Haraka
The "tourers" on BRIXMIS comprised both Army and RAF, with the odd mysterious matelot. All, regardless of uniform, were trained to recognise, in detail, both ground and air-related kit, to the extent that we should be able to recognise differences that might indicate a new mark or model. However, tasking of each "tour" (between 2 and 5 days in the GDR), tended to concentrate on the natural differences ie the RAF covered mostly aircraft, airfields, fixed-site radars and SAMs and EW generally. Inevitably, we ran into ground targets such as tanks and AFVs, mobile SAMs, SSMs etc, and ground (Army) tours would see aircraft and helicopters. Steve Gibson, as an Army tourer, would have been tasked against SA-8 and 10 vehicles, but would not necessarily have been over-familiar with the tables of organisation.
As an aside, we all suffered from surprise items, sometimes ones that were not new. In 1986, the Soviets suddenly sprang a new Permanent Restricted Area (PRA) map on us which opened up the GDR Baltic coast for the first time in many years. This included the harbours containing the East German Navy. Until we got our first recognition docs on naval vessels, first reports from tourers around Peenemunde referred to "Medium-size grey ships" and "small grey ships" with side numbers! Total professionalism!