Originally Posted by
BEagle
I'd love to know whether a BRIXMIS tale I was once told actually happened...
Some boffin wanted to know how thick the armour was on some new Sovietski tankski. So they gave a chap a boffin-jobber device and told him to find one of said tanks, hold the device against the tank's turret, press the tit and it would take a reading.
They didn't quite tell him everything though.
Chap finally found out where one of these tanks was parked, crept out in the dead of night with the boffin's toy, pressed it against the tank and pressed the tit as briefed.
A loud 'BOOOOOIIIIINNNNG' came from the device, which was obviously some sonar system. Chum legged it sharpish and about half-a-heartbeat later the turret hatch flew open and a dazed tank mate peered out in terror holding his head in his hands wondering what the hell had just woken him up..... It seems their crews sleep with their horses and/or tanks!
No doubt the touring team nearly wet themselves with laughter once safely back inside their Opel Senator or whatever...
I have to say that I had never heard of this, although that isn't surprising, as many things dreamed up by mad scientists were tried out and then dropped. The daftest one I can remember was when I got a call from some boffin on the secure line who said he understood that we could wander round the DDR at will, and he had an electronic device that he wanted tested against a particular Soviet piece of equipment. I said that it might be possible - how big was the kit? Oh, says boffin, we've been working hard to really miniaturise it. How miniaturised? says I, thinking of something no bigger than a small briefcase. Oh, says boffin, it fits very nicely into a 2-wheel trailer, and the antenna only needs to go up 12-15 feet! End of conversation.
I have to say, though, that we did have some stunningly good kit developed by really smart scientists for specific tasks.