNAPS,

Neither. I was a Crusader at Bruggen.

[SRENNAPS]

Wingswinger,

I was a Goldstar at the time (as you probabaly guessed) but had the honour of being a Crusader in the Nineties.....best time of my life.
Cold war exercises were just coming to an end, which was a shame, but we still had some bloody good times.

Regards to you.

[Wingswinger]

Thank you. And to you.

Moving away from the UK, do Red Flags, Green Flags and Maple Flags still go on?

Actually what I really loved was taking part in pongo fah-pah demo's on Larkhill. I was a QWI on Hunters at Brawdy '79-'82. We used to load up the gun packs with 4 x 100 rounds of 30mm HE and poke off to Salisbury Plain to belt the daylights out of the tank hulks. I can still smell the cordite!

[El Grifo]

Red Flag is indeed still running, several times a year.

I was on a shoot in Las Vegas last year which coincided with the Flag.
I went along for old times sake. The day I chose was quite a slow day by Flag standards but worth it nonetheless.

Boeing sponsored the making of an incredible I-MAX movie about Red Flag.

The website gives a taster, if you can get past the naff front end of the site, click on trailers/clips. you will get some idea.

I have seen it on HD TV and it is spectacular

It must be even more incredible on I-MAX

http://www.fighterpilotfilm.com/

[Razor61]

The 'Big' NATO exercise now (or up until recently when several conflicts started) was Clean Hunter.
This i believe took over all the "Mallet" and "Brilliant" exercises and involved most NATO Countries with the whole of Europe being 'played' in.

For the major UK only exercises, these are now named Wycombe Warrior

[Sentry Agitator]

Wingswinger

Red Flag still takes place.....one on right now actually. The Cope Thunder Exercises in Alaska are now know as Red Flag Alaska as well. One there in April.

SA

[Wingswinger]

I loved the wash-ups at the end of the day on "Flags". The cine film, the claims, the bull****! It was a great experience only lessened by having to use concrete 1000lb-ers instead of HE.

During the fighter engagement wash-up, when we were all debriefing what we saw and our encounters, one memorable debrief line came from a F-111 flight-leader:

"We, uh, ingressed the target at 540 and we, uh, egressed at 1.4. We saw no-one".

He wouldn't have, would he?

[fake wafu]

For the major UK only exercises, these are now named Wycombe Warrior

Razor, if you are suggesting that WYCOMBE WARRIOR is UK only you are not quite right I am afraid. WW is an ex run by NATO CAOC (granted it was initially for UK units). There was a period when it was mandated by AOC 1 Gp as an ex that the sqns had to support (I bet that went down well with some sqn cdrs). UK involvement has tailed off somewhat over the last 12 - 18 months and continental players tend to provide the majority of the assets. French, German, Norwegian units are regulars, with air, land and maritime forces from other nations taking part too,

[Razor61]

Fake Wafu,
No i was wasn't suggesting that it was UK only participants. I was suggesting it was 'UK only' airspace but as you say with European and USAF participants included.
The majority of WW's are conducted over East Anglia, North Sea and Spadeadam etc.

[Gainesy]

I was a Crusader at Bruggen.

Must have been a bit dodgy, what with all those Saracens in BAOR.:uhoh:

When did TacEvals stop? Or are they still extant under a different name?

[fake wafu]

I think TACEVAL went away for a while after the Wall came down and we became focused on sandy places. But they are back. Not sure what the difference is between an OPEVAL and a TACEVAL but NATO has a TACEVAL team, UK has a TACEVAL national rep and Lakenheath had their TACEVAL end of last yesr (grounding of the C models was a better inject than anything that the TACEVAL team could have made up!).

[KarlADrage]

Funnily enough I found myself scanning some of my dad's negatives on Thursday, including some from our annual visits to Otterburn for Mallet Blow.

The negs are in pretty poor shape and will take quite a lot of cleaning, but here's a couple as tasters:

1989 and 1990 respectively, I think!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/KarlADrage/Golden%20Oldies/1-9-2008_001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/KarlADrage/Golden%20Oldies/1-9-2008_052.jpg

There's a lot more, featuring Canadian Hornets, Danish Drakens & F-16s, German Phantoms and Tornadoes (MFG and JBG jobs), French Jags, F-111s, plus some oldy worldy RAF Tornadoes from the likes of 16 and 20 Sqns!

Those were the days!!

[Pontius Navigator]

Kingpin.

Now there was an exercise. The one I was on had a mass raid of 300+ USAF Tac Bombers followed the RAF mass raid of 300 a few minutes later. The Cranberries took the 310-360 block, the Mark 1 Vs were 370-490, the Mark 2 were 500-560. The whole raid took just 21 minutes on a front from Great Yarmouth to Newcastle.

At 530 we were unopposed but could see many contrails from the Ligntnings below us picking off the easy meat. We were ECM free.

IIRC the defending force was just 199 fighters including as many Sea Vixen as they could bring forward and of course the USAF based AD assets too.

[Gainesy]

Nice pictures Karl, there's some skill there, as good as the pin-sharp, count-the-rivets school of digicams may be, having to pay for film and processing had its plus points.

When was your Ex Kingpin PN?

[Bo Nalls]

plus some oldy worldy RAF Tornadoes from the likes of 16 and 20 Sqns!


KarlADrage, as a directional consultant with both of those sqns during late 80's & early 90's any chance of some more piccies :)

[KarlADrage]

I'll endeavour to get some tidied up and online this evening. The quality's not great though, as I say! :(

[Pontius Navigator]

Gainsy, 1965 while we still had the high level kit and the 'system' had not forgone its original high level focus.

It was a 'fighter rules' exercise, no evasion etc.

We also had all our magnetron freqs measured. We guessed this was a trial by Fighter Command to triangulate on our emissions.

We routed out over Stornoway before heading fro Bergen. In accorance with the Bomber Command brief all H2S were put to standby. We were allowed a quick sector scan to the north when at the Norwegian coast for a quick fix - 20-30 seconds max - then back to standby. Never did find out how the trial went :}

[minigundiplomat]

Make a change from Eagles Futility or Druids Dance, or OPTAG. Even these are often scaled down or cancelled as the box marked 'soldiers' becomes more and more spacious inside.

[KarlADrage]

Bo Nalls,

I'm going to have to get hold of a conventional scanner because all of the other relevant Tornado neg scans are turning black shadows red, which is just degrading the quality further.

Here's the only semi-decent 16 Sqn shot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/KarlADrage/Golden%20Oldies/1-9-2008_007.jpg

[Pontius Navigator]

Ah and then there was Fan Angel. More political than value just to maintain our right to use Kef.

Shack to Iceland to play the Bear. Stooging around in alien airspace at FL190-210. Usually minimum crew with a few Spam pax. One trip Spam asked where the convenience was.

He duly went down the back, drew the curtain, removed the demand oxygen tube from its stowage by the elsan and peed into it. The oxygen tube that is, not the elsan.

Still we had an extra couple of days on the ground while the oxygen system was purged.

[camlobe]

I'm smiling while I think of excercises.

and

I cannot remember all the names. Still got my own hair and teeth though, so maybe its not all doom and gloom.


But, I do seem to remember;

Mallet Blow's (detached to St M and accomodated downtown, or was that Neptune Warrier?)
Fan Angel's (and enjoying the NATO blocks kitchen and HUGE telly screen, and the block bars - Brass Nut, Marine Bar, P3 bar, etc)
Ricochet's (often)
Elder Forrest
Neptune Warrier
Priory
Ocean Safari
Northern Wedding
Coffee Charlies

and the ever entertaining

Red Can


Good years

camlobe

[El Grifo]

Kinda glad I resurrected this old ghosty :ok:

Sadly High Wycombe has custody my old B/W negs.