Best Messages Ever
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Hanging off the end of a thread
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The most impressive I have seen was in Gibraltar, the line was a considerable distance from the office and we needed some Nitrogen bottles, not having any radios I walked over to the FRA guys who were on the next pan with a Hunter, nope we haven't got any either, but not a problem, he walks out to the side of the aircraft, and starts waving his arms about, distant office door opens. out comes a chap, waves his arms about too and the guy I was chatting then comes back and says the bottles are on their way... damned handy this semaphore lark, he says wiith a grin.
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Somewhere flat
Age: 68
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Some Naval planning chap decided to use the FOST complan for an exercise off Scotland - reasoning that the two fleets would not be in line of sight of each other...unfortunately he hadn't reckoned on an E-3 joining in on the FOST weekly war off Portland. Equally unfortunately, said planner had used the same callsigns to be used on the Hebrides fleet as those in use by FOST. Joining the Anti-Air Warfare Net caused a degree of confusion for the northern fleet as an unexpected AEW asset joined them on frequency, but they assumed that this was a staff inject and so off they went - unfortunately also using the same crypto set. Within a few minutes total confusion reigned as both fleets joined into the same L11 net with all sides claiming of comms jamming and so on. Eventually, the penny dropped as the E-3 took on the main data link duties and the ships positions were noted although they were running the same Data Link plan as well and ships positions began "jumping" between the Channel and Scotland. We eventually moved to an orbit further south to drop the northern fleet beyond line of sight (although the HF nets continued to cause trouble for the rest of the serial so we binned them). It was an interesting misrep sent back to Group, info Navy that night.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Often in Jersey, but mainly in the past.
Age: 79
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War on two fronts has always been a problem.
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Hanging off the end of a thread
Posts: 32,892
Received 2,830 Likes
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It wasn't unknown at Bruggen because you knew people on the Sqns to phone up the oppositions HAS's on the HAS system and say can you tell Cpl XYZ to go to HAS 15, often you would get the reply, he is in HAS 5. so you would call HAS 5 and send him on his way, this would while away our bored hours.. 
