TACEVAL stories

[SOSL]

During the Cold War a solid air defence backed by a superior QRA was the universal holy grail for the RAF; closely followed by a good TACEVAL result.

TACEVAL was a serious business, run by ultimately powerful guys up at Group HQ, but a lot of funny, outrageous and just plain weird stuff happened during TACEVALs; both pre and post the HAS era.

I was in a hangar (pre-HAS) when the hangar was reported (exercise only) to have taken 2 mortar round hits. The IRT were informed and the station emergency response (including medics) swung into action.

A Cpl medic knelt down next to one of the"casualties", pinched his ear lobe and said "can you hear me". Casualty (overacting) groaned and tried to sit up, medic leant over to restrain him.

Medics heavy steel helmet (before we had plastic ones)fell off his head as it was going down and collided with casualty's head as it was coming up.

Resulted in a proper (NODUFF) concussion. NODUFF ambulance summoned and (now real) casualty whisked off to nearest NHS A&E dept.

His treatment was confused, at first, because the A&E found a piece of paper in his hand which said " broken leg and multiple contusions".

Happily he was back at work within a fortnight.

Any TACEVAL stories welcome.

Rgds SOS

[taxydual]

At a certain F3 base (no names), first hour of TACEVAL, one of the 'umpires' in the WOC was in a bit of a flap. He'd left some paperwork behind. He'd borrowed a copy of one of his fellow 'umpires' and collared one of my SAC's to photocopy the lot.

Usual paperwork dross, then pure gold. A complete breakdown of every 'inject' and 'stunt' the TACEVAL Team planned. When, where, timings, the lot. Pure gold.

I'd like to say my SAC didn't decide to make an extra copy. But .........

Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

We passed with flying colours.

We also passed the next couple of TACEVAL's when we didn't have prior knowledge.

[dallas]

By the 4th morning of a TACEVAL at Marham the fleet had been generated to strike missions, when the signal came to the Ops room to launch. Tensions rose and people started opening blisters. A moment before the strike controller started hit set piece of releasing and authenticating, a Chief from Eng Ops got up from his seat at the front and noticeably caught everybody's eye when he walked from left to right across the very front of the tote boards. Odd timing to go for a wander was the general opinion.

Ten minutes later the finale still hadn't started; enter Chief again, following reverse route, only this time carrying a large paper plate stacked with food. Watched by the Stn Cdr and his senior battle staff, he sits down and starts tucking in, until fellow Eng WO is seen to lean towards him and says something like 'wtf are you doing'? Slight pause, then situation dawns on Chief, who says out loudly, "I thought he said it was a mass lunch!"

[Lightning Mate]

Bruggen late 70's middle of TACEVAL.

Erstwhile Sqn Ldr Ops (no names but had just become a grandfather) on station tannoy:

"This is a no duff message - I am a grandfather"

Hoots from our PBF.

[Cubanate]

Bruggen, early Eighties, at the end of a TACEVAL and on broadcaster's retirement:

"Standby for broadcast. This is the COC ......... and this is the sound of Champagne (sound of Champers being poured into glass follows). End of broadcast"!

[taxydual]

I hope the Statute of Limitations has run out on this one.

Scottish Buccaneer base. 20 minutes into TACEVAL, self and oppo 'hit' by IED outside ATC. Carted off to Casualty Clearing where we are pronounced DOA.

Told by Umpire to 'Bugger off' and keep out of the way. None of this 'you're dead but alive again in 12 hours' nonsense.

Now, not wanting to hang around the mess (we both lived in) for the next 4 days with all the nause of being stopped and searched everytime we ventured out (plus the fact the bar was closed), my oppo had a plan.

We sort of knew where the Team were staying, a Hotel about 10 miles away, so we chanced it and booked ourselves in as part of the 'RAF Booking'. 'No problem' says the Receptionist. So for the next 3 nights we shared a twin room, ate and drank quite well and disappeared on the morning of the 4th day leaving the Taceval Team Leader to settle the bill.

[ShyTorque]

TD, Brilliant!:ok:

[sisemen]

Suffolk Buccaneer base and first TACEVAL after we got the fleet back airborne again and the rusty bits were definitely showing.

The rusty bits were pointed out by the TACEVAL team at the debrief at which point the Staish (Good on yer Mike) said something along the lines of "Yeah, well if it was real war we'd do OK so don't worry about this stuff".

It was probably a career shortener but boy oh boy did we appreciate it. :ok:

[taxydual]

As an aside, Oppo in my Lossie dit, 20 years later became a civvy 1* equivalent in Command Accounts at HQSTC.

Poacher turned Gamekeeper.

[Cows getting bigger]

Gutersloh sometime in the 80s. The inject was that an air traffic controller had lost his marbles, had taken a hostage and was gibbering ENDEX on the station tannoy. The ATC supervisor went upstairs to notionally talk to the controller. In classic Indiana Jones fashion, the ATC supervisor got to the top of the stairs pulled-out his pistol and shot the controller without stopping for a single breath. The TACEVAL man was most un-amused.

[Wander00]

Gen Shan Hackett (he of Arnhem fame) wrote a book called ISTR "World War Three". Middle of a station exercise, Duty Exec was looking a bit lost, and asked generally "Well, where are we then?" Someone threw him copy of Shan Hackett's book and quoted a page number - "We are about there" said the thrower of the book.

[Jumping_Jack]

The most surreal TACEVAL I was part of was at Northolt in the late '80s. Clearly an attempt to 'get in on the act' the base decided to have a Stn Exercise utilising one of the worst 'ops rooms' I'd ever witnessed. Sat inside, no windows, if you turned the lights out you could see daylight through the myriad of holes. NBC proof it was not! The bizzare dreamlike world that was Northolt continued with the entire command chain having regular 'NAAFI breaks' over at the Officers Mess (just behind the 'COC') thus leaving the entire station 'headless'. Still, at least we had an over enthusiastic first tour baby Plod who would deal with each and every incident single handedly. Phone rings....handset snatched by said Plod.....brief discussion resulting in Fed leaping to his feet, drawing his Browning, cocking it whilst shouting 'I'll deal with this!' and then rushing from the room....:ok:

[Danny42C]

Geilenkirchen. Suppose it was a MINEVAL or something. A certain Canberra squadron (which shall be nameless). Hooter goes at crack of dawn.

Seven navigators turned up before the first pilot.

[SOSL]

Surreal, but strangely believable.

Rgds SOS

[Wander00]

My Teceval/Minival stories are either of Aunty Joan at that Norfolk radar station, and of DC of B......k, for whom a certain record was requested on Radio Lincolnshire by the Lineys.

Aunty Joan first -

Ordered by my new station commander to appear 3v weeks before posting, with my new but unentitled at that stage rank badges, for a station exercise (she had of course cleared it with Robby Robson) in which I was to be Ground Defence Commander. My predecessor gave me a 10 minute brief and disappeared not to return that day, and I was "in the chair". An hour later a call came in for an exercise fire at the Tx station (near Stalham about 5 miles away Putting all I had learned "on the hill" into effect, I reckoned CPX fire, off site, CPX civilian fire brigade. Five minutes later I met my new station commander - she swept into the GDCC, fag going, hair streaming - "Squadron Leader, when there is a fire on my station, it has flames coming from it. Send a real fire engine - NOW".

I got a gentle revenge later - 1800 briefing - fighter controllers had spoken of thing of which I knew nothing, then I was up for the Ground Defence brief. "Station Commander, ladies and gentlemen,. So far I have not understood a word. I hope I can do better". Roar of laughter, led by CO. I knew this was going to be a "good" tour.

[NutLoose]

TACEVAL Bruggen, seeing off a Jag TBird with an evaluator in the rear seat, for some reason there was only a couple of us in the HAS and I was sitting on the ducting in view and on intercom, but with full NBC kit on during NBC black I had fallen asleep.... The call comes through to go and I'm fast asleep sitting with my respirator on you couldn't tell, pilot is going frantic trying to wave at me and shouting down the intercom without letting the evaluator in the back realise anything is amiss..... Then for some reason I nod and the weight of the helmet wakes me... Afterwards pilot tells me he was considering throwing the contents of the cockpit at me when the rear seater was looking the other way :E

[AR1]

Pre Christmas joint party with ATC just down the A1 from Wittering. All the controllers start leaving at about 11pm. Boring old farts we thought and 'partied on'. Then back to the MQ for a wee dram. About an hour after we called it a night the hooter went off... Not good.

[Wander00]

When I was at N......head, in MQ that had once been RAF Horsham St Faith, guy across the road had a 3 year old who whenever the hooter went was out there to see daddy off, wearing his camo PJs, plastic helmet and armed to the teeth. Can see him now. Would be about 30 now, wonder if he joined up.

[NutLoose]

:)





.........

[Wander00]

Black Mack (SATCO) blowing the windows out on the ATC tower staircase with a thunderflash (Binbrook).

[NutLoose]

Odiham exercise.. hooter goes off in distance and ignored as tannoy in block doesn't work.. Here banging on door down the corridor and SWO and co asking "haven't you heard the call out? You're charged" hear him getting closer and people still answering the knock, charges all around... Comes to me... Silence on my behalf then hear him working back down the hall... Phew..

Wander into work swearing blind I was off station :E

[Wander00]

Mrs W and I have been back from the honeymoon for 5 days - I can see her now, 6pm and she is putting a pan on the stove in the MQ at HSF - and the siren goes. I am permitted to use my car as I am Ground Defence Commander so don't need to wait for the bus. Mrs W is standing dumfounded, and open mouthed as I leave hurriedly. It seems in my memory that is how I found her when I got back at 2330 ish - except for the very loud " And where the heck have you been?" Then I realised - in our courting days when I was in DIOT at Cranwell and lived off base, she had only ever seen me called out by telephone. I think the siren had genuinely frightened her. Certainly put paid to a candle light supper!

[smujsmith]

A Taceval on a base recently deprived of its last flying flat iron, where, the funniest looking Nimrod was being introduced. And two Jnr Techs of the Airframe persuasion were posted to guard a "significant" building. It was around 2200 hrs and pretty dark, although the starlight gave you reasonable vision at around 20 feet. At this point I should admit that I was one of the guards, the other was a very large, very straight talking Yorkshireman who said what he thought, and loved American movies, we'll call him Fred. So we've been out there for around 2 hours and its pretty bloody cold, no contact with anywhere, and no visits from guard commander or anyone else.

We hear the sound of someone approaching, so I shout the challenge "halt, stand still", they keep coming, and now we see two officers, no NBC kit on so probably Distaff. I repeat the challenge, to no avail, they keep coming. At this point we can make out (around 20 feet away) two Squadron Leaders, one of whom was dark skinned and rather large. Seeing they were not going to stop Fred decided to take the situation in hand, he stood up from behind our sandbags, pointed his empty rifle at the pair, and announced in a very loud, Yorkshire, accent "one move and the nig**r gets it" ( just think of Guy Gibsons dog). The two stopped put their hands up and played the game from then on. They were both umpires from another unit and were impressed, so they said, with Fred's use of the vernacular. There was no complaint from either officer, I believe they were both amused. But could you get away with that now ? I doubt it.

Smudge :ok:

[NutLoose]

I remember the Jengo at Bruggen and being a Muslim on exercise when the breakfasts came round ( by which time we could have eaten a horse ) he had to wave off his Compo sausage, bacon, eggs and fried bread... Though everyone else had it instead..

One hopes things have changed and they now get a proper breakfast on exercise they can eat..



..

[taxydual]

Another one from a Lossie TACEVAL. Two Assistant Air Trafficer's in a sangar 'guarding' the 05 end.

Come ENDEX, everyone off home for tea and medals.

15 hours later, 'Hey, has anyone seen Phil and Dave?'.

Yup, they're still out there. Talk about Japs on remote South Pacific Islands still fighting WW2.

How we laughed.

Tojo and Nanky Poo, do you frequent this site?

[sittingstress]

I was a TACEVAL "inspector" (DI STAFF)!!

The job was very lucrative as we all qualified for ODR rather than the lesser PTR, plus Rate 1's for the duration. Consequently the slots normally went to those higher up the food chain than me.

I get a phone call from a fellow JNCO at a different RAFG station. He says he has heard I can speak French and that if I could then OC 4 Wing RAF Regt was offering me the job as one of the DI STAFF for the Part 2 TACEVAL of a Belgian Air Force station. I assured him I had a qualification in both written and spoken French.

A favourable assessment of myself and this other JNCO might be "a pair of coniving rogues".

Travelling down to Belgium the venerable (and awesome bloke) OC 4 Wing was front passenger, driven by my Sgt. Myself and the other rogue were in the back of the green Cavalier (I think) staff car. We had no hope of finding the place first time as the joining instructions used the French town names but the local maps and signage was in Flemish.

Finally we found a large fence and in time honoured fashion we turned left and drove round it in a clockwise fashion. SUCCESS, we happened upon a gate complete with sentries, sangars and weapons. It was a small affair and clearly a crash gate.

OC 4 Wing turned round, looked me directly in the eye and said "OK ss find out where the main gate is."

I wound down my window and enquired in a clear voice audible to all "Oi mate, ou est le main gate sil vous plait?"

"Sgt sort that wan*er out will you" bade the Wing Commander. My mate snorted with laughter and I said "O level grade D mate."

My exercise was awful, all the worst jobs possible.

The cash bought me a schrank though.

[NutLoose]

Bruggen... Now all Squadrons wished to come out top....

However we had a cunning plan, as with all things Squadron wise you tended to know the opposition so sitting in a HAS we went to work...
Someone had kindly provided a nice telephone directory for all the HAS on the Station, so one would blind call a HAS elsewhere and say can Corporal XYZ go to HAS 23 to have a look at a fuel leak...
Muggins on the other end being helpful would tell you he isn't in their HAS but HAS 22 so you would call that HAS and tell him to send a Liney etc to HAS 23 to replace you and so it went on..
Eventually a Tannoy message would go out telling them to ignore calls as they were bogus, so we would then call the HAS and tell them to ignore the Tannoy as compromised etc....
Ohh and the Staish used to also get calls simply saying Coco Pops...

Ahhhh such fun..
Oddly enough the station still used to come out smelling of roses


..

[thing]

At one place I was at that shall remain nameless I was both the shelter marshall and exercise comms supremo. The shelter was a couple of sheets of poly on sticks just behind a building door with a tray of Fuller's earth on the deck.

Being always struck by the surreal nature of exercises and how two sheets of poly and a tray of dust could save us I could never take it seriously.

COC 'How many men are in your shelter?'

Me '400'

COC 'There are only 60 men on your section'

Me 'I've taken in refugees from neighbouring hamlets who are in need of succour'

COC 'You can't do that'

Me 'I am the Shelter Marshall, giver of life and death'

COC 'Report to me at Endex'


Conners about '75. ORP, Pete V*** and Middy H on cockpit readiness about 0200, sheeting down with rain, me on headset underneath wing. Crew stood down after about half an hour, Pete looks at me after climbing out, thoroughly wet and pissed off and in the most heartfelt way I've ever heard from another human says slowly 'What. A. Way. To. Earn. A. F******. Crust.'

[INT_QRU]

In one of the crew shelters during an exercise at Kinloss in the mid-80s. Two crews in there on standby to fly later in the day. Each crew briefed to sleep in their flying kit to be ready for launch as soon as possible after the word is given.

How fun it was to sneak into the other crew's dorm and switch all the flying boots around!

On another occasion remember seeing P2 lying on a camp bed in a HAS wrapping himself in a paper chart as he was cold and trying to sleep. How we laughed when one of the lads set fire to the corner as we watched and waited!

[taxydual]

Another one from a Leeming TACEVAL.

First time ever, the WRAF had to sleep in shelters (previously, they 'admin breaked' to the WRAF block).

The small dorm in the WOC slept 60 on triple bunk beds. 58 guys trying to kip. Enter 2 of the WRAFs finest to find the only bedspaces available were on the top tiers.

"Oh" says one, "I've never been on top before".

Cue 58 blokes laughing like drains

[ShyTorque]

TACEVAL Gutersloh, early 1980s. 230 Sqn hangar, very wet, windy morning. RAFG Sqn Ldr assessor on scene. Ongoing "inject" was a mains power cut. Huge standby generator trailer therefore running by the side of hangar, twenty metres from side door.

Shyt and crewman leave hangar by side door and notice a round, domed topped, olive green metal object lying in the grass right next to footpath by the door.

"Aha! An exercise IED", we both calmly agree.

We retreat, close the door and report back to Sqn Ops to pass on the good news. Flt Cdr sets suitable career enhancing response in motion, i.e. calls local RAF Regiment to expertly assess the threat. "Yep, it's actually a landmine!" The end of the hangar exit and path were cordoned off, offices rapidly vacated, etc. Huge disruption to preparations for Sqn deployment.

While this is going on, TACEVAL assessor reads notes and then announces quietly and slightly nervously (increased IRA threat around that period, including RAFG personnel having been shot dead):

"Er.. by the way....this isn't actually one of ours....... :ooh: !"

All further local TACEVAL injects totally disrupted. More RAF Regiment appear.

About two hours later the landmine was discovered to be the top off the air filter from the standby generator. It had vibrated loose, jumped off and the wind had blown it like a frisbee to the grass by the footpath. :p

[PingDit]

280SU, Cape Gata, Cyprus, early 70's Taceval. So, there I am, on top of the Ops Building roof at around midnight. All of a sudden, I spot 2 guys at the perimeter fence about 100m away. One gets on the others shoulders to jump inside the perimeter. I knew immediately what to do in this situation of course and cranked the handle of the field telephone next to me to report what I'd seen. Nothing - the line's dead. This was merely a diversion of course. Their mates were already inside, as I was about to find out.

I rushed over to the other side of the flat roof to where the other field telephone was, sit on the pile of surrounding sand bags and cranked the telephone handle.
"And that f***er won't work either" says the pile of sandbags I'm currently sitting on.
Time seemed to freeze at this point.

It was like a Mexican stand-off. It dawned on me at this point that I was now sat on a SAS guy (the 'invaders').
Fortunately for me, he said "don't worry mate, I'll come quietly".
I breathed a sigh of relief and took him down to the guard post at gunpoint where he was searched by the RAF Police. They took a few things off him and seemed satisfied by their search.
He was then searched by some plain-clothed guys unknown to me, who took the scar from his face (fuse-wire), a detonator from his backside and plastic explosive from his armpits. Not surprisingly, I've never forgotten that event!

[WK622]

Kinloss - NMSU - early 80's. Call out has been ongoing for some time. Short WO is now working up to super rant mode at late comers. The way into our Fortress was via the SNCOs crew room fire door, on the airfield side. For reasons unknown this had a very high step...

There came a knock and when the door was opened there on top of the step stood one of 2 Teams finest, with his old style tin helmet on his head.

WO stood straight in front of our hero and went off on one! Barney, attempting to explain his lateness while still on the step, tilted his head forwards oblivious to the fact that his chin strap was not done up.

The helmet duly gave into gravity and in a flash the steel rim had sliced across said WOs upturned nose causing an immediate and very painful injury and the end of all ranting for several hours!

Happy daze....

[Wander00]

Neatishead Minival. Two guards patrolling the wire spot youngish and not unattractive woman in the wheat field outside the wire. "What are you doing?" asked one of the guards. "Looking for wild oats" comes the serious reply from the farmer's daughter. "Best come inside the wire" says his mate. Subsequent complaint courteously dealt with by Aunty Joan.

[Rossian]

.....'90s-ish.
OCU scratch crew "You lot are up for dinghy drill" WTF??

Get our heads down and are called at 5AM. Transport doesn't go to Newquay pool but sets off for the south coast - to Fowey in fact.
As we wait on the pier in the early morining thick mist we hear a subdued rumble of big diesels and a big Marine Craft hoves to about 200 yards off. Ferried out in the Zodiac and then set off down the channel and out to sea. Sun comes up, lovely sunny morning as we burn along the coast towards Lands End at 40 kts. Smashing full English breakfast in the sunshine.

Then emerged from his bunk the sea survival instructor from Mountbatten "Buggah"

About 20 miles west of LE we stop and we are allowed to get into the dinghy dry shod with all the goodies, solar stills,heliographs, flares etc.Boat eases away to (we thought) lurk hull down out of our sight.
WRONG!! They set of back to Plymouth at 40 kts!
I had secured the one and only live SARBE and had it tucked inside my immersion suit.
We tried out all the goodies chatted up dolphins who came to visit and eventually got bored
The Coudrose Sea Prince trundled by as we flashed our heliographs. No response.

We had imagined the scenario ; Nimrod search, drops anther dighy, calls in Seaking from Culdrose, we get winched dropped back at SM. OK let it all unfold.

Nothing happened!

Come 1800, Culdrose now shut, no Nimrod, evening wearing on.
I fetch out the SARBE which "Capt" immediately demands possession of. F*** O** Gordon.
Select the live rather than training mode. Capt objects. F*** O** Gordon.
"If I'm bobbing about here in the coming dark it's a real emergency"

Back at SM Ops, taceval umpire asks "What have you done about the crew that ditched? "EH?? WTFO"
Nimrod goes U/S. The RN (gawd bless'm) find a scratch crew who come to look for us. Find us and start winching. We hear the bang and SK departs landwards. Now what?
Stone me another SK appears and gathers up the rest of us and heads to SM.
Half way there, another VERY LOUD bang and a puff of what looks like brown smoke whips past the windows. It's a swash plate failure and loss of hydraulic oil. Limp to SM and get dumped on the first bit of airfiel after coast. No Transport. Walk all the way back to ops. No one in, all gone home, ENDEX was two hours ago.

In the bar OC Ops did apologise and buy us a beer.

An interesting day.

The Ancient Mariner

[Dan Winterland]

Prior to springing a surprise on RAF Marham, the TACEVAL team used to stay in a little pub about 15 miles from the station where they assumed they wouldn't be known. Unfortunately for them, the landlord was the father in law of one of the Victor Captains. So we always got at least a week's notice once the booking had been made.

[skyguard]

During a TACEVAL At Kinloss in the early eighties, a dog handler, whose patrol area was between the wash pan, runway 08 and Harry the Staishs house, needed to answer a call of nature and wandered over to some bushes. Imagine his surprise when 100 lbs of German Shepherd nailed an intruder hidden in the bushes.... then ..some people will pee on you and tell you its rain!

[BEagle]

I was never sure whether it was true, but OC Admin used to 'own' the Aux Rock Ape gang at a certain covert Oxonian aerodrome. They were as keen as mustard and often worked in a proactive manner.

One fine night, they were on external patrol and spotted a dubious looking bunch getting into a black car after filling up at the local petrol station setting off to the north. They duly gave chase and there followed the 'Battle of Burford High Street'. Nothing would stop our gallant Rocks until they'd nabbed their quarry at gun point and after a few blanks had been pooped off....

It took all OC A's negotiating skills to resolve the matter.

The next day I was stood down late at night and was driving quietly through Black Bourton when a Land_Rover full of heavily armed cam'd up Rocks pulled out in front of me...on a public road. I explained the error of their ways to them and they admitted they'd been a bit too keen - but when I mentioned it to OC A the next day he simply groaned, put his head in his hands and asked "Oh god, what have the buggers been up to this time?".

Splendid bunch they were though...

Allegedly, on one occasion in Lincolnshire, a Vulcan mate was 'friends' with a local hotelier, who told him about a block booking which had clearly been made for the TACEVAL team. So, when they duly turned up, the good lady of the inn simply advised them that there'd been a double booking and that there was No Room At The Inn for them....:E

[Motleycallsign]

Guetersloh, early 70's; TacEval team ordered evacuation of families, MT of all kinds loaded up with spouses and children, set off down autobahn to the west. On arrival at Kamener Kreutz, convoy turned round to return to station to find autobahn behind them jammed full of local residents from Guetersloh believing that the fall of the country was imminent. After that, all exercises were promulgated in local papers to avoid repeat.

Different exercise again at Guetersloh: '74ish, 2 'frightning' sqns based there (19 & 92); member of one of the sqns, strolled quietly into other sqns safe bunker with cs candle spluttering. Attacked sqns pilots out of action for requisite time, till deemed fit to fly again.

[NutLoose]

Operation Maximash the evaluation of RAF Wegberg..... Ahhh
Having been "volunteered" to go play casualty I actually then volunteered subsequent years...

You all got a bit of paper giving symptoms then off to make up.. one of the guys was given a slip of paper simply telling him that he had gone mad and act it out, we all wondered how he could do that....
We were all medivaced in by Chinook and as we were wheeled in for assessment, some really fit Flt Lt Nurse leans over him to check his symptoms, at which point he reaches up grabs both her breasts, squeezes them saying "honk honk" hops off his trolley and storms off up a corridor followed by howls of laughter from everyone bar the said nurse...

[DX Wombat]

Ladies and Gentlemen thank you for causing great anxiety in my two dogs who were baffled and perturbed by the sight of me laughing hysterically whilst reading this thread. Never having been in the RAF puts me at a slight disadvantage when it comes to some of the abbreviations and nicknames but it certainly doesn't spoil the enjoyment. Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading many more tales. :ok:
PS - to whom should I send the vet's bills?

[Pontius Navigator]

"Unleash the dogs of war," said our doughty Regiment Officer to clear the protestors from the end of the runway.

Released the dog duly bit the first ar^e to hand. Our doughty hero needed a new seat to his pants :)

[NutLoose]

COC command operations centre
Jengo. junior engineering officer
Sengo senior version
HAS hardened Aircraft shelter
TACEVALS tactical evaluation (big exercise)
MINEVAL Smaller version
OCU operational conversion unit aka a training unit
DISTAFF evaluation staff specific to exercises
CPX quick fix often making you look like plonkers, ie CPX trench rather than dig one, 4 pegs with tape round and marked as CPX trench often found with people standing in looking stupid.... You get the drift..

Ask if anymore you don't understand..

[4mastacker]

Guetersloh, early 70's; TacEval team ordered evacuation of families, MT of all kinds loaded up with spouses and children, set off down autobahn to the west. On arrival at Kamener Kreutz, convoy turned round to return to station to find autobahn behind them jammed full of local residents from Guetersloh believing that the fall of the country was imminent. After that, all exercises were promulgated in local papers to avoid repeat.


I remember that one. After that, the evacuations were restricted to a short bimble in the surrounding countryside before RTU, endex and a few beers. On one occasion, a local in his big Merc was trying to overtake the convoy by weaving in and out as passing traffic allowed. When he came up behind our Landy, our WO leaned out of the wagon, pointed his Stirling at him and gestured that he should remain where he is. The Merc driver duly obeyed and sat behind us for a good 20 minutes before he was cheerily waved on his way. From his gesture as he roared off, cordiale was not very entente.

[NutLoose]

The Merc driver obviously didn't realise the W0 would have had no chance of hitting the Landy he was in with a stirling, let alone a passing Merc..

[Xercules]

Mid 70s Lyneham Part I Taceval - all the aircrew were corralled in the Route Hotel (World War II Temporary Accommodation, about as far as it is possible to get from a hotel and even further from anything vaguely useful as protection for WW III ).

The German Exchange Pilot looking around him, obviously completely bemused, "Now I know why you guys won the war - you practise chaos!"

Another time but a Pt II - scenario is to do with reinforcing Denmark but weather is closing in with visibility good for departures but way below for recovery. Staish (John C*******) to Taceval team "Your call as tasking and operational control. do we stop launching, returning aircraft will all have to divert? No answer from Taceval and the 15 minute departure rate continued unabated.

Another Pt II Taceval team closed the taxiway with unexploded bomblets. Staish (David A****) said no matter cordon the area off and use the grass. Taceval team "You can't do that!" - we could and we did, operations continued without a break.

[DX Wombat]

NutLoose, thank you :) That was most kind of you. :ok:
Was a Flat Iron by any chance a Vulcan?

[jayteeto]

In 1980, Cosford of all places called an exercise. They shipped hundreds of us on coaches all over the country. I went somewhere down south (Chilwell?? Ammo dump), was issued with a pickaxe handle and 2 of us put in a hut next to an ammo bunker. We didn't see a soul for 3 days, no food and one waterbottle each, no sleeping bags, beds, torches or any kit actually!
After 3 days, an officer turned up red faced in a land rover, food and drink in hand and very apologetic. Everyone else had gone home, they forgot us..........
Trabant is of course autocorrect for landrover

[ACW418]

Possibly Chilmark - a bit west of Salisbury.

ACW

[smujsmith]

DXWombat,

The flying flat iron was indeed an affectionate term for the Vulcan, a marvellous bit of kit.

Smudge:ok:

[jayteeto]

Chilmark, that's it, thanks

[skua]

But it could have been Chilwell - RLC/TA base.

TD gets the top prize so far!

[sittingstress]

"Unleash the dogs of war," said our doughty Regiment Officer to clear the protestors from the end of the runway.

Released the dog duly bit the first ar^e to hand. Our doughty hero needed a new seat to his pants

Please please please PM me with this chaps name :)

[MightyGem]

was issued with a pickaxe handle
Ah yes. Guarding ammo dumps with pickaxe handles. :uhoh:

[Akrotiri bad boy]

Gutersloh deployment, Exercise Horrendous Farce.

As night falls the dispersal settles down to an evening of japing and baiting and all is quiet. That is until a Land Rover enters the site with headlights on full beam sweeping the dispersal and revealing the hides and equipment.

TURN THOSE LIGHTS OUT!!!!!! yells the rock ape commander.

The Land Rover continues sweeping the site with its headlights. TURN THOSE LIGHTS OUT OR YOU'RE ON A CHARGE!!! screams the rock ape striding towards the vehicle which is now parked in the vicinity of the mess tents. The lights go out plunging the dispersal into uber darkness. There then followed a slurping, slopping, sucking noise.

TURN THOSE LIGHTS ON!!!!! pleads the rock ape. The Land Rover driver obeys, the lights come on to reveal a Flt Lt floundering in the slop trench behind the mess tent, up to his medals in cold beans, congealed compo sausage fat and discarded baby's heads.

:D

[MATELO]

Taceval - Norfolk - pre 1990.

Balloon went up, all reported to respective duties. A young un, with distinct orders not to let anybody "not authorised" into the COC was positioned. Keen and alert, he checked everybody's ID coming into the COC.

This one chap pitched up, looking respective in the rank of Group Captain, showed his ID to attain access. The guard, being alert to the brief, people may turn up with fake ID trying to get into the COC, thought that having no service number on the ID card was a fake, quickly wrestled the chap to the ground whilst shouting Guard Commander, Guard Commander. :D

A few minutes later, the Staish, hair ruffled, but none the worse for wear entered the COC and took over.

Nobody had told the guard that the boss didnt have a service number on his ID.

[sisemen]

In the days when the Buccaneer and Suffolk had a close acquaintance I was ground defence commander for 208. Once everyone had got their act together we decamped over to the dispersal on the other side of the runway and played our various games until endex. A few desultory attempted incursions; lots of very secret plumber work etc etc etc but usually no great dramas.

Until this exercise. The secret plumber activities had just been completed and we idly watched as four Wessex appeared from the north east. No problem - that was not unusual given that Stanford lay in that direction. Then two landed just outside our wire disgorging yelling cammed up thugs and two hovered over the centre of the dispersal while more cammoed thugs roped down chucking smoke grenades all over the place.

At that point I realised the utter futility of it all and ordered everyone to put up their hands and shout "Kamarad". I mean, a joke's a joke. :eek::E

[SASless]

Battle Week in a tropical Paradise....me the Duty Agent for the Base....Real gun...real Bullets....real life Duty. Navy SpecOps Boat Unit crew dolled up in Camo...face paint...M4's with blanks. They staged behind an office building prior to staging a mock attack on the BOQ Mess....but were seen and reported to Base Security Police as "Prowlers".

The Call goes out to Patrol....as a "Prowler Call possibly Armed"....I back up the Patrol Units that responded....them one way around the building and me the other...guns drawn.....dark....and Confrontation....fortunately we got it sorted out before an exchange of gunfire between us and them.

If the Aggressors had been Filipino and not American.....it could have been a tragedy!

Seems no one had announced it as a "Drill" to those of us on Duty.

[John Eacott]

Nobody had told the guard that the boss didnt have a service number on his ID.

The RAF would have been appalled to find no service number on a Royal Navy officer's ID card until the mid/late 70s. We didn't have numbers, we knew each other ;)

RN officers were only issued Service Numbers in time of war, before the paybobs decided we needed something for the computers to recognise!

[54Phan]

Thanks to all of you who are contributing to this most entertaining and informative thread. It's no wonder I have this site in my "favourites" file on a number of computers.

[Ogre]

I'm sure I've told this before but I'll do it again:

Lossie, mid 80's, line hut of a Bucc squadron gets bombed during an air raid. Taceval team came in and told us we were all casualties and handed out chits with supposed injuries. Our resident jolly japester went around everyone else looing at their chits, till he found one that said he had head injuries and other minor stuff which he immediately confiscated. Some frantic running around, and three minutes later he had the contents of a cold hot loc lunch in a small plastic bag, mixed with a cup of cold tea, and all mashed together to a sludgy consistency. The neck of this bag is firmly grasped in one hand, and concealed down the collar of his NBC suit so that it looks as if he is holding his colar bone.
Anyway, the all clear goes and we arrange ourselves around the "bombed" line hut and started practising our injured moans. After a couple of minutes a couple of guys from the hanger burst in the door, obviously responding to the inject. They started going round checking the chits to see which casualty to deal with first, and one came to the japester. "What's wrong with you mate" he says reaching across the prone body for the chit. At this point the japester rolled over, made a convincing retching noise, and simultaneously squeezed the bag whilst release the neck. The contents of bag made a very realistic projective vomit over the floor and boots of the rescuer, who jumped back screaming something like "You dirty barsteward...I'm not rescueing you!"

Same sqn a couple of years later. The jets are all away in foreign climes and the rear party are in the process of shipping everything that was left from the hanger to the new HAS site. One day it was announced that the Queen Mummy was flying out that afternoon from our pan, so we were all to stay out of sight until she had gone. She duly drives up, gets in the QF jet, and flies off. At this point we were told "right, no more for today, see you in the morning" so all the singlies legged it off to the mess for tea. We'd just got there when the hooter went off (they had obviously been waiting for the royal visitor to get far enough away). So back to the hanger we went, got changed and assembled in the crew room as we didnt have any jets to generate. After helf an hour the WO walks in, and announces that we will not be taking part in the exercise but it would not be prudent to go back to the block because we'll end up getting dragged into something or other. He then turned to the tea bar mechanic and asked how much of the tea bar had been packed up for the move. A brief description was given of the food and sweetie stocks, followed by "... and there is still a couple of barrels left from the last beer call". "Right" said the WO, "lock all the doors and crack open the first barrel". From then until Endex we sat in a darkened crew room drinking beer while the rest of the station was playing at war, although we did get a compliant about trying to subvert a passing patrol by opening the crew room window and offering them pints of beer if they defected.

[54Phan]

I rest my case. Thank you gentlemen and aircrew, and keep them coming, please.

[NutLoose]

Bruggen inject

Overflying jet has dropped the old butterfly antipersonnel mines outside HAS entrance, deal with it.... Now these had a 10 minute period until they armed, ( or so we were told ) so off rushes our Chiefy hops on the little sweeper we had ( think British Rail platform sweeper ) and promptly hoovers them all up whilst the Di Staff look on aghast, once finished in under 10 mins he simply parks up on the grass and abandons it :)




..

[ShyTorque]

Not strictly a TACEVAL, but Exercise Lionheart 1985. RAF Gutersloh. This was I believe the biggest exercise since WW2.

I was on detachment from Shawbury with two Gazelle HT2s, responsible for "Battle Damage Repair Recce", BDRR. The Gazelles had been given this "new" war role for the exercise. This struck fear into many of the old school, dyed in the wool QHI cadre at Shawbury who hadn't seen an NBC suit for donkey's years, but that's a different story.

Basically BDRR simply meant going out after an air raid with a Royal engineer observer and recceing the airfield from low level whilst plotting bomb damage and UXBs on a gridded map. So "advanced" were comms back then that having completed the task, the paper map was put in a plastic bag, complete with a stone (I kid you not) and dropped from a high hover through the message chute onto the COMCEN car park. The sentry was then to retrieve it and take it inside for further action by the Royal Engineer repair teams.

The Gazelles had been painted with a temporary camouflaged scheme using emulsion paint of some sort. However, the nose panel of the aircraft was left in the normal gloss red, along with its peacetime fleet letter in black. This was so flying through rain didn't cause the temporary paint to get dissolved and run back off over the canopy.

We had done the job a few times before, it worked well. However, on the occasion is question, an RAF policeman was walking across the COMCEN car park as we approached the high hover. I expected him to just keep on walking and move clear. However, he stopped, looked up at the aircraft, took one pace backwards, drew his 9mm pistol and held it in the firing position, aimed at me! It was obvious he was taking it seriously, I could see him faking the recoil (at least I hoped it was fake).

However, we completed the drop and returned to our hide in one of the Harrier HASs on the south side of the runway. I immediately got on the phone and asked what the policeman thought he was doing. A rapid "field enquiry" was held.

Apparently the policeman looked up at the helicopter, saw it had "E" on its nose panel and assumed this stood for "Enemy"!

So he shot me (had he done so, the Gazelle would have crash landed on his head).

Next day I decided to use the other Gazelle. This was "F" for friend...... :ok:

[Wander00]

Thought Lionheart was '79 - I was TA Movements then - 3 metre long signal arrived to effect that someone had discovered that resurfacing of German autobahn head reduce the clearance for high vehicles under motorway bridges, so each convoy was to be led by a Trabant with a 4.something metre pole to check bridge clearance. If clearance height not met, all the equipment was to be unloaded, driven under the bridge and reloaded!

Recovery of said exercise in '79 - LSLs arrived in East Coast port without drivers so Regular Movements Officer told us TA to drive off what we could manage but not to take risks. I selected a suitable small vehicle, but the regular major turned round to see a brand new 16 tonne truck being driven of by our most petite WRAC 2nd Lt. Lots of shouting and screaming, then she lowered the driver's window and sweetly presented her HGV 1 licence! Collapse of stout major.

[Pontius Navigator]

We used to do Red Cans. Like Ogre we hammed it up a bit.

The Captain, the late Pete Binstead of SAR fame, used to collect a load of belly pork, blood and guts from his local butcher. That went down well with the USAF.

My favourite was a mouthful of mixed veg and stew. It overcame the language barrier if they managed to find a Russian interpreter.

On one visit our Tacco had some Russian magazines with what would have been NATO Secret diagrams and explanations for Allied underwater sensors. The one for Sosus was particularly interesting as was the bit about convergence zone detection. The Spams went harpic when they found these :)

[NutLoose]

Lionheart, went out to a HAS and found some visiting guy inside doing a B/F in total darkness with just a dim torch as no one had shown them where the light switches etc were and when he found the panel it was all in German lol..

We only played a couple of days, but some of the armourers managed to get evacuated on a CASEVAC train and were gone for days... They were not impressed

There was a German conscript dropped off to guard a bridge and forgotten about, eventually he had eaten all his rations and the locals were feeding him, after a couple of weeks one of them called the German military to complain... An oops moment occurred and people's were sent out to collect the misplaced conscript who when recovered found out not only had the exercise ended weeks ago, they had posted him AWOL :E

..

[AR1]

Called across to the comcen were the PBX was out due to a near miss. DISTAFF had hung a severed 6million core cable up for the BDR team to deal with. I assessed the job and handed over to the lads who promptly put the radio on to ease their afternoon. The demeanour of the DISTAFF member changed with each news report and in the end he looked at me and said - Thats me f@@@@ed then.. before explaining that in the course of the afternoon his mortgage repayments had risen to over £1000 a month. It was the day we came out of the ERM and interest rates rose by 3% in a matter of hours. I dont think I ever met a TACEVAL staff member less interested in what we were doing!

[SOSL]

This is apocryphal, but there may be a grain of truth somewhere in there:

TACEVAL, dogwatch 0400 hrs, all is quiet, nothing has happened for hours. Suddenly Stornos* all over the station crackle into life and announce "I'm bored", a few seconds later a different voice transmits "so am I" and then another "me too".

Next, in a very authoritative tone comes "THIS IS THE COC ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO MAINTAIN RADIO DISCIPLINE AT ALL TIMES"

Five second pause, then "but I'm still bored"

Immediately "WHO MADE THAT TRANSMISSION?"

"Well I'm not that bored".

Rgds SOS

*Wombat. These were ground radio hand sets we used to be issued with; cost a stupid amount of money and never worked that well.

[NutLoose]

*Wombat. These were ground radio hand sets we used to be issued with; cost a stupid amount of money and never worked that well.

I don't know, during the summer months at Brize the ones on the line had perfect reception..... of an Italian taxi firms transmissions... You would be organising something to have an Italian cut in picking up a passenger..





..

[BEagle]

Ah yes, the Storno. That wonderful device - a 2 handed walkie-talkie. Unless attached to your clothing, you needed on hand to hold the thing and another to hold the microphone / speaker. Batteries last minutes, because they trickle charged the things and never gave them a deep discharge / recharge....

Gas masks, or rather 'respirators' were a PITA! But on one occasion I was running an Ops desk on shift with an ex-Victor person one rank higher, who didn't lift a finger but kept the DISTAFF bored with his tales of Victor times. Then the hotlocks arrived - he generously offered to keep an ear on the phones whilst I went to fetch them. I brought them to the crewroom, then "Have yours, then get back on the desk" was his instruction. Plated up my breakfast, blasted it in the microwave for 30 sec, then scoffed it....a couple of seconds before Air Raid Red was called. Into our S10s - he could only watch as his breakfast slowly congealed. But the smile on the face of the DISTAFF said it all - "Serves the lazy bugger right!".

[Tashengurt]

SOSL,
An alternative ending I've heard goes; "I said I was bored, not stupid."


Taceval Leauchars early '90s. For the third exercise in a row a lad called Fitz who was a wannabe Rock (takes all sorts!) turns up at the PBF. Knowing he always plays the part of a deranged airman he swiftly gets told "F*ck off Fitz!"
Eventually, it's decided we have to let him in so we can go through the rigmarole of him presenting false credentials/ waving a grenade about/pulling a pistol out or whatever the order of the day is.
So we let him into the airlock, lock all the doors and go back to sleep.
Half an hour later we unlock the outer door and he bimbles off sheepishly with "Now f*ck off Fitz!" ringing in his ears.

[Pontius Navigator]

ISK, mid-70s, a dozen or more Nimrods on survival scramble (simulated).

We were fully rationed for 9 hrs+ but instead of launching we taxied around back to dispersal where we sat, doors closed, while the station carried on playing war games (or rather the Rock was applying the Blue Met).

Presently, "Can we open the rations after all we are flying?" NO.

Later, "We're starving, can we open the rations?" You may use the tea, coffee and dried milk. No food.


Elsewhere, "Munch munch . . . "

You are not to eat the rations.

"Munch, munch munch . . . "

[thing]

SOSL the other take on that is 'I'm a happy bear' followed by several other transmissions of 'I'm a happy bear too' followed by the inevitable on air bollocking, followed by 'He's not a happy bear'...:)

[SOSL]

Thanks for the alternative versions. I told you all it was apocryphal! But it's still a good story - ain't it?

Rgds SOS

[BEagle]

Organising MINEVAL injects gave much scope for creativity! One of my best was to brief an Ops Cpl to play the part of a disaffected JNCO.... In those days, everyone brought their NBC kit along to war in a variety of 'sports bags', there being no official bag provided except for the S10 case.

So my Cpl took a 'bomb' into the main Ops room, then acted in a dull, lethargic manner. Trouble was, he was normally such a miserable sod that it took people a while to recognise that he was an inject..... Standby Ops weren't expecting to take over at 10 min after Startex, but the Stn Cdr thought it was an excellent ploy!

I also arranged for the Reds to overfly at 10:30, some 30 min after a 'defector' Canberra incident was supposed to have ended. But the Stn made such a bolleaux of the Canberra incident ("No, sorry, we can't get Mrs Thatcher on the phone!") that it was still going on when the Reds rotted up the place from various directions, trailing red white and blue smoke. The Canberra mates ad-libbed superbly, one of them pinching an S10 from one of their 'guards' who was watching the Reds, while another started twitching and writhing about in pretend nerve gas poisoned agony... Down in the COC, the Stn Cdr turned to his minions and asked for the Chemical Attack section of the Station War Plan.

"Err, can't find it, sir"...
"FIND IT!"
"Isn't one, sir. No chemical threat against the UK.....apparently"
"SO...I...SEE!"

Of course there wasn't anything in the Stn War Plan! As I well knew when plotting the inject - but I also knew that the following WINTEX would certainly include a chemical attack.... But some of the ex-RAFG folk masked up correctly, other people hadn't a clue.... I had to close the incident fairly quickly, because things were turning to rat$hit and we needed to get on with launching the jets for some pre-planned targets. But what fun it was!

What was rather more worrying was that I'd told Neatishead exactly when and from which direction the Reds were coming - they'd been in RAFG over the weekend. But they weren't seen, even though I'd made sure that a suitable CAP had been manned....:hmm:

[AR1]

Now then Gents... The Pye Stornophone was fit for purpose. The purpose not being holding the handset and twirling the radio around your head... A body harness was available on demand, mask attachments an a throat mike.. I acknowledge the discharge issue and some GRSS made our own until they became available through service channels.

[MPN11]

Famous Lincolnshire Real Bomber Station, early 80s, Part 2 TACEVAL.

ATC has acquired a small menagerie of animals, as some singlies live off-base in private accommodation and couldn't abandon their pets for 3 days. Cue typical Air Raid, everyone suited and masked up, All Clear sounds. Under the watchful eye of the TACEVAL Evaluator, it's time for a sniff test outside the door before reporting in to the WOC and eventually unmasking as NBC White.

Cue Cpl (W) Lorna D ... SATCO requests she poke her gerbil, in its cage, outside the door to see if it dies.

TACEVAL Evaluator does genuine LOL, and admits that's a new one on him. Lorna is pi**ed off that her gerbil might have died for Queen and Country, and does an excellent "exercise sulk" by refusing to provide SATCO with coffee for the rest of the day ;)

It was a happy Tower. Cheers :ok:

[Dan Winterland]

DI staff on the Jump Seat mentions that we have just been hit by a SAM and we have lost number 4 engine and the B system hydraulics. "No problem" says we, "we're diverting to the nearest suitable alternate". So we land at Waddington where it transpires we have now developed a real snag (yes we did - honest!) which prevented us returning to the TACEVAL fun and games at home base. Our engineers can't come and fix us because they're all required for some essential guarding duties. So we spend two days in the pub while we wait for the recovery team.

DI staff didn't complain either!

[SOSL]

Wombat, just a few additions to NutLoose's list:

NODUFF - Not thought up by some over-promoted pr.ck at Group HQ.
IRT - Incident/Immediate Response Team.
NMSU - Nimrod Major Servicing Unit.
RTU - Return To Unit

Rgds SOS

[glad rag]

For the third exercise in a row a lad called Fitz who was a wannabe Rock

Christ there's a name from the past......

[DX Wombat]

I really must say thank you to all of you for making me feel so welcome on this great thread. My only direct connection with the RAF is that my father was a Sergeant Pilot towards the end of WW2 doing his training in S Africa and eventually going on to fly Yorks with the RAF. I have benefitted from the kindness of RAF personnel in the recent past both when learning to fly and when I attended the MACASD at Shawbury. The ATCOs and students were unfailingly courteous and helpful whenever I darkened their area in the trusty C152 and I fear that OC Ops may have been the target of a bit of coercion when I wen to the MACASD. He volunteered (was possibly volunteered) to look after my Welsh Sheepdog teenage pup for the day (my arrangements for him had fallen through at the last moment). He also looked after me and I remain grateful to him as I had a thoroughly enjoyable and informative day which I have to say was far better than the CAA Safety Evening which I had attended previously.

[Wander00]

Binbrook Minival-inject suspect package with aid of (real) Postman Pat. Uneven weight, grease stains, wires. At each stage it is re-injected it is dealt with properly and promptly. Then we get it into the COC. "That for me?" asks the Staish (it was addressed to him by name). He takes it and pulls dinghy knife - "Could you hang on please sir. We'd like all the execs to see it." " No" says Staish, it is addressed to me. Before we can say or do anything he slits seal with dinghy knife. Package bursts into flames (no explosive just an ignition device). Staish incandescent, us on Distaff trying not to laugh, and wondering how we will write up the post exercise comment.

[thing]

I remember the plods at Conners blowing up a wedding cake that they thought was a bomb.

[Haraka]

The spring clip on the Storno mike, , when pulled out a bit and released on transmit produced a most satisfying "BOINGGGGGGGGGGG!!!" sound across the net. Watching all those at an 'O' group simultaneously grabbing their chests added to the fun.
The most surrealistic Storno episode in my experience was on a Harrier deployment in RAFG in the mid 70's, when due to a freak sky wave we had about 20 minutes sharing frequency with New York taxicabs.
New words were learned on both sides of the Atlantic that day.

[Roadster280]

Apparently a troop of signallers all in dispersed locations can produce a passable version of the Muppets' "Manaa Manaa" on the net :ok:

[BEagle]

The most surrealistic Storno episode in my experience was on a Harrier deployment in RAFG in the mid 70's, when due to a freak sky wave we had about 20 minutes sharing frequency with New York taxicabs.


Ah yes, the fun of sporadic 'E' and a MUF at VHF!!

Didn't something similar happen in the Malvinas when Icom 2m sets picked up taxi drivers somewhere in South America?

Our school CCF '88 sets' had but 2 frequencies* in the low 40 MHz range. One summer a field day was rather ruined by continuous Spanish TV on one of the channels - so everyone used the other with predictably chaotic results!


They had 2 others, but it had been found that Channel B was on the same channel as 405-line BBC TV from Crystal Palace. The locals complained, so the Army solution was a large rivet inserted through the selector, physically preventing selection of Chan A or B!

[Pontius Navigator]

In those days, everyone brought their NBC kit along to war in a variety of 'sports bags', there being no official bag provided except for the S10 case. or S6.

As I was issued all my cabbage kit in clear polythene, it was the issue polythene bag I would carry around like some eastern European bag lady.

The S6 haversack on the other hand was properly packed. KFS, 2 oz jar of coffee, several dusting bags, aka coffee mate, can opener. The inside of the S6 smelt wonderfully of coffee rather than rubber and CS.

[Abbey Road]

Now then Gents... The Pye Stornophone was fit for purpose.

B0ll0cks it was!

[It's Not Working]

I'm with Abbey Road on that, Ultra Man Pack was much better. So the story goes one was left on the wheel of a VC10 as it taxied forward with the inevitable result. On arrival at North Luff for 3rd-line repair (or burial at sea) the Equipment Label read, 'flat battery'. Sorry, thread drift.

[MPN11]

Ahh, Pontius, as I had a set of pongo webbing (needed for shooting competitions) I used my S6 bag for its intended purpose. (/smug)

The Ammo Pouches, on the other hand, contained useful things like spare packs of ciggies, packet soup, coffee and wet-wipes. And my water bottle was full of fresh water from home, so if anyone decided to "poison the Stn water supply", I could still have a brew … whilst annoying those who were less well-equipped :cool:

[Wander00]

Suspect bag in Officers Mess loo. Plods called. Tannoy made. No one claimed it so it was wheelbarrowed - result loo redecorated in yogurt pasting shredded porn mags to the tiles. Something to do with % Sqn (look at the keyboard) ISTR

[Pontius Navigator]

MPN, ah, but did you notice the can opener?

The parabag also contained essential items such as overnight kit, civvies for diversion, and for the Taceval an additional 6-pack. One night, in the hardened aircrew accommodation (top floor of the old mess at ISL) I opened the door and popped a can. Heads appeared from doors further up the corridor and game on. As we were mixed officer/SNCO crew but co-located for the exercise the knockers were equally resourceful :)

[MPN11]

My Compo can-opener was permanently attached with para-cord, Sir :cool:

Not quite sure where it is now - we use an electric one :)

Anyway, back to the subject …. bring it on, folks, it's wonderful.

(Otherwise I shall have to bore you with other stories … which do not involve gerbils)

[ShyTorque]

As a helicopter crew, we always deployed into the field, away from any proper facilities (unlike the Harrier Force who usually took most of the contents of the Officers' Mess with them). On longer exercises the problem of clean underwear became an issue. My crewman told me how he had solved the problem. He'd been to Hong Kong and found disposable underpants for sale. He'd brought a packet of these with him and not bothered with any conventional ones.

He was pleased as punch until late afternoon on day one, when he dropped his flying suit for a latrine stop - only to discover to his horror that he was now wearing nothing underneath but three rubber bands, one round his waist and one at the top of each leg. The pants had disposed themselves into tiny shreds and were now falling out onto his boots as if he had a very serious skin disease. :ooh:

[fantom]

Bruggen '72. R-hour.

Rule was: if you are u/s in peace-time (but might have gone in war-time)you call 'I'm a non-flier'.

There we were, in our shiny F4, at the holding point with a problem so I made the call.

Minutes later, surrounded by fire-trucks, I realised they might have mis-heard my call...

[Pontius Navigator]

Friend of mine, Army WO1 distaff, pongo evaluation, Guards Regiment.

Programme starts at o'chr1st hundred. O'chr1st hundred 05 no reaction. Seeks out all the officers to find marquee, dinning table, chairs, mess silver, and breakfast in progress.

"Go away my man, we're still dining."

Apoplectic he tries to jilldy them up with thunderflashes to no avail. :)

[jayteeto]

Just on the live vs blanks debate. Not strictly TACEVAL story, but true.
St Angelo base in NI, early 1990s. Jayteeto doing service on puma helicopter, masked man running towards wire firing weapon on automatic. I had a live mag on my SA80 and the crewman was loading the GPMG, ****ting ourselves, preparing to return fire. Masked man stops and someone walks towards him from gatehouse. It was a planned exercise that they forgot to mention to us. After much shouting and swearing a pale faced SNCO realised how close things had gone, I reckon I was seconds from firing. He was sent home to England the next day........

[taxydual]

Way of thread, but someone mentioned STORNO's.

NUAS (Northumberland University Air Squadron) ((added for Wombat, oh, and welcome Wombat)) operated Bulldogs from Leeming most weekends.

This particular Sunday, a Bulldog started up when all of a sudden a crow decided to take a short cut through the propeller disc.

Not suprisingly, it came off second best. Remarkably it was neatly decapitated, the head landing about 20 feet from the aircraft and the the body, in one piece, (albeit minus a head), deposited itself by the front oleo leg. The aircraft shut down for checks but radioed ATC as to what had happened.

I went out from ATC, in the Trabant, to gather up and bag the remains.

When I got there, an audience of UAS studes had gathered and one brave soul had picked up the crow's head and was displaying it to his fellow studes with some bravado style comments.

As I opened the Trabant door, the STORNO made a squawking noise (as they did). The brave student leapt 3 feet into the air and the crow's head made it's final flight in the opposite direction.

Much laughter, with a red faced stude, ensued.

Sorry, Mods, about the thread drift but......STORNO brought it all back.

[SASless]

On longer exercises the problem of clean underwear became an issue.

Was that due to having to fly with you old Man?:E

[Just This Once...]

RAF Sandringham… Hooter goes off but does not sound on the patch. Vehicle with tannoy on roof has been destroyed by 2nd inject as it was parked outside the PBX when that was hit by the 1st. Comms chaos...

Simulated armoured vehicles (Sherpas with bin bags on windows) dispatched to individual crew addresses on patch. First Sherpa has bags taped on outside of windows by dull (or genius) SWO's gang. Running low on bags they use bodge tape to cover windscreen; driver spends next hour trying to remove bodge tape while wearing NBC gloves.

Driver drives through the rain with non-functioning wipers and starts banging on the doors of OMQs occupied by 6'. Only wives make it to the door as 6' are away on exercise. Approaching lunchtime before they start looking for the other sqns with no sorties generated due to UXB cordon at officers' mess…

Sticky mess removed from windscreen by some chemical the groundcrew have found; worked in seconds. Bus dispatched to the patch for next run. After driving in slow circles for a few hours the windscreen falls out. Seems the rubber was more of a challenge than the bodge tape, but time and vibration did it in the end.

[500N]

Had a most enjoyable weekend having a laugh at these great stories :ok:

I am amazed at how many people got forgotten about at End Ex
but the German one for a few weeks takes the cake as the best :O

[BEagle]

At a certain Lincolnshire real bomber station, there came a Tannoy...

"STANDBY FOR BROADACAST, STANDBY FOR BROADCAST - all crews are to report to the Wing Briefing Room at nnnn hrs".

Obviously someone with half a brain then realised that this would be a golden opportunity for the Spetznasties to take out the entire station's crews......

"Err, attention, attention, ignore the previous broadcast......" was followed by:
"The briefing will be delayed by 15 mintes"

:rolleyes:

At a Phamous Suphpholk Phighter base in pre-HAS days, someone decided that having all the crews in the same crew room might also be a nice target for the Spetznasties. So we were sent to various parts of the squadron to reduce the risk. "If there's a survival scramble, we'll sound the siren"...

My nav and I duly went to our allocated location without delay. We'd only been there for a couple of minutes when the siren went off. In accordance with the brief, we charged out to our mighty warhorse, cranked up and set off for the RW....

"Must be doing well, ******, we're the first in the queue!", I told my nav. Shortly afterwards, up came Sue on the radio:

"Phantom taxying, state your intentions?"
"Taxying as pre-briefed!"
"Stand by!......taxy to the holding point only"

It seems that 'someone' had decided that dispersing everyone around the squadron was fine, but they didn't know whether or not the siren actually worked. So some idiot of a Flt Cdr decided to test it without first having checked that everyone had been warned.....:rolleyes:

So we sat at the holding point pondering our next move; however, the anticipated survival scramble was then ordered, so off we went. But the pre-brief had included assigning holding levels by call-sign rather than take-off sequence. So we had the interesting experience of watching other aircraft climbing up through our hold to their pre-briefed levels.....:oh:

[NutLoose]

It's Not Working
I'm with Abbey Road on that, Ultra Man Pack was much better. So the story goes one was left on the wheel of a VC10 as it taxied forward with the inevitable result. On arrival at North Luff for 3rd-line repair (or burial at sea) the Equipment Label read, 'flat battery'. Sorry, thread drift.


The VC10 one was K*v Tr*****, he had put it on the mainwheel while he kicked the chocks out on a pushback, he then gave them the brakes off and watched the Ten roll over it :E

It didn't work after that having being converted to a sum of its parts..


A couple I've mentioned before..

Brize TACEVAL...

Guys sitting in the crew room watching Neighbours, bang outside and distaff appear, you, you and you are severely wounded, lie down, hands inject to other engineer now missing his favourite show, what you going to do? Picking up his rifle he cocks it, walks from man to man, goes bang, bang, bang, then sits down again to watch Neighbours.. incredulous Distaff has a WTF moment, to which the lad responds that they are seriously injured, probably won't survive and would tie up valuable time and resources, so he has simply taken them out of the equation.

[Exrigger]

RAF Scampton, early 70’s: Exercises called at all times of day and night, could last a week, one Friday evening the guys all enjoying a drink or two when at 20:00 the hooter goes, cue a load of keen slightly sozzled ground crew rush off, with the exception of the OCU lot who see a good opportunity to mine sweep the hurriedly left beers before heading off to work themselves. Other stories I think might not be for a forum, but one had to make the ordeal as less arduous as possible.

RAF Luqa, mid 70’s: Bit unfair here as the station knew when the taceval crew turned up as they could not just drive in unannounced. We had packed lunches left in hangar blown up, someone’s car nearly had the locks blown off as he had parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. The most frightening thing out here for anyone who was asked to try the old getting in risked life and limb as it was the only place I have been in those days where we were always loaded with live ammunition, so anyone trying it on soon stopped once a ground crew pointed a gun at them 9especially as during ‘peace time’ we had a few inadvertent rounds discharged.

RAF Wyton, late 70’s: one place that seemed to take all this exercise stuff seriously, although we were back to pick axe handles, CPX NBC kit and as someone else mentioned CPX trenches, agree one looked a right plonker stood in these trying to look hidden.

There was a CPO who had been issued an ID card with the wrong date of birth on it and the Navy would not replace it for some time, so each exercise he ended up being carted off in the back of a Landrover until it was established he was not an exercise inject. The SWO got abducted a knife point and locked in one of his cells, this ended up being an inject taken too far.

The station commander heard that there was going to be an early Monday morning exercise so had everyone in Sunday morning to show how alert we were, taceval team turned around and went away, when they came back they caught the station totally unawares.

Back to the CPX kit, two guards stood on the barrier across the taxi way when the Station Commander decided to have a wander around his station, arrived at said barrier and on identifying himself asked if the guards knew what state the airfield was in (we were at NBC black at the time), having only bits of paper one guard replied that he considered the station in a bit of a state, on demanding why the guards were not wearing NBC kit a piece of paper was promptly produced stating this was our NBC kit. After the exercise on asking his execs, they confirmed that no-one had ever had any kit issued, that changed by the next exercise.

There are a few more for this station, and more for the next 5 or 6 I had the pleasure, or not in some cases, of being posted to. I can confirm the storno story and have a vague memory that this was either Wyton or Honington, with Honington being more likely.

Sorry if this has been a bit long, but the other stories above reminded me of some my experiences, so thought I would post a few.

[smujsmith]

Perhaps someone can remember this one, ex Vulcans more than likely. Akrotiri 73/74 and the standard Taceval saw Bomber Wing, 9 and 35 Squadrons, jump in, rev up and depart (not sure where, but I "didn't need to know"). At endex we would be rewarded with the mass return of our heroic drivers airframe and supporting cast. On this particular exercise, the V's never took off, our guard commander went missing along with all other officers (Engineers etc). After around 6 hours we were told that the exercise, that we believed was to be a full Taceval, was over. Back to the Keo then.

A few days later the station rumour mill churned out this little gem. It seems that the attacking force for the exercise was our pals from Hereford. Having done a bit of recce, they discovered that the Staish had decided that all officers were to be briefed in the 'O's Mess before start of exercise. Somehow they got to the Mess and effectively captured every Officer on base, including the Staish. And nobody else noticed their absence. Di staff, said fair cop and after several hours cancelled the exercise when it was realised that the only people left to play were the Herbert's and Hensios out doing the guarding. Now I know that I stood guard on that exercise, and it was very short, but does anyone remember if the rest is true ?

Smudge

[dallas]

Marham again early 90s. Exercise inject is poisoned water supply, so COC and ACOC staff crack open the stored water jerry cans...which are all 12-ish months old and end up poisoning the consumers for real...:rolleyes:

[racedo]

There was a German conscript dropped off to guard a bridge and forgotten about, eventually he had eaten all his rations and the locals were feeding him, after a couple of weeks one of them called the German military to complain... An oops moment occurred and people's were sent out to collect the misplaced conscript who when recovered found out not only had the exercise ended weeks ago, they had posted him AWOL http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gif


Someone owes me a coffee as most is down my shirt.................

I do hope said conscript was suitably rewarded .................

[racedo]

There seems to be makings of a damm good book in this with proceeds going to various services charities.

Know I would buy it, if only to read more about the German conscript :E

[NutLoose]

Wasn't there a Staish in Cyprus asked for an Airman's SLR then charged him for handing over his weapon, he tried it on the next one and the guy refused knowing what would happen, the Staish then went to grab it and ended up wearing the Butt in the face?

[Pontius Navigator]

Perhaps someone can remember this one, ex Vulcans more than likely. Akrotiri 73/74 and the standard Taceval saw Bomber Wing, 9 and 35 Squadrons, jump in, rev up and depart (not sure where, but I "didn't need to know"). At endex we would be rewarded with the mass return of our heroic drivers airframe and supporting cast. On this particular exercise, the V's never took off, our guard commander went missing along with all other officers (Engineers etc). After around 6 hours we were told that the exercise, that we believed was to be a full Taceval, was over. Back to the Keo then.

A few days later the station rumour mill churned out this little gem. It seems that the attacking force for the exercise was our pals from Hereford. Having done a bit of recce, they discovered that the Staish had decided that all officers were to be briefed in the 'O's Mess before start of exercise. Somehow they got to the Mess and effectively captured every Officer on base, including the Staish. And nobody else noticed their absence. Di staff, said fair cop and after several hours cancelled the exercise when it was realised that the only people left to play were the Herbert's and Hensios out doing the guarding. Now I know that I stood guard on that exercise, and it was very short, but does anyone remember if the rest is true ?

Smudge

Not Taceval but the annual security exercise. Some years the opposition would be a visiting battalion other times RM Commando. Now the prime target was the nuclear deterrent. One year they would take out the aircraft and another the aircrew.

Having lost the aircrew one year the station would take such effective measures that the aircraft would be vulnerable. However imagine a white football pitch lit by stadium lighting. How do you intrude in to that? Come the dawn every aircraft had a chalked white cross on the nose wheel.

The year we lost the aircrew in the mess, we had pairs of aircrew armed with 9mm pistols, but no torches, patrolling the perimeter. One pair on IX, who for reasons unknown wouldn't talk to each other, we off on patrol.

There was a "psst" the trailing man stopped and the other carried on. There was a second "psst" and with that the mess was unguarded. Then a lazy Cyp worker who had been repairing the mess roof for some days swung, tarzan like, off the roof, knife between his teeth, Stirling in one hand and hand grenade in the other. He was immediately disarmed with a pint of beer.

The other time OC Bomber, Mike Beavis, had a cunning plan. If there were no aircraft and no aircrew then the 'enemy' could not win. Sure enough, we all decamped to Malta and a great time was had by all.

On the actual Tacevals however the staish Air Cdre Eric Stacey was a wild card. He would not mix live armed guards and unarmed personnel. We were all issued with live ammunition.

The ground crew did the bizz and got all 16 jets up and ready. After dropping off the weapon we all flew off on a NEAF exercise profile. On return, as far as NEAF was concerned, it was endex. Not for Stacey.

As we taxied back in the groundcrew were waving round again. The aircraft were re-roled from nuclear to conventional. 21x1000 live HE were loaded and we launched again. This time our target was specific points on the airfield which would give the gunners practise. Also, wholly unpractised, we formed up in 3-ship Vic at Larnaca and ran in against the Bloodhounds and AA. The vics were mixed sqn but no common freq had been briefed and we had never practised formation flying.

As we approached the airfield, OC IX leading 2 35 Sqn crews, OC IX sets course for his target cutting across the front of #3 whose target was the other side of his leaders track and close to #2s. It worked but it were an example how not to do it.

[smujsmith]

Thanks for that PN,

At least some of it wasn't a figment of my old brain.

Smudge :ok:

[NutLoose]

On the actual Tacevals however the staish Air Cdre Eric Stacey was a wild card. He would not mix live armed guards and unarmed personnel. We were all issued with live ammunition.

Ahh I remember the live armed in Germany, well I say live armed as the magazine was bundled up in plastic which would require some severe work with ones teeth to get through.... In the day when every round was accounted and signed for, lose one and your deep in it....
However on the range having fought through the plastic to get a mag to use up life ex ammo, one lets rip down range to find I only fired off 18 rounds out of 20... Asking an Armourer what gives, he points out that they would often get bored filling them, so it was anyone's guess how many rounds were in the mags :ugh:

[Pontius Navigator]

NL, love it.

And that would be Stacey alright.

After endex he went into the photo section. It was between the wires. It was like a secure cage with wire mesh between it and Admin and it an Tech. Anyway he goes in through the open and unguarded gate.

In side the building he finds several SLR but no guard. After a short period he takes all the SLRs and puts them in his boot. (Trunk for our cousins). Goes back, still no one around, picked up the ammunition box and departs.

Waits for hullaballoo - nix. Eventually someone is told to call the Photo Section and ask when they are going to return their weapons. "We have" they said as everyone assumed someone had taken them back. :)

Still Stacey. Air Warning Red and he visits the GDOC, HQ 5 Wg the big building on the way out of camp. The all clear is sounded and we are permitted to unmask - no sniff test in the GDOC.

Unknown to the Rocks, Stacey had lit up a series of tear gas pellets around the whole building. Endex was declared later and we were amused to see the HQ wide open, every door and window wide to let the wind clear the gas.

Life would have been very interesting had he not died suddenly and made CAS/CDS instead of Craig.

[WASALOADIE]

In the mid 80's I was based at Odiham. Lived in quarters 7 miles away. We had a cascade system that seemed to work, get a call, call the guy next on your list and drive into work. Mrs wasaloadie would then get another call informing her that there was a callout 10 mins after I had left, then she would get a knock on the door 10 mins later telling her there was a callout, she would get this even when I was away on task etc. Following complaints we were given cards to stick in our windows to signify we were on leave or away on task etc, so that the callout person did not disturb you (in theory), but this was abused as we used to leave the card in the window permanently.
It never failed to amaze me how when the call out occurred how most of the guys from remote quarters or living out, managed to arrive at work before the guys on the station patch or from the messes did even after parking our cars on the taceval car par and walking in.

Some of us hated taking pistols on ex with us, preferring to take our SLR's. The 9mm was just another piece of metal to carry around and of course there was a chance of losing one. On one of the exercises, one of the Sqn execs decided he would check who had their pistols on them. When he realised that none of us had, he decreed that if we were caught without them again, he would ensure extra duties would be handed out. Therefore, most of us went down a local store and bought replicas, these fired 8mm blanks which in those days were freely available for a few quid (certainly cheaper than the fine for losing a real one). Everyone knew that whilst blank ammo was issue for the SLR's, none was issued for the pistol. Imagine the surprise on the enemy faces (para reg I think) when on one ex, they are confronted with the aircrew all firing their pistols (the replicas), we declared it a win when the enemy took cover or ran away thinking we were live armed.

[Dan Winterland]

However on the range having fought through the plastic to get a mag to use up life ex ammo, one lets rip down range to find I only fired off 18 rounds out of 20... Asking an Armourer what gives, he points out that they would often get bored filling them, so it was anyone's guess how many rounds were in the mags

When I was a pongo, we only used to put 18 rounds in our SLR mags. This is because number 19 and 20 compress the mag spring so much, it loses a lot of it's springiness and the chances of having a jam in the first two shots were greatly increased.

[dragon166]

Widenrath late 1970s. ASF Sqn Ldr gives lecture to the ASF grouncrew about the severe penalties that will ensue if weapons are lost during Taceval, shortly thereafter a no duff incident occurs and ASF personnel are to attend, including SEngO. During incident said SEngO loses his sterling and spends most of the Taceval searching for his weapon, which the groundcrew returned to him at Endex,, with red face and much contrition from said SEngO.

[Pontius Navigator]

. . . about the severe penalties that will ensue if weapons are lost . . . no duff incident occurs . . . searching for his weapon,

Long before Tacevals were invented the realistic exercises were limited aircrew escape and evasion exercises with army units acting as hunter force.

These were not small scale exercises in places like Salisbury Plain but much larger play areas like the Yorkshire Moors. Lots of aircrew very large hunter forces and worse, civpol and the local population all brought to play through the local press.

Naturally the aircrew were slowly rounded up and put in a holding pen. Now this was not a first for some aircrew who had had previous experience of the real thing. Anyway one managed to spirit away a Sten Gun. This was stripped and the parts distributed around the tent in which they were held. These were then buried.

When the exercise was terminated and the army did a tally they were a Sten short. They guessed where but no one could remember exactly where the aircrew holding pen had been :)

These exercises seemed to peter out in UK in the mid-60s and I have not heard of the BK ones in a long while either.

(I remember the tale of a solo escapee in the 50s, a sqn ldr, his photo in the national press, with a particular challenge or a couple of hundred miles)

[AR1]

TACEVAL had it's quiet moments too. Not being Aircraft orientated my peaceful moments were during the Aircraft Generation phase and one such moment gave a classic overview of the service hierarchy.

Covert Wiltshire airbase.
Myself as JNCO I/C a 4 man BDR team deployed on the airfield in a 'Bread Van' Sun is shining, all the kit is ready, we're ready - Nothing to do. The Storno crackles into life... New field telephone required in the WOC. Ok we'll take it I says. and off we drive into the tech area. I elect to do the job and leave the lads in the Van, our WO was inside and there was the distinct possibility of a cup of tea. So I trots into the control room and seated at a raised table was an officer, with tables in front of him consisting of SNCO's. Everyone looks at me, and the first thing I notice in the brightly lit room was they were all cammed up.
I get down at the front desk and replace the defective phone. I can hear some muttering going on in the room - Upon finishing I look at the SGT and declare the job done.
Corporal - He replies. Why aren't you cammed up?
No point really SGT, I'm sat in a van out on the airfield.... I slot in any excuse I can but it doesn't wash.
Cam up - he says.
What now? - i reply... Yes he responds.
I look at the WO who flashes a quick grin back at me and shrugs.
RIGHT... I half shout, opening my shirt..
What the hell are you doing?
Well SGT if i'm doing it, I may as well do it properly I glower at those in the room... Spitting in my hands and making a foundation, I apply it to my neck, ears face then draw the tiger stripes across. Happy? I ask. - Yes he replies..

I stomp out of the WOC (No cup of tea) and go back to the van. 3 white faces appear at the window and spontaneously bust into laughter at the Combat ready CPL storming toward them. Opening the door I shout and point with my best Alan Sugar finger..
"You lot - f***g cam up - Now"!

Proof positive - It really does flow downhill.

[A2QFI]

Briefly - in the mid 70s there was an arrangement whereby we could ring home if we needed to, from the squadron, and have the cost charged to our mess bills. For admin reasons the facility was withdrawn. Many of us lived in Woodhall Spa and exercise call out worked on a cascade system with two people telephoned who then passed the word on. One of the two was somewhat aggrieved at the change to our telephone arrangements and, when he was called at stupid o'clock and told there was an exercise, he announced that he was being called on a private telephone which didn't accept Service calls. Unplugged the phone and went back to sleep. Half the aircrew turned up at 0830, as usual, and the telephone arrangements were restored later. Man involved was the well-known *l V*sl**

[BEagle]

New readers might wish to note some earlier PPRuNe TACEVAL threads:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/261334-taceval-tales.html

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/468371-origins-taceval.html

From which I quote a couple of telphonic cock-ups regarding my whereabouts:

In the less tense world of the Vulcan fleet in the late 1970s, we didn't have RAFG-style leave embargos when the Stn Cdr had a feeling in his water that Taceval might be due. We were, of course, required to leave a contact no. if away overnight or on leave....

On one occasion, I was on holiday in Menorca and had left the villa phone no. with our Ops Bod, as per SOPs. In marched the Taceval team, one of whom decided to test the contact procedure. "Service call please", asked the Ops Bod and waited whilst various clicks, buzzes and whirrs ensued.....

"Teesside Grain Company", announced a voice at the other end.

"Is (Flt Lt BEagle) there?"

"Who? Nay lad, never heard of him! CLICK!"

"Hmm, bugger", thought the Ops Bod - "It must have been a wrong number, I'll try again...."

"Hello?"

"(Flt Lt BEagle) please"

"Nay lad, it's the FOO**ING TEESSIDE GRAIN COMPANY! BUGGER OFF, WILL THA'!!"

By now the Taceval umpire was in stitches. We later discovered that the station operator had left off a zero or something...

On another occasion I was staying with a lady friend and her mother in the service flat attached to rather a posh house by the Thames. The owner of which was rather like Margaret Rutherford - and who refused to allow an extension phone in the flat. So when the phone rang in the early hours of yet another exercise, she retorted "Young man, I do not take calls at such times of day. Kindly call back tomorrow!". By which time I was already on my way back to the house 4 of us shared, arriving back at about 1700 to find that they'd been on exercise for the past 36 hours.....

[SOSL]

You are now, officially, my favourite archivist!!

Rgds SOS

[Motleycallsign]

Reading thru' BEag's reminder thread, I can vouch for Shackman's Marham tale and as I remember Chinooks were banned from Marham for a couple of months after that episode.

[Pontius Navigator]

I rang one number only for the answerer "You don't want to call this number, do you?"

"Who is that?" I asked timorously. "Air Commodore Carver's resident," said his major domo or whoever. I made my apologies and hung up. Didn't you just love the PBX operators?

[sisemen]

Not TACEVAL but a true tale nevertheless.

Scene - Honington in the days when the RAF Police sought to truly trash what little reputation they had by means of the Kit Kat Gang.

One mighty corporal, totally enthused with the lads mags in the crew room of the SSA decides that he might purchase a few of the items to spice up his married life. The parcel duly arrives and wifey opens it. Shock. Horror. He gets a grilling when he arrives back from work and is told to get rid of the disgusting thing. He puts it in his holdall. What to do?

On his next shift - and this is where it starts to become inexplicable - he takes the package out of his holdall when he and his dog do the next patrol. He puts the package close to one of the bunker entrances and continues his patrol. On his next circuit he exclaims "Shock, Horror, there appears to be an IED".

As it was IN the SSA the world then went mad. The bomb squad turned up. Didn't like the look of it at all and decided to put the robot in and blow the thing up.

BANG!!

No secondary explosion and then after a suitable wait they go in to investigate and find myriad sex toys scattered about along with the shredded packaging.

Amongst the packaging was......yes, you guessed it ..... the guys name and address.

It was fun preparing the Court Martial brief.

[NutLoose]

Pontius Navigator I rang one number only for the answerer "You don't want to call this number, do you?"

"Who is that?" I asked timorously. "Air Commodore Carver's resident," said his major domo or whoever. I made my apologies and hung up. Didn't you just love the PBX operators?



I remember when concerned about the amount of calls from RAF Germany to the UK they put a veto on them..
. However we quickly realised a flaw in the system, where there is an Ends there is a Means, so calling an ex Colleague serving in Hong Kong we asked if they could transfer the call to the UK which he promptly did :E

[Rossian]

After 10 hrs in a German Navy Atlantique west of Norway, inbound to Nordholz for what was going to provide the inject for the base disaster plan. I'd resisted my "minder's" attempts to see the contents of the "brown envelope" so that "I can then to the crew the details explain".
We were supposed to have had a SAM strike and lost all comms (credibility was not a strong requirement). This would require a normal transit of Danish airspace then going "speechless" entering German airspace. So far so good.
Half way through Danish airspace my minder comes galloping down to the galley where I was enjoying a coffee and a smoke.
"Put out the cigarette and put on your O2 mask"
"I haven't got a mask - helmet yes,immersion suit yes, parachute yes O2 mask nein"
"You must have, we all have one why do you not have one?"
"Nobody gave me one!! Anyway it's only a simulated fire ...
"Nein! Now we have a real fire behind copilot's instrument panel!" BuggAH!

Give them their due they pressed on with the speechless bit....???
As the interrogation unfolded it was clear that the tower was convinced that this was the "disaster plan" they'd all been expecting and refused to believe that it was real.

AS the smoke haze thickend I eventually went to the Captain and shouted "FFS do it in clear and get down I don't have a mask"
Arranged for the flteng to pop the back door to the exit hatch as soon as we depressurised, went down the back and sat right beside it.

Landed, and I was out the back and down the ladder like a rat up a drain pipe to be met by a galaxy of flashing lights green blue red orange in a semi circle around the back of the aircraft - it was like the finale of "close encounters of the third kind"

Loud hailers shouting at me in German. WTFO? eventually we were all gathered together and bussed away the basement of the local town hall medical centre.
The final straw was the doc saying to me "I'm sorry I don't listen to chests in English"
Another interesting day.

The next day I did four hours in the sim with the same crew.

The Ancient Mariner

[Exrigger]

Thought I would add one similar to another posted: RAF Coningsby mid 80's and call out goes about 6 in the morning all the people in one area of Tattershall quarters from the day shift turned up at normal start time to a surprised guard force who thought the exercise had ended as we were all in normal uniform.

The applicable Sqn & OCU execs having to take disciplinary action until the same story got around of "what alarm" it turns out bricks and mortar personnel had forgotten to service the siren in the middle of the squares and they were completely inop from birds nests. Needless to say nothing went further and the applicable night shifts were informed personally to come in dressed for war.

[TLDNMCL]

Up on the Moray Firth a good few years back:
Sgt. Welshname approache by Di-Staff to become not only disaffected, but mentally unstable too. This started off with a liitle out-of-character behaviour, but soon blossomed into Sgt. Welshname's dream day.
As time went by he became more and more erratic, until it reache the point where he had decided to climb up onto the crew room roof, and subsequently onto the hangar roof.
At this point much effing and blinding ensued, with threats to jump, and pretty vile insults hurled at anyone who tried to appease him.

Cue the arrival of the heavy mob; Doc had a go, "You can F'off an'all!" Padre had a go, "WTF's it gotta do with you?" You get the picture.

It was decided to call our own squadron boss, to see if a familiar face would do the trick (our hero had been told roughly at which point to aquiesce, but was enjoying his role far too much to comply).

Now, the boss had a passing resembance to John Cleese, which was not lost on Sgt Welshname.

Boss, <along the lines of> "Come on Sgt, let's try to give you some help here, no-one wants to see you get hurt!"

SW, "F'off Basil! Show us one of yer funny walks!"

One very disgruntled boss, two giggling-like-scoolgirls Di-Staff :ok:

[neilmac]

Guarding Coltishall Tower with a pick axe handle.....lack of rifles or maybe they didn't trust me.
Runway Caravan at Marham, everybody else in respirators but not down the Caravan plus you can see people n planes sneaking up on you to put it on in time and muffle your voice when answering phones/RT.

[uffington sb]

Top secret RAF station not too far from Carterton early 80's, with a short and even shorter tempered staish.
Situation: in the WOC during a Minival and NBC black, hoods up and respirators on. Phone rings and Cpl Uffers answers it. It's the GE from the Dulles flight to report it's U/S at Dulles. (This is not long after when senior civil servants had complained about the poor service given to them by the RAF, aircraft breaking down, no free drinks etc and the staish had decreed that an aircraft had to be prepped as a standby, and another prepped as the standby standby.).
Cpl Uffers understanding the gravity of the call, removes helmet and respirator to be able to converse with the GE. Staish on seeing me sans respirators goes into a fit, screaming "get your respirator on" or words to that effect.
Says to GE Call back in five, dons respirator and helmet and walks across to the tote board and writes ' U /S in IAD'.
Staish goes ballistic again, ripping his mask off and shouting at me. I reply in much muffled voice to which he screams " take your respirator off".
I look around the room and even with respirators on, I could tell there was much sniggering going on.

[uffington sb]

DX Wombat.
Don't worry about the post concerning babies heads. They were not real babies heads, but individual steak and kidney puddings from compo rations.

[DX Wombat]

Thank you Uffington, I did wonder just what merited that name but having seen on sale some of the pale, revolting concoctions masquerading as Snake and Pigmy puds and hearing of the standard (or should that be depth?) of inedibility of some of your rations, I am of the opinion that the Babies Heads name is most appropriate.
The dogs are becoming used to the outbursts of hysterical laughter so the prospect of a visit to the vet is disappearing rapidly over the horizon. I, however have got very sore sides from all the laughing - but it is worth it. :ok:

[NutLoose]

Yup they were similar to Fray Bentos steak and kidney suet puddings in a regular shaped tin, a suet outer that had a flesh tone to it containing a meaty pinkish interior, and hence the name.... They were actually delicious..

Same with the compo sausages and cheese possessed.


Scroll down for pictures that will make grown men quiver... Biscuits AB and lemon powder

TINNED COMPO SAUSAGES - Page 15 (http://www.arrse.co.uk/weapons-equipment-rations/28229-tinned-compo-sausages-15.html)

[oldmansquipper]

It was Tacevals Generation Phase - @Laffin Laar - when the RAFs premier recce sqn was already deployed to a local town on `Carnival` Duties. Squadron members were well into the apfelkorn and bratties when the hooter went. Sadly the famed steam hooter could not be heard at such a distance So very few turned up on Gold Sector initially and those that did were the worse for wear.

Luckily, a lesser recce Sqn was out from the UK on "Hawkeye" and not being locals, they were not involved in the traditional Carnival drinkathons. The visiting pilots couldn't get off base, so they pitched up at Gold (bless em) where they graciously donned flying suits bearing the names of the premier Sqns jockeys and introduced themselves to the Taceval team in Gold PBF...Sorted!

I gather the foreign nationals on the Taceval team had difficulty working out how we were able to declare 110% serviceability at the end of the day either....:ok:

[ShyTorque]

In RAFG, during a TACEVAL in the field, one of our more enthusiastic SNCO loadmasters came back from a heltask to the sight of some groundcrew lying on the ground. He put them on a charge for sunbathing on duty. Someone quietly led him away to tell him they were actually exercise casualties. ;)

[Pontius Navigator]

masquerading as Snake and Pigmy puds

At ISK, under the pretext of rotating the rat ions the officers' mess used to serve lunch consisting of half a tin of steak and kidney pub. We knew it was half a tin as it was tin shaped and had the consume by date impressed in the hot suet.

[BEagle]

I was on ' Southeren Q' at RAF Wattisham during one exercise, so safely out of the way of all the practice bleeding, secure in our 'real war' Q-shed environment.

In the middle of the night there was an altercation outside - it seems that they'd got to that part of the exercise when rations had to be pre-positioned at various locations. The fact that the Q-shed was off-limits during our periods of Southern Q hadn't been noted by the exercise players, so some lad in a Land_Rover was valiantly trying to deliver several cardboard boxes full of food......

But OC Catering (or whoever) had been quite clever. Realising that anything vaguely tasty would immediately be scoffed by the groundcrew, he'd sent us nothing but several dozen large cans of beans, green, sliced.... Needless to say, they were returned intact at ENDEX!

Personally I loathed compo sausages. But as an example of synergy, compo corned dog mixed with compo instant potato and some cheese possessed, then fried in a mess tin with compo margarine was very tasty. The sum of the components being far greater than their individual worth!

[Pontius Navigator]

But OC Catering (or whoever) had been quite clever. Realising that anything vaguely tasty would immediately be scoffed by the groundcrew,

Incredibly astute.

As mentioned before, at ISL a huge block of mousetrap was placed on a table in flying clothing. Mousetrap - flying clothing locker room - aircrew with dinghy knives!

The amount of cheese returned to the rat store postex could have been fitted on one mouse trap.

[Cubanate]

Bruggen again, mid-Winter. As an MDF Commander I receive a report that a group of protesting 'locals' were preventing 14 Sqn Jaguars from leaving the Sqn dispersal. Arrived on scene to find 'locals' wearing jeans and T-shirts, sitting across taxiway, arms linked, and refusing to move while four Jags were waiting behind them engines running. Identified Ring Leader (RL) and asked him to kindly move and let us get on with the War, otherwise I'd have to take action. RL smiled but said he and his group were going nowhere, and so were the Jags. Called the COC to request the assistance of the Fire Section who duly arrived and thoroughly hosed protesters down. Give them their due, they remained seated despite being frozen to the core and shivering uncontrollably. RL once again declined my request to move and the Jags continued waiting. Drastic measures were now needed so I called the COC to ask for the RAFP Dogs to attend. They did and I pointed out the RL to an enthusiastic Handler and gave him a brief instruction. 'No problem, Sir!' he said and off he went. In less than a minute the RL had a Police dog attached to his upturned arm and the Jags took off. Met RL in the Mess later that day; he was slightly injured and still shivering :E and told me what a :mad: I was. Happily, though, we remain friends to this day.

[Wander00]

Then there was the day the rioters (encouraged by distaff) lifted the front gates at Binbrook off their hinges. We had suggest wire-locked nuts to secure the gate on the hinges but PSA said it was "impossible". The impossible quickly became "possible".

Also hoax-called the Staish as "Red Hand of Ulster", threatening all sorts of mayhem. Then Di-staff leader asked the Staish for the form to be filled in in the event of a hoax call - long pregnant silence.

One of the di-staff seemed to have access to info on all sorts of IEDs - so we put one under a central heating oil tank. OC Arm Eng (Paul? - became at least a 2*) went through all his procedures and eventually proclaimed it a hoax and shone his torch under the tank. "Bang". Loud expletive! PE cell was our own addition.

[uffington sb]

Just in case you didn't know.
All RAF stations and the pilots wot fly there are described in the press as:-
Top secret, Top Gun base/ hero, Falklands hero, GW 1 hero, GW 2 hero etc.
The fact hat there's usually a chuffing big sign edged in red saying 'RAF ********* ' seems to have blown their 'Top Secret' cover.

[ICM]

I was interested to see that tale of how things went at Brize later in the 80s. It was very possibly the last station to join the UKAIR TACEVAL programme. MOD had been very leery about letting the two transport bases be subjected to the fun and games increasingly happening elsewhere lest schedules and service to the Army and Navy might be interrupted. Eventually permission was granted with, as I recall, caveats about all tasked flights remaining outside any exercise play. Lyneham went first. A couple of local exercises were held at Brize before the hooter first went one evening in late 77/early 78. I don't think the station had any extra kit at all at that stage, and I recall the ensuing 48 hours or so as pretty much of a nonsense. I'm told that things improved, but I have to say that early experience did nothing to endear the system to me.

[Wetstart Dryrun]

German Air Force officer, going through Taceval checklist -

'So, can you turn-round a F104?'

Cheery sergeant -

'You get it in, we'll turn it round'

Conversation taking place on Harrier field deployment site, 600ft of tin and a 70ft mexe pad.

wets

[MPN11]

Forgive me … not TACEVAL, but a major Linconshire Real Bomber Station work-up in anticipation. DISTAFF Team Leader (Moi?) injects signal to WOC (Confidential and StaffinConf) to OC Pol&Sy Sqn casting doubts on the validity of the Sy Clearance of Nuclear Stn Cdr.

Sadly I missed the action, which was apparently quite amusing, but the Stn Cdr was out of the exercise with 2 major benefits. [a] OC Ops gets his feet wet, as does SLOps on the other shift, and [b] Big John L***** was released to see see what was going on as an innocent observer.

"At your command, Master" :cool:
…………..

I did once threaten the Stn Cdr at a Scottish Fighter station with good golfing facilities, when DISTAFF-ing a ScotADEX, to "take him out" with a sniper if he didn't stop driving around in a shiny black car with pennant flying as a 'free gift' to anyone with hostile intent. He switched to a SWB LandRover :ok:

He was the offspring of some famous AM/ACM, IIRC

[Pontius Navigator]

ICM, I think the nonsense really set in with the one-Taceval scenario fits all.

Would St Mawgan have faced the same threat as Kinloss?

Why try and fight a war at Lossie with the Jag OCU, the Strike Buccaneers and the AEW Shacks? What a target rich environment. I suspect that come high tension other airfields would have been pressed in to use.

Wittering was another nonsense as all the aircraft would have deployed to Germany leaving an unmanned and virtually indefensible airfield.

Finningley etc, better to muster all the trainees, categorise them for usefulness and despatch them (for real or on paper) as pick axe handlers or guard commanders or wherever their skills (:)) might have been useful. Instead we have a surfeit of personnel who would congregate in the bombproof Seco hut coffee bar as 'all training ceases' in accordance with the war book.

[MPN11]

Very true, Pontius.

It was very silly at times. However, ignoring the 'faux reality' of TACEVAL as applied at different establishments, it did perhaps help people in the RAF realise that they were in a fighting service. I know most did, especially aircrew, but it needed IMO putting places through the mangle to make them realise it was not a peacetime job - ever.

I recall vividly the Part I at HQ 11Gp, where I turned up with all the kit, webbing, water bottle full, etc, etc … to be subsequently bollocked for [owning and] wearing a green combat shirt instead of an everyday blue one. :sad:

Or when Brawdy chopped to 11 Gp, and I examined their War Plan and proved on paper that it would take them 5 years [or thereabouts] to implement their sandbagging plan.

[engtechp]

During an execise at Gut I was in Eng Ops with a strange Sq/Ldr Eng sat on a plinth behind me.

He Said to me "Chief, it's the front desks place to make the coffee for the back desk"

To which I repled, "While the Queen is willing to pay me more 'LOA' than a senior officer I am more than willing to make the coffee, sir" :mad:

He never asked me to make the coffee again. (I was demob happy)


Brize Norton, third day of Taceval and the nukes have gone off with the rad count building. All the shiny 10 fleet was scrambled due to the 'Black Condition'.

Ten minutes later the Bengo (all senior officers were dead) came up to me and said,

"The aircraft are landing back, send all your boys out to see them in"

To which I replied "Sorry boss but I can't send the lads out as it would be instant death for them, the aircraft will have to wait for the Rad Count to decrease"

He looked very sheepish and went away. Two minutes later he was back with a big smile on his face and said,

"It's OK you can send your boys out as the aircraft have landed at Marham"

My instant reply was

"Well let b****y Marham see them in then!

I had to have a chat with the Sengo when he had been revived from the dead, he told me not to be cruel to Bengos!

[Pontius Navigator]

MPN, indeed. I had that battle with a secret lodger unit at station off the A1. Told them they needed section call out plans and a general call out plan. They were so secure that they only operated 8-5 M-F and relied on MT to bus them to work. They did have a duty officer but no associated call out plan for their people.

Reluctantly they created the general and selective plans and were able to say, when Taceval fever arrived, that they had plans (which they would not have done otherwise).

[langleybaston]

scene, a German AFB.
LB as Taceval Metman, detached from HQRAFG
.
Late on day 1 .......... "right I will now look at your Altermet!"

Altermet nicely dispersed, snug in prepared blast walls, box body, good comms, all present and correct, NBC gear, lovely ............

Thinks ................

What are the wheels on each corner and the tow bar for?

"Ah well, its not a base asset, its a German AF asset, held centrally. We move it sharpish to the base being TACEVALled ...... it arrived an hour ago!"

"So, what about real war then?"

"I guess nobody has an Altermet!"

The British Senior Taceval officer resisted my attempts to submit an honest report

[Exrigger]

Back to Wyton, 51 Sq, late 70's: New game introduced, intruder searching which we were informed meant stripping the intruder down, obviously before the H & S and the PC world we live in now.

Never saw anything before or since (we now search by rolling the clothing into a bunch in your hands), but distaff appeared to find some barking volunteers to act as intruders which meant they were quite happy to be stripped to pants and socks outside the hangar and then we were supposed to have a feel around their nether regions which everyone refused to do even when the intruder pulled a pistol out from between his thighs and 'shot' the guards.

Honington, early 80's 9 Sqn guard force: when they first arrived and before there was the fence built, they guarded their own HAS site until one endex at around 20:00 it was noted that there was a gun missing and it was decided to leave re-checking in the morning, around two in the morning the police found a young man wandering around the airfield wondering where everyone has gone (no radios, phones so he could not contact anyone).

[Shackman]

Amongst the many..............

Was on leave when got a phone call from mate who was Trg Major with a TA regiment in deepest East Anglia - he had been invited to partake in a certain Buccaneer base's TACEVAL as an invading force, and asked me along as an 'adviser'. It then turns out that one of his troopers is also the milkman who does the rounds of H...........n (including messes, Sqns and Ops), so we load up the milkfloat with a protective screen of milk bottles and put the best part of two or three fully armed platoons and a few boxes marked BOMB in the middle. Milkman duly turns up at the guardroom some 2 or 3 hrs after startex and plays the usual belligerent civvie - "do you want this milk or not?" so we are waved on, then totally igmored. After leaving a few IEDs around the bazaars duly storm and capture the OPs Block - in the middle of Stn Cdrs' meeting. TACEVAL team seemed quite amused to find the entire command structure as POWs.

[BEagle]

Back to Wyton, 51 Sq, late 70's: New game introduced, intruder searching which we were informed meant stripping the intruder down, obviously before the H & S and the PC world we live in now.

Same at Charlie dispersal during EX INDEX when we deployed our mighty Tin Triangles to RAF Finningley. One evening, a Crew Chief (Mac McG****n, I think it was) nabs a female intruder, of the RAFP persuasion. "Right, get your clothes off!", he announces and she starts to strip down to the permitted one piece bathing suit. He then finds a large can of Swarfega, which he generously applies to his fingers.... By this time the intruder is down to her swimsuit. "Well, sorry, but we haven't got any Vaseline or KY, so this'll have to do..... Keep going!", announces our hero. At which the Piglette goes nuts - until Mac couldn't keep a straight face any longer.

Another (male) intruder was strung up on tip toes and attached the wire mesh fence with locking wire around his thumbs....at which point the umpires announced that the point had been well made and we could stop being quite so defensive!

[airborne_artist]

The scene - RAF Biggin Hill in the midst of a Home Defence Exercise. Coy of Foot Guards are guarding the place.

HM's finest TA hooligans are tasked to get an IED inside the Coy HQ. A corporal aged late 30s who looks late 50s borrows his father's 50/60s Army uniform (father retired as a 3* with significant WW2 service and ribbons). A car dealer member of the sqn supplies and drives a black Granada and the black * plates are made up and fixed in position. The Sqn boss, in real life a bank manager comes as he is as the General's civil servant private secretary wallah carrying a briefcase.

The staff car arrives. Window wound down, "General Bloggs on an informal visit to see how things are going - can he come in and meet the Coy commander?" "Certainly Sir", much bowing and scraping. General is briefed on the ex and introduced to the other ruperts. "Well done chaps, must get on, lots more people to see etc."

Briefcase is left behind in Coy HQ, car departs amidst much saluting.

Coy Cdr most upset to find he and his team are dead 30 mins later.

Another day I'll tell the story of a hot landing at Kenley from a Wokka which wasn't opposed as one of our number stormed down the ramp wielding a running petrol-powered angle-grinder :\

[sisemen]

Finningley etc, better to muster all the trainees, categorise them for usefulness and despatch them (for real or on paper)

I can assure you Pontius it was all in the plan. I even commanded a whole exercise at a secret base adjacent to the A1 close to Stamford fully expecting the previously CPX guards to actually turn up!

[NutLoose]

ICM, I think the nonsense really set in with the one-Taceval scenario fits all.

Isn't that what Lionheart addressed? we were certainly bolstered by bods flown out from the UK..

As for the poor intruders, Odiham stripped theirs off and threw them outdoors into the prisoners square in the Guardroom....
I also remember some poor sod lying down spread eagled at the main gate on a freezing winters night in a deep puddle with ice on the surface..

[MSF]

Wittering, Late 80's (Albacete time- ish)
Station exercise early o'clock , Monday morning.
We open MSF and brew up , as we are officially in Norway/Denmark/ Germany and do not play locally.
After about an hour Saturdays And Sundays appear and tell us that we are all dead / being questioned.
They spat the dummy out all the way across the crew room when we informed them that we were 'deployed' and not playing.
They had broken in late on Friday night and spent the weekend high up in the racking amongst the smelly damp cam nets.
After a short,loud,shouty conversation amongst themselves, we were informed that we were not to contact anyone when they left.

A quick 'long distance' call had the mobile guard force on site and the first gun battle of the day.

Later on in the day , we had a phone call asking us to turn down the boom box in the hangar as no one could hear the tannoy - great acoustics!

If I remember correctly, the Northolt war had some memorable moments.
Didn't the SYO give a lift to some intruders to the tower.
And there was that memorable announcement that all guards would be armed with a pick axe handle and a WRAF!

[Wander00]

ISTR OC Rocks at Binbrook carried a F1250 with his photo replaced by that of a teddy bear - never seemed to hinder his progress

[Not a Crew Chief]

Couple of stories here remind me of happy times at '70s Laarbruch.
FLM's had discovered that modified German fireworks were very effective against intruder forces. The equivalent to the penny banger (1Dm) was string wound which concentrated the explosion. Adding to this by wire winding with locking wire and adding a ball of double bond - 2 part epoxy metal substitute - you had very effective hand grenade. One was tested by igniting in an ammo box and everyone retiring from the empty HAS. There were no remains of ammo box, double bond, or banger of any discernible size. As someone once (nearly) said "I don't know about the enemy but FLM's frighten the life out of me". Glad they were on my side.
You could always tell when Endex was due as doughnuts were delivered with lunch. Until Taceval team had them delivered on day 3 of a 4 day exercise. Those guys knew how to hit where it hurts.

[NutLoose]

My 1250 had my height on as 5 foot 5 3/4 inches.... It was a regular query why? to which I used to answer that it might just be 3/4 of an inch to you, but as a short un it was important to me.......
Gawd knows how you would judge it by looking at one :*

[smujsmith]

Whilst serving at Waddo, and in the process of helping to introduce the Nimros AEW 3 to service, we were called out, to play our part in the ritual of TACEVAL. We need to remember that, at that time, we had one aircraft, and due to its inability to perform any useful airborne function spent most of its time cosseted in one of the hangars. Meanwhile, the aircrew were improving their handicaps on the Station Golf course, of which I was secretary.

We get in to our first night of TACEVAL and at around 2130 hrs, even at distance, we hear an almighty "crump", multiple explosions, see flashes that light up the sky and generally get the impression that " it's kicked off". Around twenty minutes after the incident, we hear the following tannoy message:

" Attention, attention, this is the Station Commander. An attack on the main entry point has ended with criminal damage and personal injury, beyond exercise parameters. Many intruders are still at large on the unit. Waddington personnel are to offer no resistance if confronted with these intruders, stop. For the intruders. Your activities have exceeded the limitations of peacetime exercise, and, as Station Commander I am ordering a stop to any further intruder activity. I advise you that any attempt to interfere with the prime asset ( Nimrod AEW3) will be met with armed defence. You are to report to the main guardroom for processing off the unit".

Now, it appears we were hit by 23? SAS ( I always thought the reserves were 21 SAS), who drove a Ferret through the main gates, closed at the time, and took the Guardroom. Word spread that these chaps had made all occupants form a neat pile in the middle of the main room, SWO at the bottom. As a result the SWO suffered a heart attack and came close to his own personal endex. They then went on the rampage, and rumour had it that several guards, armed with our state of the art "pick axe" handles were subject to boisterous visits. I can't vouch for the attacks on Guardroom or guards various. I did hear the tannoy broadcast, and standing in the pitch dark hoped that my guard commander would call us in before the beggars paid us a visit.

Whilst that was only, eventually, a one day exercise. Stopped to protect our newly acquired asset, I believe it was the first I was involved in where I actually believed I was under any threat. In fact far more threat than the trips in to Sarajevo or the "other stuff" in GW1. Perhaps, sometimes, a bit of "exercise" does you no harm. :eek:

Smudge

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Mineval at an AD base somewhere in Yorkshire

0300 Callout finds the finest fighter sqn in the RAF, post sqn dinner, still all in Mess Kit on the patch, well into the whisky tasting.

0304 Entire sqn en voiture queued outside the main gate, fumbling for missing F1250s - not one between us.

Quick-thinking (or oblivious, I'm still not sure which) nav leans out of 2CV open roof and announces "Hello! We're aircrew, and we're p!ssed!"
Guard wisely salutes and waves us all through.

Entire Sqn manned in 20 minutes, but thank God we didn't end up launching.

[smujsmith]

Fox 3

Now that's my sort of Aircrew :rolleyes:

Smudge:ok:

[AR1]

Smudge I was almost at the exit the WOC at Wittering when the entrance was attacked by a force of external origin. I dont know who they were but aggressive wasnt the word. As the lights went off I fell into the small comms room and layed behind a cabinet. I masked up as there was smoke. And listened to the meyhem in the main room. The inject was rapidly terminated with the target in the aggressors having achieved thier aim. To be honest it wasnt real but the shock value was huge. Which I suppose was the whole point..

[Wander00]

Had the men from down west at Binbrook - me and a mate spent 3 hours quivering behind a sofa in the OM as they rampaged around. My OC PMS had a pistol put to his head and told you are f.....g dead! All got a bit out of hand in places.

[smujsmith]

AR1 & Wanderoo,

I never heard of those instances. Obviously takes a thread like this to bring them to life. I wonder what ever happened when a three day TACEVAL programme had to be aborted because of exuberance on the intruders behalf, Day 1? We certainly wouldn't have had that luxury if the real thing kicked off, I doubt any speznatz type people would have heeded a reasonable tannoy from Harry Staish. As in my previous post, re the Officers being captured within minutes of start ex at Akrotiri, one has to wonder if any of these "early incursions" or "over the top" actions were designed to test the mettle of the Station hierarchy rather than us Baldricks. I just bet there are some other, similar stories of shortened exercises out there.

Smudge:ok:

[racedo]

I never heard of those instances. Obviously takes a thread like this to bring them to life. I wonder what ever happened when a three day TACEVAL programme had to be aborted because of exuberance on the intruders behalf, Day 1? We certainly wouldn't have had that luxury if the real thing kicked off, I doubt any speznatz type people would have heeded a reasonable tannoy from Harry Staish. As in my previous post, re the Officers being captured within minutes of start ex at Akrotiri, one has to wonder if any of these "early incursions" or "over the top" actions were designed to test the mettle of the Station hierarchy rather than us Baldricks. I just bet there are some other, similar stories of shortened exercises out there.

I guess some over exhuberance would have been the excuse from the men in masks, who lets face it were also training to do the same on an enemy base or planning how they could defend a base.

Reading some of the reports, accepting some liberal license in reporting, it clearly would have highlighted how potentially easy it could have been to take out a base or two at a key time which would not have been pleasant reading up the foodchain.

[Pontius Navigator]

It might have had taceval aspects but IIRC you are talking about Brave Defender and 23 SAS was one of 2 Reserve units.

At Waddo I believe they had prior permission to modify the door into the Ops building which they did with a chain saw.

At Coningsby someone took out the window of the guardroom with a sledge hammer and a gorilla held his hand over the panic button until they opened the guardroom door with another chain saw.

They then broke in to the Police office where a home based WO was being held as a suspect. The SAS ordered everyone up against the wall. Our brave suspect protested he was one of them. He ended up with a broken arm and bloody nose as he hit the wall.

Their raid was countered though as the barrier guard ducked out of sight and rang the WOC which, in a hardened building, was impregnable.

[NutLoose]

There was a book about the Spetnatz that made interesting reading...

Wasn't one of their schemes to have sleepers with SAM's in the UK, prior to kick off they would secure them high up on timers in the tree canopies covering flight paths , as the timers counted down they would become active and launch at aircraft, then a few hours later the next would arm etc.

[ShyTorque]

I was once tasked as enemy to deliver some "Rock Apes" from Gutersloh to one of the RAF "Clutch" stations, by helicopter. We fooled ATC into thinking we were transiting north/south at low level under their MATZ stub (we spoke to discover if there was any inbound traffic as we were about to go in parallel to the runway). We turned hard right and flew unannounced onto the roof of the Ops bunker, whereupon the Rocks rapidly disembarked the Puma from the hover and we were gone in about five seconds. The defending force had so much cam on top of the machine gun posts that they couldn't turn the guns inwards so we were effectively unopposed.

We discovered later that in the commotion we caused our tame Rocks banged on the door, shouting "We're under attack, let us in!" and someone foolishly did let them in......

Lessons were learned. :p

We learned that it was very difficult to get them to give us a refuel after having such fun at their expense ..... :p

[Always a Sapper]

Aye Smudge, while not a TACEVAL I do seem to remember the odd FTX in Germany being 'calmed down' or even curtailed early on during my time out there.

Sadly it was normally because the noduff casualty allowance had been reached. IIRC the toll was set at around 3 fatalities.

An example being on a RE FTX circa 1982 during the mine laying part when a Field Sect Commander (Cpl) managed to get himself in the wrong place when swapping the 432 that was pulling the Bar Mine layer, norm practice had the replacement 432 (full of Bar Mines) pull up along side the now empty one and the Bar Mine layer would be unhitched and hooked onto the replacement. He was crushed between the two vehicles.

Bear in mind all this was done at night, preferably with no moon light and def no torches other than the odd red torch which were carried by the Sect Commanders, Troop S/Sgts and sometimes, if he had been really good the Troop Comd was allowed one as well, it kept the Troopys quiet and gave them something to play with while we were out on task but they didnt get the batteries just in case they worked out how to turn it on.

[NutLoose]

Wasn't there a Tank Crew found dead under their tank in RAFG that sank onto them in the night crushing them?

I also seem to remember a VW Beetle with some German who took some of his family out to see the Britishers at play, sadly a tank came through a hedge straight over the top of them. Both during exercises.

[Ogre]

Was detached on a course to a first class training establishment not far from Weston Super Mud in the late 80's, when the hooter went off at 04 Chr!st sake. Our entire class (all techies from a number of stations) rolled over and went back to sleep, then wandered off for breakfast at the usual 07:00. A high ranking station SNCO dressed in well pressed camo gear had a bit of a sense of humour failure when he saw us, until we pointed out that in the event of the real thing we would all be three hours up the road to our home bases (We had been primed by our instructors the day before that we were just to ignore all the noise)

For some reason the exercise finished at 07:30 precisely, the trainees then went off to class for the day, and it all resumed again at 18:00 for another three hours....

[ricardian]

Nutloose said Wasn't there a Tank Crew found dead under their tank in RAFG that sank onto them in the night crushing them?
I was in the RAF but working with 24 Brigade (604 FACS). It was forbidden for anyone to sleep underneath a vehicle for that precise reason.
After several army types were killed when lying, camouflaged, in ambush position the powers that be stated that a notice on a 6ft pole was to be posted next to camouflaged ambush positions, the notice was to say "DANGER! |Troops are hidden within 4 metres of this notice". Soon after a German army tank crushed several troops despite the presence of the notice. The tank commander's excuse was the had to get closer to the notice so that he could read it.

[Big Bear]

Was detached on a course to a first class training establishment not far from Weston Super Mud in the late 80's, when the hooter went off at 04 Chr!st sake. Our entire class (all techies from a number of stations) rolled over and went back to sleep, then wandered off for breakfast at the usual 07:00. A high ranking station SNCO dressed in well pressed camo gear had a bit of a sense of humour failure when he saw us, until we pointed out that in the event of the real thing we would all be three hours up the road to our home bases (We had been primed by our instructors the day before that we were just to ignore all the noise)

For some reason the exercise finished at 07:30 precisely, the trainees then went off to class for the day, and it all resumed again at 18:00 for another three hours....

I was a trainee at this establishment when another of these regular pointless exercises was planned. Unfortunately for the DS, we got wind of it and when the hooter went off at 0400, aprroximately 2/3 of the 600 trainees were still out in Weston. FS Regt went scripto when people started arriving back on Stn for breakfast. He managed to get the exercise rescheduled for the following week and we were all given an order not to leave camp.

Bear

[BEagle]

On the subject of Germans, tanks and pongoes, there was a story doing the rounds when I was first in the RAF, whose veracity I cannot confirm.

It seems that, not long after the second unpleasantness whilst the Army was still an 'army of occupation', at the end of a busy day's exercise generally charging about the countryside, a weary tank crew pulled up outside an inviting looking German pub.

When they went inside, they were confronted by silent stares from the clientele, followed by Mein Host announcing "Ve do not serve British in this bar, Tommy!".

The crew quietly left. Then various pongo commands were issued, such as "Gunner, with one blank round, LOAD!"....."Left 9 o'clock, traverse!" - at which there was a shattering of glass as the tank barrel smashed through the window - "FIRE!".

An almighty bang and sounds of much breaking glass followed, after which the dazed patrons stumbled out into the Straße. The tank commander collared Mein Host and told him "You don't serve f*****g anyone in this bar now, do you Fritz!".

And off went tank and crew to find another pub!

As I say, I don't know whether it's true. But it ought to be!

[Ali Barber]

During the 80's at Binbrook the TACEVAL team expected to see a deployment plan drawn up. There was always a blank Op Order for just this purpose where you simply filled in the gaps. The team said prepare for deployment to Waddington, then said do it! As the JP, I was sent on the bus with all the groundcrew who complained that, since Waddo wasn't on exercise, they would need money for the NAAFI club. So, we stopped at the bank in Market Rasen en route and all formed an orderly queue to cash cheques, all armed to the teeth with GPMGs, SLRs, SMGs etc and nobody in the bank batted an eyelid.

We were also allowed home at the end of shifts during exercise and to take your weapon with you. The fish & chip shop also never batted an eyelid about people ordering while wearing a pistol in a shoulder holster.

[rarelyathome]

Smudge,

I too was at Waddo at the time of that incident and was in the COC. The intruders had also forced their way into the outer part of the COC and had smashed the foresight of a weapon onto the hand of one of the SNCOs who tried to stop them causing serious injury. IRC it was Ex Brave Defender. I also seem to remember that the intruders chainsawed the oak door to SHQ which had some history.

The exercise was indeed terminated and a number of VSOs then arrived in various helicopters and a formal apology for the conduct of the TA SF was later broadcast I think.

[Wrathmonk]

Maybe the PPRuNEr who, by his own admission, has worn hats of varying colours (one of which was sandy;)) was one of the hooligans at Waddo that year....

[Pontius Navigator]

After several army types were killed when lying, camouflaged, in ambush position.

Not fatal but a near miss, I think it was 8 Sqn, but could have been another, playing hooligans. Once our intruder aircraft was surrounded on the airfield the game would move in to negotiation to get the crew out without blowing up the aircraft.

At some point several crew would slip out of the aircraft either on a blind side, or after hiding, and then leg it across the airfield in the dark.

The counter hooligans, them with white caps and blue flashing lights, would then charge around the airfield trying to catch them. After a couple of very near misses it was realised this was an accident waiting to happen and that game was abandoned.

[Pontius Navigator]

On one exercise in Germany an EngO I believe had been driving back and forth through the same checkpoint several times. Now it might have been the presence of the Taceval umpire on this occasion but the guard requested the EngOs ID card.

After much blustering and 'I've been thorough here !!!!' the guard remained intransigent. Realising he wasn't going to be let past our hero jammed the Landrover in to reverse whereupon the guard cocked his weapon and pointed in the sqn ldr's face.

The windscreen was no obstacle :)

[Grobling About]

Gutersloh, 1987 (I think). Being the work hard/play hard unit that it was, turn out at the annual Officers/SNCOs games night in the Sgts' Mess was comprehensive. The station powers had done all the right things and the function had definately been lodged in the RAFG and TACEVAL Team's calendar. A good night was had by all with a very large proportion of the Gutersloh staff at or above the rank of Sgt very much under the influence. As the Stn Cdr steps out of the Sgt's Mess in the early hours he is greeted by the wail of the station exercise siren. TACEVAL Part 1 --- "What the *£^%!"

Many of the participants of the party had already gone home and slept through the siren. Some considered that driving back in wasn't a good idea and those that did make it to their places of work were incapable of doing anything useful. As a result the Gutersloh wing of 2 Harrier squadrons, 1 Chinook squadron and a Puma squadron, not to mention the rest of the station, was generated by the remaining personnel, all Cps and below. The station received a 'one,' the highest possible result..

[Ogre]

The talk of those with white caps and flashing blue lights made me recall another episode at Kinloss which was recalled to me. Our section had been volunteered to be rent-a-mob for a demonstration by one of the crash gates. Loads of noise, jeers, water balloons, flour bombs etc, before the "demonstrators" breached the gate and moved onto camp. Station guard and plods surrounded the protestors and detained them prior to shipping them off to some form of detention. The process was to search each demonstrator, then stick them in the back of a sherpa.
After the first couple of demonstrators were put in the sherpa it was noticed that the front seat was empty, and the keys were still in the ignition. Demonstrator 1 then leant across the front seat, took the keys and passed them to demonstrator 2 before hopping over the front seat and out the front door. The mob of still-to-be-searched ruffians were congregating at the side of the sherpa with only a couple of plods and guards in attendance, so demonstrator 1 joined the throng to be searched again.

This could have developed into a total face, but before it did those in the sherpa decided to try their luck at hijacking the van. So as the 8th or so demonstrator was put into the back, the one nearest the front hopped into the front seat, closed the door, started the engine and drove off, leaving the plods looking at each other trying to work out who was driving....

[Wensleydale]

I have a vague memory of the dining out of the Stn Cdr who was at Waddington during that exercise. With the permission of the PMC, the doors into the dining room had been replaced by some cheaper replacements and these were chain-sawed during the speeches! (or was it when we dined out the Nimrod)?

On the subject of tanks on exercise in Germany - a friend who's brother was a tanky in Germany told me of the occasion when in order to limit compensation to the local populace, a village in the exercise area was declared off limits by the expedient of declaring the through road mined and the road was therefore not to be used. Unfortunately an enterprising commander took his troop down the front gardens.....

From the same source - apparently, if you caught a kerbstone in the correct position with the track of a Chieftain then you could catapult the stone into the buildings next to the road.....

[denachtenmai]

Exrigger
Unlucky, in the 60's, 51 Squadron did not participate in the vulgar game of Micky's/Micky Finn's, the tannoy message, invariably at 0dark30 on a Monday morning, stated "51 exempt".
Oh how we laughed out of the windows as 543 and 58 trudged off to generate their quota. :E

[Finnpog]

Warthmonk said

Maybe the PPRuNEr who, by his own admission, has worn hats of varying colours (one of which was sandy) was one of the hooligans at Waddo that year....



Don't tell him your name, Pike.:ok:

[Exrigger]

Denachtenmai: your memory must be better than mine and I have no reason to doubt what you say, but for reasons I will keep to myself my time at Wyton and move from the Hydraulic Bay onto 51 around early to mid 78 was not one I will forget which is why I described the incident as post this move (in my minds eye I cannot visualise any other posting that fits the profile and all stations/Sqns I was on after 1979 were not required to strip search suspect intruders, if we ever had any), but it was the only exercise I remember post the move, I don't recall 51 getting involved in any other parts of any exercise i.e. flying, but was only there for approx 6 months before moving to Cranwell.

Talking of Cranwell, it was decided by the new regiment management that despite no real fence around the station, no guard posts, barriers or sangars and a public road right through the middle it would be fun to see how the station would work during an exercise. The clever regiment and execs decided to open as many of the air raid shelters as could be open and some of us engineers could play in them, but with no lighting, no communications, some with water in them and then all the biting insects it was decided that we had all had fun but maybe it needed thinking through and organising properly for the next one, which thankfully there was not another one before I left.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ogre, we did the same trick at Leuchars when the Scottish Gp Capt was there with even greater success.

The crew were bundled in to the back of the paddy waggon which had a metal screen twixt front and back. The search had been cursory and on or two captives were still armed.

A 9mm was produced and the driver directed by the prisoners. He stopped the waggon, jumped out and ran away. Another guard in the back also legged it leaving a number of slightly bemused intruder aircrew, a number of SLRs and the paddy waggon.

So, jumping in to the driver's seat one of the crew drives us all off. 'Unfortunately' we couldn't find the blue lamp OFF switch. As we approached the first barrier the guards raised it.

Game on.

We continued with barrier after barrier opened until we came to the main gate. Out we went into the dark Scottish countryside.

Eventually we stopped in a darkened village and took stock. There we were a bunch of escapees, fully armed and with a magic pass. Where to next :)

[Pontius Navigator]

Denachtenmai: your memory must be better than mine

Not necessarily better but longer?

543 was disbanded in 1974.

58 was disbanded in 1970.

51 was operating the Comet R1 until 1974.

[SASless]

Tanks....Darkness....and afoot! The Piney Woods of Fort Stewart in Georgia can be a very interesting place when an Armored unit is wandering about the place in the pitch dark. This was pre-NVG days.....errrrr....nights.

Add in some overcast skies, ground fog, and I am quite happy to say they scared the Hell out of me!

In a Readiness Test called OSD Test II which was to determine if National Guard Units, given the kit and some extra training days, could be ready for combat deployment within six weeks of activation....we got to play Army.

The Regular Army saw no need for the Weekend Warriors to be able to leave the Maneuver Area (Gators, Snakes, Mozzies, Chiggers, Poison Oak....and swampy ground) to places that had Showers, Beds, Beer, Broads, and other necessities of life.

They forgot.....Weekend Warriors looked at the Rules as something that got in the way of getting things done.

By using creative thinking the Regular Army reckoned they had us bottled up in the middle of no where....all roads blocked by Checkpoints with MP's in attendance and to them problem sorted.

To us....with our 1000 Horsepower engined VTR's (Tank Retrivers with dozer blade attached thereto) we saw scant problem plowing a track to the nearest State Highway in complete disregard of the Regular Army and a few barbed wire fences and boundary signs.

After all....our Beer and Soda Machines (image....Coin operated Vending Machines mounted on the back of a Unit Five Ton Truck and powered by a Generator) needed replenishing. When told we could not take such things to the field as they were not TO&E Equipment....we reminded the Regular Army of the Waiver in the Regulation that said the Local Commander could deviate from the Regulation Kit List if found to be Combat Essential.

We as Weekend Warriors consisted Beer, Soda, and Showers to be just that.....combat essential!

Plus....we whipped the Regular Army Aggressors in a Walk!

[ex-fast-jets]

And it was a German Public Holiday - so it was a no-fly day. Hence the O'Mess/Sgts' Mess games night the evening before!! What other nation would have accepted a TACEVAL on a German Public Holiday!!

That TACEVAL should be immortalised!!

There is so much more to be said about that one.....................

I leave it to others to say it!!

But thank you for remembering it............

I can, but only just.................!!

[Pontius Navigator]

BomberH, same at Scampton in Blue Steel days. Not the only station diary entry to be forgotten or not passed up the line. Again all the got to bed as the sirens sounded. Well not quite all, a fair number were still at it in the mess at 4am.

[VP8]

Cows getting Bigger

Same scenario @ Wildparts in early 80's Germany. Lowly SAC (me) was sent up to local to find FS raving like a loon on the tannoy with door to local locked from inside. DI staff say what you going to do? Looks at FS looning like a real nutter - climbs onto railing cocks SLR gives him 2 rounds and says situation over would climb in through window open door for replacement controller to take over. Distaff not impressed expecting 15-20mins incident over in 5 mins.

Also we used alternate sandbagged sangar at entrance of Tower for security access and put glims in concrete pillbox to confuse intruders. many shot trying to attack that!

Wont mention the Trip flares we managed to get hold off for better defence :E

Happy Days

[NutLoose]

Odiham, front of 72 Sqns hangar when sudden sangar silly season began, mounted on pallets for drainage a pretty impressive sandbagged sangar built... Following morning gone... Located outside stores entrance where a set of forks had been used during the night to simply lift it and the pallets complete and relocate it... Same forks used to return it.

[TomU]

If there is anyone out there for whom "B Shift Campers" Letter B enclosed in dayglo tent - brings back a memory, it would be great to hear from you.

[November4]

Mid 80ies and SAC N4 was sent to Imber for FIBUA training (Why...??) with a couple of teams of UKMAMS finest. Got dropped off on the main road and walking into Imber with all our kit when a landrover suddenly appeared. Asked who we were and what we were doing there. He didn't seem impressed to be told we were RAF. Turned out he was an umpire we were wandering along the road which was between two opposing tank groups and there was an attack schedule imminently.

With that, a large bush not too away started it's engine and reversed back at a great rate of knots as the Scorpion recce screen had seen the enemy and were legging it out of the way. The umpire said stand next to any trees and not run around and disappeared as well.

So 12 or so MAMS Commandos stood next to trees and hoped the Chieftain tanks would obey orders and go round them.

-------------------------------

Lyneham 1984/5 TAC/MIN EVAL and some of the intruders are local ATC cadets. One of them was rifle butted in the back of the head after capture. A couple of days in hospital sorted out his concussion.

The guard was court martialled and left not long after. ATC not used again as intruders.....

[Exrigger]

PN: Not sure whether there is a mix up I was involved with both the hydraulic bay and 51 itself from 77 -79 with Nimrod R1 and as confirmed from the 51 website extract below:

The squadron moved to Wyton in March 1963, where Nimrod R Mk 1 aircraft arrived in July 1971. These were used alongside the Canberras and Comets until January 1975, when the Comets left and when the Canberras were retired in October 1976, the squadron continued to only operate the Nimrods. The squadron continued in this role until 2011 using the Nimrods, moving to Waddington in April 1995. Under the 2011 Strategic Defence and Security Review it was decided to retire the Nimrods before their replacements were ready and crews began training on the Boeing RC-135W 'Air Seeker' in the USA and will fly as crew members on USAF aircraft until the RAF examples are delivered in 2015.

Anyway back on topic, Deployment exercise on some farm in the middle of Germany with 18 Sqn: One evening told as guard comander that we might be attacked and to make sure my guards were alert, we now had night vision goggles and I very soon got a report that there were some intruders approaching the site and how many etc, I asked the guard who reported the sighting how he can be so precise and I was invited to his hole in the ground so he could show me, how we laughed when it became apparent that there was a flaw in the new Gortex kit that the intruders were wearing as they all glowed a lovely shade of yellow.

Another farm another day guards stood at the road to the farm when any army vehicle pulled up and was duly incapacitated and prisoners held, apparently this was not supposed to be the way things had been briefed to these guys and we had not been prepared for it either, it turns out they had had a navigational error and attacked the wrong site.

BDR was fun on helicopters as the people who threw injects in were more fix wing trained and on one exercise as the BDR assessor I was thrown this tail unit from some small helicopter with a hole about an inch in diameter one area. I assessed it and told the fella it would be sorted within half an hour with a quick file and speed tape, he pointed out to me that I had failed the test as I had not drawnt up a plan to put a thick slab of alumium on with a double row of jo-bolts as per the BDR manual (fixed wing as we did not have a helicopter one at the time). When I pointed this out to him and the construction of the peice of helicopter was fag packet thin aluminium skin attached with pop rivets and if I spent all day doing the repair his way the helicopter would crach on take off from overstress caused by vibration, he left in a bit of a mood.

[Rigex]

Beags, I seem to remember the story was related in a book "Try Not to Laugh, Sergeant Major" which was full of such tales. My copy has disappeared, but I've just managed to get a replacement from the folks up the river.

[ShyTorque]

Yes, TACEVAL teams in RAFG didn't "get" helicopters, at all.

During the first TACEVAL on our sqn (230) one Puma landed for a re-task and the umpire gave an "inject" of battle damage to the pilot (DB).

He asked where the damage was. The damage was on the cabin door. DB said no problem, that's non-structural, sorry, I'm on task now. The TACEVAL umpire, an engineer, wouldn't accept this so DB duly jettisoned the door and gave it to him to hold while he took off! :ok:

We also took off vertically from the same site and the TACEVAL umpire discovered exactly what seven tonnes of downwash does to your ring-bound classified file if you get too close! When we came back an hour later they were still trying to poke the last few pages out of a tree with a long stick. :E

[Exrigger]

Shytorque: I remember that being passed onto us by a mate on 230, they also used to suggest we did the same type of repair on rotor blades which made everyone on helicopters fall over laughing and the umpires thought we were taking the proverbial and needed more training as the first lot of training had obviously failed to get the message through of how to BDR aircraft properly.

[November4]

Lyneham - 1980s

Shift was deployed to act as reinforcements for the MAMS teams deployed forward. We ended up in the woods behind the tower at Kemble. Basically it was a test to see if we could be prepped and ready to go at short notice. We had been told that we wouldn't be bothered there. That wasn't good enough for our Sgt (Tony S**) who made us dig in and stand guard just in case.....no weapons no nothing. It took a long time but he was finally persuaded not to dig small trenches and line then with punji sticks as defences.

------------

Another Minival in Sep 88 and I was sent from Shift at Lyenham to reforce Gib Movs (they weren't playing though) along with Tony and another SAC. Got there to be told "no idea why you're here, see you in 4 days for your flight home". Sat on the beach at Catalan Bay drinking cold beer thinking of the chaos back and base (OK the last part about thinking isn't true)

[FantomZorbin]

At the Yorkshire home of the tin-triangle, party/get together in one of the quarters, all going exceedingly well and the lethal home-brew going down a treat. Mine Host shouts "Hey! I've got a recording of a Lightning doing a reheat flypast, I'll play it!".

Now Mine Host had invested in a v. expensive hi-fi outfit and wanted to see/hear what it was like at max chat. By now it was about 0100hrs.

The Lightning duly performed and entered through the French Windows and departed via the dining room, and again, and again, to get the full effect you understand!

Everyone was very impressed and the party continued, once the audience had recovered their hearing! Door bell rings and is hammered open - there, standing on the threshold in a wild assortment of uniform/jimjams/flying kit is next door neighbour* ... "You */-+%*&^%$£!s, I thought the siren had gone and I'd missed it ... I've just been up to the Squadron!!!" We mollified him with the home-brew :E

* He'd excused himself from the hooley on account of a cold!

[Vortex_Generator]

Harrier camping holiday at sunny Sennelager, twixt MINIVAL and MAXIVAL. A bunch of us sat around bemoaning the paucity of blank ammunition (5 rounds per foxhole and 10 for the GPMG).

Mate mentions he has a brother-in-law serving with some donkey walloper mob up the road at Detmold so we trundle off in the 4 Tonner for a liaison visit. A few calls later and we meet a chap who says he can let us have 10 boxes. Result, we think, assuming 20 rounds per box.

Imagine our surprise and delight when confronted with 10 wooden cases (1000 rounds per case). Needless to say that at the subsequent MAXIVAL the attacking force was a little taken aback by the robust defensive fire.

[BEagle]

An aerodrome somewhere in Eastern England. Early morning and the Distaff announce an exercise inject - an aircraft has just pranged on the runway and the aerodrome is now Black.

"Ah - that old one", announces the duty grown-up, "No problem, we'll use the CPX Coles crane. Soon have it sorted!".

"Will you indeed", replies the Distaff chap.....

At which point a phone rings... "Sir, there's something on the runway!".

'Something' turned out to be an old Canberra fuselage full of concrete. No CPX Coles crane in the world was going to shift that, so the Distaff watch with much amusement whilst someone tries to find Cranes, Coles, x 1 plus Cranes, Coles, Driver x 1.......

They did eventually shift it, but learned a hard lesson!

[Tashengurt]

Lyneham 1984/5 TAC/MIN EVAL and some of the intruders are local ATC cadets. One of them was rifle butted in the back of the head after capture. A couple of days in hospital sorted out his concussion.


I remember that one November 4.
Lyneham '85 was my last summer camp with the cadets before I joined up. As I recall (and I barely do) we were warned about over zealous staff before our exercise.
Mind you. something niggling keeps telling me it was Big H the year before but I can barely remember what I had for breakfast these days.

Thoroughly enjoying this thread. As someone who came in at the end of the cold war Taceval was as close as I got to the action. Great, easy times on the MDF at the Scottish fighter base, loads of blanks and thunderflashes. Tearing around in cut down lard drovers ambushing and more frequently, getting ambushed. We really were crap! Still cherish the memory of the time the intruding force attacked a sanger which faced onto the public road dividing the camp just as we happened to be close.
We lined the 'berm' along the perimeter wire and absolutely blasted them as they went past until an umpire called it off "I think you got 'em!".
A rare victory.

[smujsmith]

Tash,

Sorry to hear of injuries to ATC lads at Lyneham. I would have been there at the time, and have no memory of anyone being "hyper enthusiastic" about their attempts at defending, certainly from an engineers point of view. The one thing that always struck me about any exercise was the old saying " Hours of boredom, interspersed with a few minutes of excitement.

To that end, many Tacevals, Minivals and a few other vals, usually followed a similar scenario during the "cold war";

1. Get everyone on base, give them guarding duties and start a war scenario.

2. Depending on length of exercise, keep them going with guarding, Battle Damage repair and runway/airfield clearance.

3. Blow the hooter, announce imminent arrival of fallout and put all in to shelter posture, rubber faces on. This usually meant saving a bundle on feeding people.

4. After a proportionate time, announce endex so all can be on shift as usual, at earliest opportunity.

It's no surprise that many, and lets appreciate most intelligent and educated Aircrew, Groundcrew and other personnel (at least the Groundcrew and other personnel :eek:) would be easily bored by this. Thus,across the RAF, exercise was often accompanied by a certain, stretching of the rules, pushing of the boundaries or just breaking the rules. None of it usually hurt anyone and possibly made the whole experience a bit more palatable. But then, that's only my opinion.

Smudge :ok:

[SASless]

Vortex,

On our OSD Exercise....we Weekend Warriors discovered the Regular Army's Supply Point for things that merely go "Bang!"....and in the dead of night....loaded up a Five Tonner with all manner of fun stuff to include lots of Tear Gas Grenades (White Chemical Smoke-CS) as I recall. The Script called for us to be gassed one time during the exercise....upon getting dosed the third time....we paid the 1st Air Cav a visit with our Hueys in the middle of the night.....and again at breakfast.....and lunch.

In keeping with the spirit of the war game.....and in complete ignorance of the Script....we also went around one night and placed placards on every single one of their aircraft warning of Contaminated Fuel.....done by injection of water in the fuel tanks so the Placard warned. No water added....but it took them a while to confirm that.

A few nights later we turned all the Battery switches on for them......which delayed their take offs the next day.

All of the pilots in my unit were combat veterans less the Commander. One fellow had been a Navy Pilot who had dropped a bomb down the funnel of a Japanese Destroyer in Kure Harbor during WWII.

[air pig]

SASless: the old adage of 'old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill' still applies today as well.

[racedo]

SAS

You not been fair and playing by rules..............:E

Oh wait in war nobody plays by rules and those who survive are those who adapt.

Those who adapt, survive and lose the least are often called the winners, but history is slow, often it takes decades to decide who really won.

[SASless]

Amongst the fun and games....we added some pranks too.

A fellow who shall remain nameless...who wound up a Senior Training Captain for a small US Airline with a major hub in Charlotte, NC....who was probably the finest Pilot I ever met...in all regards.....saw fit to murder me one morning over a fit of youthful exuberance.

Camp Swampy (Fort Stewart, GA) in August is a miserable place....it is a miserable place anytime but August is the acme of misery for there.

We had just finished one of those wonderful Military exercises....the one where all the Tents had just been erected in an open area inches above water level after a midnight move....when some senior staff weenie from Division wandered by and had a conniption fit because the Tents were in the open and not tactically dispersed....and orders were issued to move the Tents into the woods....in an area that would approach water level or lower.

We accomplished that with more than a bit of effort, sweat, mozzies, chigger bites, blisters, and aching backs and sore fingers. Thus....making the Colonel a much happier fellow.

My Hero....having changed his sopping wet uniform and muddy boots for a Whore's Bath and clean Boxers....did what Soldiers are best at.....checking eyelids for light leaks.

He retired to his slowly sinking wooden cot and Mozzie Net....and got stuck into his eyelid inspection.

Seeing him in his slumbers.....gently snoring away dreaming of his Model A Antique cars.....temptation got the best of me. I primed a Hand Grenade Simulator and gently laid it at the foot of his Cot and stepped away to watch his reaction to such stimuli.

Laddy had two combat tours in Vietnam and evidently still retained a bit of baggage from those days.....cause as he awoke with a bit of a start from the explosion of the Grenade Simulator.....he came to a high hover over the Cot, got immeshed in the Mozzie Net, then wound up standing in the middle of what was left of the Cot...having both feet well into Mud and the Cot up around his waist. He then beat a very hasty escape into the deeper swamp to finally realize where he was and discern there was no need to escape and evade.

When he did finally tweak to what and more appropriately....who had caused his sudden consciousness.....he had Murder in his eye. Had he not been encumbered by the Cot and Mozzie Net....I would not be here relating this tale.

Archie was not amused!

[500N]

SaSless

You would have been fun to have in a unit :ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Dau, trainee Aux Rock, section v section attack. Her section snuck up on opposing section that was fast asleep and removed a vital piece of each SA80.
Section retired a safe distance and then went noisy. Their instructor also set off a thunderflash in nearby tree.

On awaking their SA80s disassembled and the tree caught fire:)

[thing]

Asked to take my squad of highly trained killers/bored techies to recapture a sanger I carried out a textbook night approach and attack. Surprisingly the sangar was empty but I was feeling a bit proud of the boys.

Umpire: 'Very good job on all fronts except for one tiny detail'

Me: 'Wassat umpire person?'

Umpire: 'Wrong sangar'.

They were obsessed with bloody detail those guys.

[MPN11]

As everyone here will recall, there are 2 "Exercise Wars" … the no-notice one and the planned one :cool:

So, just for a change, during that period of uncertainty before the Part II (starting some 6-8 weeks ahead of the general date when the Ex was expected) occasional signals started dropping into Ops. Little things like a minor, and discreet, ramping up of Alert States, as "War" seemed more and more inevitable. :hmm:

With a couple of weeks to go to Startex, the station DISTAFF starting wandering around and asking a few questions here and there. We knew the answer already, of course. Ops had done nothing/zero/nada/zilch about telling the rest of the station that the Alert State had gone up a couple of notches, and that certain TTW actions (iaw STCAPS) should be implemented. Indeed, it was subsequently discovered that there was no procedure/SOP for a discreet TTW - it was either sound the horns, or do nothing!! A gentle word in the ear elicited the necessary communications to Officers Commanding Wings and Squadrons, so that there would be less of a flap getting things done when the horn went.

It was during this "Phoney War" period that we had the defecting aircraft. A more logical time to hold that traditional event, rather in the middle of the Big Shooting Match. The Canberra did a lovely job, as always - played their parts beautifully, and the Station handled it well too. Up to a point. The Canberra contained a Nav Bag containing maps with the routes and timings for Air Raids on Day One of the Part II. Nobody took any notice of the significance of the date on those documents, or do anything other than return the bag when the event was over. "You can lead a horse to water … "

[NutLoose]

And then there was the chap that thought it was a good idea to rob the bank on station in Germany, done during an NBC phase, he walks in with mask on, points gun at staff, fills pockets and respirator sack with dosh and then departs to blend in with everyone else carrying a musket and wearing NBC kit and Respirators....... The perfect crime..

His one failing, he never removed his name tape off the pocket on his NBC suit... :}

[November4]

Off topic....

A similar thing happened in Bristol a couple of years ago....Bloke breaks into a covert capture car and nicks the SatNav. CCTV captures his image. Not difficult to track down as the video shows he has a tattoo on his neck....name and date of birth (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3152983/CCTV-captures-thiefs-name-and-date-of-birth-tattooed-on-his-neck.html)!

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01005/thief-tattoo-cctv_1005421c.jpg

A policeman once told me "luckily criminals are stupid or we would never catch them"

Back to topic...

[Tashengurt]

Off topic....

A similar thing happened in Bristol a couple of years ago....Bloke breaks into a covert capture car and nicks the SatNav. CCTV captures his image. Not difficult to track down as the video shows he has a tattoo on his neck.... name and date of birth!

IMAGE#1

A policeman once told me "luckily criminals are stupid or we would never catch them"

Back to topic...

Took them three weeks to lock him up though!




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[BEagle]

Early in Gulf War 1. Scud alert called, so we all poke off to the glass-walled air raid shelter (really) in the bowels of KKIA. Thunderous boom as Patriot launches....shortly frightens one of Uncle Saddam's rockets sufficiently for it to fall to bits. Eventually we get the All Clear and return to planning our mission.

Arriving back in the Ops area, I spot what is probably the only person in Saudi Arabia wearing RAF blue; naturally he looks rather sheepish. I couldn't resist it "Ah, hello mate! You must be the Distaff, what time's ENDEX?".

He looked even more peeved.....:\

During another Scud alert, I am perched on the porcelain throne. After the Scud is intercepted, someone parks too close to a CAM detector, leaving the vehicle engine running. CAM duly goes nuts.....

Thunderous banging on the door.."They think it might be NBC Black!!".

To which I replied "Well, it's certainly Black in here!"

Fortunately it was a false alarm. After which less trust is placed in technology and a brace of canaries are acquired, which spend the rest of the war tweeting happily away in their cage.

[MPN11]

After which less trust is placed in technology and a brace of canaries are acquired, which spend the rest of the war tweeting happily away in their cage.

Gerbils are more interesting, as noted up-thread. Depends on the food supplies, I guess :cool:

[Wensleydale]

After which less trust is placed in technology and a brace of canaries are
acquired, which spend the rest of the war tweeting happily away in their
cage.


I was told never to trust a canary during wartime - apparently they are yellow!:rolleyes:

[SOSL]

Roughly 1 million years ago I spent a year at DADPTC(Defence Automatic Data Processing Training Centre) Blandford, as it was quaintly named in thosedays; most of us called it Dads Army.

The Royal Signals, who owned Blandford Forum, were being TACEVALed (or whatever they called it) and they were on exercise alert.

The ADP school was on a hill inside the camp; below the hill was a vehicle repair garage. When the exercise alarm went off the vehicle mechanics became all jumpy and defensive.

The Training Centre was joint service and exempt exercises. There were two WREN clerks from the general office walking along the path at the top ofthe hill to have their lunch when the vehicle mechanics, down below, spotted them , pointed their guns at them and demanded proof of identity.

The two girls bent forward, each got hold of the front of their uniform skirt hem then they both stood up - revealing black stockings, suspender belts and white knickers.

The vehicle mechanics stopped bothering us after that, but I don't know whether they bothered the WRENs again!!

Rgds SOS

[BEagle]

Gerbils are more interesting...

Armageddon!

3_Jt_g10Jug

:ooh:

[lsd]

Tears rolling down my cheeks out of sympathy for the poor gerbil....anyone told Simon Cowell about his next animal act, move over Pudsey.

[SOSL]

WTF!

Rgds SOS

[MPN11]

Armageddon!

I hate you. Deeply, And so would Lorna. And indeed her survivalist Gerbil :cool:


SOSL - you need to scroll back a page of 4 to understand. :)