Pull up a sand-bag, swing the lantern...
The drainpipes were the ejection chute for the M134 (dodgy arms-market purchase; GE man spent some time at the FOB helping to get them working). The det's 5 RAF Regiment gunners became the port-side operators for all ops after these were fitted, the other position shown here being manned by the No.2 crewman.
After the first night's tasking it was abundantly clear to all concerned that the IRR desert cam paint glowed in the dark. Our excellent JNCO engineers were given the task of nipping down to the local souk and obtaining all the dark paint they could get their hands on. I can't remember exactly how much they found, but it wasn't enough for a full repaint even when the stuff was fully thinned-down. Hence the stripe effect. While they were painting ZA712 'R' one of the lads kicked the paint bucket while they were doing the cabin roof - that aircraft ended up with a mixed pattern with WW2-style broad stripes as well as the small dashes.
SASless - looking at the scenery, I'd say this shot was taken post-GW1 during the operation to assist the Kurds in Turkey/ NW Iraq. You can rest assured that Mk14s with kneepads were never worn on Op Jena tasking.
As an afternote, one of these aircraft was still in this paintscheme several months later when it went over to do its share of tasking in N Ireland. The cam was surprisingly effective there too, although the dept of the MoD then carrying out the Wessex paintscheme trials (Light Dove Grey Walters seemed particularly unpopular with the customers...) were deeply unimpressed. It seems local initiative on the part of our Gulf groundcrew was seen to undermine their all-embracing remit to decide UK Armed Forces paint jobs. Still, these aircraft weren't the first to use non-approved schemes - anyone from the AAC care to recount the 'thinking' behind the change from black/green to light grey/grass green? Scientific selection didn't exactly come into it...