Ex Lionheart/Spearpoint '84
 

Gents.....do any of you have any fond (or otherwise) memories of Lionheart/Spearpoint '84? I found my Lh/Sp t shirt the other day.......(no, it didn't fit!) the memories came flooding back!:{ Happy days!! Apologies if it's been covered before. MD

Nah, I was in Londonderry....remember Crusader 80 though.

I was at Bruggen.

Lasting memories of Lionheart

Walking into a pitch black HAS to find a lad sent over from UK to take part working on a Jag in the pitch black, because he didn't read German and no one had shown him how to turn the lights on nor how to use the phone.

Although we only took part in the exercise ourselves for the early phase, the jets continued to play for the whole exercise.... However, the Armourers were "injured" early on and were injected into the exercise and were being evacuated by military hospital train, they spent a week moving from siding to siding as the train was worked into the normal train timetable, eventually ending up full of casualties with dwindling resources on board and a pissed off Army crew onboard taking it out on the punters, they turned up a week after we had finished severely peeved, even more so when they found out we finished the exercise literally an hour or so after they left.

The German soldier that went AWOL with his weapon and who they had issued an arrest warrant for, that turned up a week plus after Endex still sitting in his trench guarding the bridge he had been left at and forgotten, it was only after a local villager, one of the many that had taken pity on him and had been feeding and watering him (as he had ran out of everything) phoned up the Army to complain at his treatment, that the penny dropped.

..

Both this one and the huge outload exercise in 79, as I was about to leave the TA - I was working the docks at Harwich and Felixstowe as a RCT TA Movements Officer - and was reminded by yesterday's M20 accident of a very long signal (about 6ft of paper) detailing how clearance for some of the equipment under German autobahn bridges was to be checked - with a long pole tied to the side of a land rover - apparently resurfacing since all the standard movement orders had been written meant there was doubt that some equipment on low loaders would have clearance. If the pole did not clear the underside of the bridge the equipment was to be unloaded, driven under the bridge under its own power, and then reloaded, which the signal prescribed in great detail.


Lionheart was my intro to working for Aunty Joan (Hopkins), an education in itself. it was during this exercise a couple of armed guards noticed a young woman in the fields outside the wire. "What are you doing?" said one. "Looking for wild oats" said the woman. "You are welcome in here" said the guard. Woman had no sense of humour and complained. Guards had one sided interview with the Boss.

Hi Wander00,

IIRC the reinforcement part of LIONHEART was called Ex FULLFLOW. It involved the movement of 32,000 troops and over 14,000 vehicles from the UK to BAOR, which fielded two armoured divisions and one infantry division for the exercise.

Back when we had a real army.

EG

I had it rough. Out of all the crewmen on 230 Sqn, I got the **** job of being on the VIP Puma! I was crewed with MW (Handle mustache+bar) as pilot, and we had 2 weeks flying brass around. Not one smelly troop of any nation did we lift. God it was hard!

Highlight for me: we were carrying Gen Leopold Chalupa (German huge cheese) to a demo of some sort, along with hid Brit host/klingon, a half colonel I think. We arrive on the time, but we see wires across the landing zone. MW orbits, and we choose a muddy field about 100m away and land. Lt Col turns purple- the Gen will get his immaculate boots dirty, not acceptable. Just before MW puts him in his box, The Gen says, "Ve are solchers, ve vill valk- Komme!" He then thanked us both sincerely and strode off toward the demo. Proper soldier and gent.

Recall the scale of the exercise was huuuuge.

CG

Flying my Gazelle down the main street of a German town low enough to wonder whether I should stop at the red light. :eek:

For those too young to remember, or those old 'uns who have forgotten, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...x+lionheart+84

Interesting memories gents. My first was arriving at St George's barracks, Minden.....grabbing a Bedford TM and racing through the town, polizei at every set of traffic lights holding up the traffic and us just sweeping straight through! As a 20 year old, I was most impressed!!! From then on, the memorable moments kept coming thick and fast. The shouts of "stand to".....searching farm buildings for the missing squaddie thought to have been abducted by "peace" activists.......watching a crashed fuel tanker (I think) being lifted from a river.....being handed an envelope (quite) full of cash complete with a generous LOA.......plus many, many more.......happy days! As much as I loved it, it confirmed my desire to join the RAF......but that's another story.
MD:{

I had the "privilege" of leading a convoy from Shawbury to Wildenrath. It took three days and the Landdrover I was given was totally unsafe in that the steering wheel had almost half a turn of free play.

Thankfully they gave me a Gazelle to play with on arrival and I had a highly enjoyable time based back at my old stomping ground based at Gutersloh. Single crew... Air Control Order of not above 150 feet agl... Licensed hooliganism luxury and no-one to answer to.

Yes, it was.

MightyGem.........it was surreal!


pm sent.


MD

Prior to Lionheart and it's memories of MK bowsers, 'FARP'ing' in full NBC kit, washing, shaving then putting cam cream back on before being allowed breakfast ... was the CPX 'Able Archer'. This had the Soviet Union moving its resources into Poland and E.Germany and was the closest to the button being pressed since Cuba. Did you wonder what was just over the border the time?

Anyway, don't know if you caught it but there was a tv series called 'Deutchland '83' recently that caught the time well and I thought pretty entertaining considering being there & what was going on at the time.
Anyone remember Rainer Rupp?

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/d...mand/62893-001




http://www.asam.co.uk/imx/ht85a.jpg

What was the major outload exercise in 1979 ish - "Crusader" strikes a chord


Hmm, just looked it up in Wikipedaia, says autumn 80, but I know I was outloading through Harwich and Felixstowe, before I left the TA and rejoined the RAF, and that was in April 1980. So a bit puzzled by that. Indeed I remember loading Dana Anglia (star of "Triangle", the TV series) with QRIH, a field hospital and 4RGJ. Indeed I met a squadron commander from QRIH at Binbrook a few months later. he was somewhat puzzled by the change of uniform.

I heard not too long back about a theory that we were placed "on exercise" due to increasing concerns about a very poor food crop harvest in the Soviet states.....

Learned the value of the 2 letters in front of a 6 figure grid reference. A TA recovery vehicle turned up at my location (a German farm) from UK insisting they had come to the grid they were given. They had driven 100 km too far east.

http://www.asam.co.uk/imx/ht85a.jpg

Ahh...I remember watching a member of the RAF Regiment spending hours fishing in one of those, he was dipping the tanks in the morning and leaning over to look into the tank, saw the bowser keys slip out of his shirt pocket and disappear into the murky gloom of a nearly full bowser, it wasn't helped by the fact we needed fuel and hence he needed the keys. :E

Hameln, wasn't it?

Flying my Gazelle down the main street of a German town low enough to wonder whether I should stop at the red light area. - MightyGem

Fixed that for you!:ok:

Jack

No, Lemgo, I think.

Sadly no suitable HLS. :)

I understand that the Russians etc staged their exercises around Harvest time in case the crops failed and there was no food on the Eastern side.

I have read that this is one of the reasons for keeping grain mountains, butter mountains, milk lakes etc. The eastern side could be sent our reserves to keep everyone happy.

This is the reason why I find it very hard to believe that they'd use NBC weapons of any kind if they'd come across the border - they would be after food and food production so why taint it?