The origins of the Taceval
 

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Many long years ago I was listening with interest to a Flight Sergeant of some years standing about some of the anecdotal events he could recall.

One particular event followed the story of an AFI at an R.A.F. Station (don't know where) as the AOC's car arrived in front of the parade and the Station Commander moved forward to greet the senior officer, a Helicopter, which had requested and been given emergency clearance to land on the far side of the airfield, was just doing so, when a number of armed individuals, wearing all the gear for going into the field, emerged from the chopper and proceeded to run toward the parade area firing off blanks and throwing thunder flashes about. The AOC in question had arranged the event to watch the C.O. coping under pressure. The object, at the time, to prove that station ground defences were weak and in need of immediate attention.

The good Flight Sgt further explained that the Air Officer in question was who I had to thank for Tacevals, Minevals, and so forth.

I was wondering if anyone may have heard a similar story, or indeed, were there, and could expand on the matter?:hmm:

FB:)

sounds like a garbled version of part of the plot of the 1955 film "Strategic Air Command"

Strategic Air Command (1955) - IMDb

Finningley Boy,

The event you refer to would not have been the origin of TACEVALs / MAXEVALs / MINEVALs. TACEVAL is a NATO-wide programme which provides for the evaluation and assessment of the military combat readiness and capabilities of tactical air forces on behalf of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). In the RAF, a MAXEVAL was the national rehearsal for the TACEVAL conducted by the relevant theatre HQ (eg HQ STC or HQ RAFG as was) and MINEVALs were conducted at the behest of a stn cdr as frequently as he deemed necessary to prepare for the MAXEVAL and thereafter to remedy any deficiencies noted during the MAXEVAL prior to the TACEVAL. Evaluations were conducted in five areas in an integrated scenario: Alert & Readiness, Operations, Logistics, Survive-To-Operate (later renamed Force Protection) and (where relevant) Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD).

In RAFG, particularly when General Haig was SACEUR and concerned about a Warsaw Pact attack at very short notice over a weekend or bank holiday, this resulted in an exercise / evaluation in one form or other almost every month. I have fond memories of 100+ events as a participant and then 39 events as an evaluator travelling all over the Norther Region. Happy days !

Indeed, I recall taceval teams being made up of different nationalities, arriving at any hour and all stations within the central region being subject to a visit from the taceval team. But I do recall the said Flight Sergeant holding forth on the subject and thought perhaps this was the origins of it all.

The Flight Sergeant in question could certainly tell a yarn or two. That's for sure. But I wondered more if someone might be able to endorse the story. As Jamesdevice says, the very incident occurs in the 1955 film Strategic Air Command.

FB:)

AFAIR, wasn't it 'The Bear', when AOC Training Group in Support Command, who did it to Valley in the late '70's?

It was bizarre, being an Army lodger unit on an RAF station; we used to sit in our office and pretend nothing was happening; after 3 months of this and a moan to OC Ops about our inactivity, he let us participate as the enemy - that was loads of fun :E

Tacevals came late to UK. Events such as AOCs doing something were not new.

Largeson, when AOC 18 Gp, was always known to pull tricks. At ISK one year he briefed his ADC to leave his unmarked briefcase in the hall of the Officers' Mess.

The alarm duly occurred and we all beat a hasty retreat from the Mess to the muster point. We exited via the mess windows, pints in one hand (you could drink at lunchtimes then) and plate of food in the other.

I was also at Wittering in 1974 when they had their first taceval. They were probably introduced to UK around that time. The station had also just started tone-down. PSA, bless em, painted No 1 hangar emerald green, the olny green they had.

Taceval Pt 1 ALWAYS started during the small hours didn't it - at least the system knew where most people were likely to be. Then that place in N Linconshire with the pointy noisy things, first week in June 81, about 1215 daytime the SWO, WO PSF and I were having chat in the general office - 6 or 7 shiny black cars came in the main gate and down the main drag - "Did not know there was a funeral today" says the SWO - followed by F@@**%%g Hell! It's Taceval! What a Part 1 that was. Remember it well, not least because as it endexed had a phone call from my brother that my Mum had had another stroke. Drove like a rocket to Northwood and she died that night. What a day!

At ISK it was difficult for the team to mount a no-notice taceval. Initially they used Dalcross but when they found out that Dalcross tipped the wink they switched to Aberdeen. That didn't work either.

Thenone exercise the staish persuaded the resident battalion at Fort George to hold an exercise in Roseisle Forrest. Now they were not part of our ground defence but to avoid confusion :) they had a liasion officer in the GDOC. It was practically impossible for the SAS to move against the airfield without being told in. Of course as they were on a different exercise they were allowed through and still managed to wreak their style of mayhem.

I was Met evaluator when I was senior forecaster at JHQ. late 1970's. Highlights included:

a Benelux base whose Glass-house style Met Office was ideal for cultivation of cannabis ...... SMetO offered me a spliff!

a German base with a superbly equipped AlterMet which was about to attract my considerable praise when I noticed the well-concealed wheels and trailer bar. It turned out that, if WWIII erupted, the caravan would be deployed off base and was a joint-use facility that was carefully pre-positioned wherever the word was Taceval might be next!

There was a degree of dishonesty about the final write-up ....... I was told more than once by the team leader "you cannot write that about one of our NATO allies".

By British standards, Met. was NOT done at all well, sloppy procedures and routines, and second-class staff in the main. The outstandingly good ones always turned out to be the ones who had done the long course at the Met Office College, Shinfield Park.

Oh well!

In my day we used to wait until the lights went out in the Boss's bedroom before we stuck the air horn through the letterbox. Is that what the OP was after?

Wasn't there a Staish in Cyprus asked to see some Airmans SLR, he handed it over and was promptly charged, tried it on another exercise, guard wouldn't hand it over, staish went to grab it and got a faceful of SLR Butt, they had to bring in a higher ranking officer to hear the charge and it was dismissed....


Ahh Bruggen on Taceval, best in Germany then it was realised we were on exercise more than the rest of NATO.

Phoning the other Squadron HAS's on exercise and asking XYZ to go to HAS so an so (you knew everyone) if they weren't there, you would ask well which Rigger is with you? etc and send them walkies..... hearing across the Airfield the Site Tannoy's saying ignore phone calls the system has been compromised.... phoning all the HAS's and telling them ignore the Tannoy, the system has been compromised..... :O:E:E

Such fun...

Coming off a day on Exercise to the block with 8 hours odd off, so having a corridor party before next day of exercise and someone burning down the police block behind us and no one noticed...... all interviewed by the police and they could not believe we never noticed something as minor as the police block going up in flames, but also that we were having a party during the break we got.. later hearing the fire section hosed down the rest of the building not on fire, "just to be on the safe side" :ok:

Sitting in a HAS after the Jags had been dragged back in and the winch starting up on it's own, dragging the rear one into the wall and down the HAS... watching the bod in charge of the HAS throwing chocks in front of the wheel that was happily jumping them and the pilot pulling on the ladder to try and stop it......... (Learnt what really happened years later)

Decontaminating Jets with brushes, plastic oversuits and buckets of soapy water..... and thinking is this the best we really have? same goes for the Bodge tape and plastic sheet decontam areas in hards.....

Happy days!!

Er - No. I remember at ISL in the early 1980s that the Hooter went off and the TACEVAL Team arrived on a Sunday afternoon when we were playing cricket aginst a local civvy team, who we then had to expalin to that they had to leave pdq. Wouldn't have been too bad, just a game of cricket iterrupted - but no this was the same day as the annual raft race in the harbour at Lossie, so half of the stn were down there taking part or getting plastered watching. Strangley enough it seemed to take a long time to get the ac generated that day with not too many people being in a fit state to work, or of course being away for the weekend.

Still those were the days......

A few years later the Rapier unit I worked on was at the beck and call of many different agencies who could call us out, the USAF, SACEUR, The Regt Wg HQ, the Sqn Cdr etc. etc. And they did. I think the record at one time was 5 Pt 1 callouts within a 14 day period, and all of these WERE early morning jobs!

Mac

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...:rolleyes:

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.....:\

Taceval fun and games could fill volumes. Such as the infamous Battle of Burford High Street one night when the Aux Rock sqn at Brize spotted a Taceval car and gave chase, merrily firing blanks when it refused to stop until they nabbed it in the middle of Burford High Street in the early hours...... OC Admin Whinge was always having to placate annoyed locals after the enthusiastic Aux Rocks had been creating yet more mayhem during exercises.

Mind you, the true sport of kings was organising a station exercise and coming up with all manner of inspired villainy!

I'm sure there's a previous thread about this somewhere.

PN - You do mean 25 - don't you?

Not sure if it was Taceval or Stn ex or whatever but hooter went off at Lyneham around 1600 one time....just as I was cycling (fit and healthy days) back from standown. Luckily it went off just before I got to the gate. Turned round and spent a few hours hiding in a country pub. When I got back to camp the endex had been called as there were too few people to play the games properly or something.

Ooops, brain fade or jet lag. Just flown in from Barbados.

In 1969 we had one alert, 1430 on a Friday afternoon, only thing was it was real and not an exercise. We had two sqns on ground training days and would you believe none of them had been in the bar that lunchtime. :)

PN
Remember that well! Lots of faces with question marks on foreheads:confused: I also remember that OC Chips got a lot of flak for not 'warning' the rest of the station as it was normal for the Catering Sqn to receive large quantities of steak for the aircrew feeder in advance of exercises ... allegedly:E

There was one other "day time-ish" minival I recall - like it was yesterday. Mrs W and I had been married about 10 days and it was first week back at work. 6pm, and she was poised with pan about to be placed on cooker - Siren (initiated by Aunty Joan) started,and there I was "gone" (I was allowed to take my car not wait for the bus as I was Ground Defence Commander). I returned about 2300 - I swear Mrs W was still stood in same posture, except pan more in line with my head! "And where the hell do you think you have been" was the welcome - well she had only ever seen me called out by phone from my house off-base before!