Kaitakbowler
Crab, as I recall, the morning following the Tripoli raid Akr went into lockdown, first I knew of it was returning to base on the morning after the raid, greeted by 2 CVRT either side the gate. All the beaches were closed, and the Regiment built a sangar, observation point on the roof of the sailing club. Restrictions continued until late July, as I recall. The attack on August 3 was as you say royally cocked up by the terrorists, thank god. SWMBO was in the shower at the sailing club when all hell let loose and the changing room became very full very quickly, much to her bemusement. The little girl who got the bravery award, for rescuing her baby brother from the rear of a car was my next door neighbour, her mother was injured in her married quarter when a mortar landed in the back garden. We were very lucky that Sunday afternoon. BTW you weren't the pilot who did the NI style vehicle stop on Lady's mile that afternoon, were you?
I was the SDO and started questioning ground ops when I heard the first mortars - they told me they thought something was happening at ARABs so I set off to find out, I was just turning onto the beach road when the ambulance went past me and we arrived together to find everyone huddled on the patio asking if it was safe.
After someone briefly explained about the RPG rounds and the car park being hosed down, I went to the security gate - which the terrorists had mistakenly thought was a crash gate and bounced off it in their car - and found the AK, RPG launcher and a 9mm round embedded in the lock of the gate and it suddenly got rather serious.
As I was leaving my house a colleague, also ex-NI, drove past shouting we were being mortared and it was he who went straight to the Sqn and got airborne to try and find the getaway car.