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

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.

Fox 3

Now that's my sort of Aircrew :rolleyes:

Smudge:ok:

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..

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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....

Nutloose said 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.

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

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!

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.

Waddo
 

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.

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....

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.

Realism and restraint
 

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 :)

TACEVAL
 

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..

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....

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.....

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

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

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.

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 :)

Not necessarily better but longer?

543 was disbanded in 1974.

58 was disbanded in 1970.

51 was operating the Comet R1 until 1974.

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!

Grob.............
 

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.................!!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.....

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:
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.

Tanks and pubs
 

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.

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

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.