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

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...val-tales.html

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...s-taceval.html

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

Beags
 

You are now, officially, my favourite archivist!!

Rgds SOS

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.

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?

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.

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

Separating "exercise" and "live"
 

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

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.

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:

Taceval
 

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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:

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. ;)

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

DX Wombat
 

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

LOA is wonderful
 

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!

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).

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

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).

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.

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!

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 :\

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!

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..

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!

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

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.

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 :*