When I was in the army, my regiment were issued with the Warriot APC. This tank is brilliant. It has a 40mm Cannon, Chain Gun. Crew of 3 and 8 soldiers in the back. Inside it there was a small cooker, for brew-ups, which to our American Friends is a British Army tradition. Top speed was 40mph. One of my drivers could actually make the Warrior do a wheelie.
I commanded 3 of them and it was the best piece of kit that we ever had. Only one draw back was that if the Warrior was hit, the driver had to crawl through a tunnel into the back of the tank and press the emergency button on the rear door to get out. The Warrior weighed about 40 tons.

Tell us about the Bradley APC or the BRM, or any other piece of kit that you thought was great.
Scott

Well, I'm not that familiar with IFVs and APCs, though I did ride on a BMP once back in '91. One piece of kit I really thought was great were the SLAF Hueys that we used to ride. They were actually Agusta-Bell 212s, and some of them were almost falling apart and held toogether with duct tape and wire. But the pilots and gunners were totally fearless.

I still vividly remember my first ride in one. We'd just finished advanced infantry training and were flown up to the Jaffna Peninsula to join our battalion which was holding the Elephant Pass base. The only way in was by chopper, and the two 50-man training platoons that were going to the 6th Singha Rifles were broken into 4-man sticks and flown in on Huey gunships. We sat on the floor with the doors locked open for the short flight from the Palaly AFB to Elephant Pass, and took fire on the way. The pilot went into a steep bank and circled, while one of the gunners hung out the side on a strap, firing his FN MAG straight down. We stayed in just by G-force alone cos we weren't strapped in.

Back then the Huey was used for everything from gunship to transport, but now the dedicated gunship role's been taken over by the Mi-24 Hind, and transport by the Mi-17 Hip. So the Hueys are mostly used to fly the special ops guys.

I've never flown in a Hind Echo, but those babies are bloody amazing. They're the only things that really make the Tigers crap themselves.

As a Land Rover driver in the Signals, my piece of kit was the 1/2 ton, SWB Land Rover Series III (88). As we did the regular mail runs between the Barracks and HQ's in the northern half of the Netherlands, I got some fair mileage under my belt, both on and off-road. The short wheelbase is a hoot to drive, it takes a while to get going, but it lacks the 'bus' like characteristics of the long wheelbase version. It didn't so much 'power slide' around corners, but rather 'power skipped'... .
I remember getting stuck in a tailback on a motorway on the way to Assen one day, and using the inherent off-road capabilities of the Land Rover to cross a ditch between the motorway and a parallel service road. The faces of the civvies stuck in the jam where a picture...
Not much to stop them, apart from a ham fisted driver, who can snap half shafts like they are twigs.

Cheers
Henk

the best bit of kit has to been the BV's (boiling vessels) in British armoued vehicles. They run off the vehicles electrics and it means that whenever the vehicles engine is running, the BV can be running. used to boil water or to cook food in the metal insert. Ionce heard an interveiw with an American general takingabout the abrams. he said that he envied the British because although his tanks were multi million dollar, all singing ,all dancing destruction machines they couldn't actually make a brew without getting out of the tank

1000 foot of runway, and enough aircraft to give you a headache and a cheerful day.

Famous British Army phrase:

"If the Rover (Land Rover) can’t make it then FFS don't send in the tracks".

I actually heard this... Several times!

Land Rovers were superb pieces of kit and could go just about anywhere!

In the almost 22 years I served with Uncle Sugar, I got to gun and command several different vehicles, M151, M3A1 and A2 Bradley, M1 Abrams, and the M551A1-Sheridan. My all time favorite was the Sheridan. It packed a 152mm main gun/launcher onto such a small vehicle, (20 tons combat loaded) Pulling the triggers resulted in something very much like a car wreck. It would lift the #3 roadwheel off the ground, 15" of recoil, and a muzzle blast that would totally obscure whatever the crew happened to be looking at. We used to drop them from C-130's and follow them a few seconds later on our own chutes. These we called tandem tailgate drops. To say they were exciting would be like saying water is wet. There is nothing I can say to describe the feeling, short of WOW! Like I said at the beginning, I crewed a lot of different vehicles, but this one stands out in my mind. No fancy electronics, no gee-whiz gadgets. Its was all what the crew did to make the thing work. It broke down on occassion, but so does everything else. Max effective range was a measley 1600 meters, and the rounds looked like big pink watermelons going down range, but when they hit death and destruction awaited. I got to work with some British soldiers once or twice in my career and I do envy the heaters they had for hot water. Best we could do was an ammo can with water in it set on the exhaust deflector. Took about 10 minutes, but you ran the risk of getting sick from the exhaust or having your water fall off from the vibration. We made do though. From what I understand, a lot of our vehicles are now being equipped with such heaters. I saw one towards the end of my career, but that was about it. Hope they did get fielded. Nothing can improve morale like a good hot cup of joe, or a hot meal. "Q"

While I probably won't get the chance to serve as much as I tried, I did get the opportunity to do a low-level helo ride with Blackhawks from Indiana's National Guard for all the cadets while we were on a field exercise. That was something else. They strapped us all into seats, kept the doors open, and just yanked the collectives to their chests. We flew for a couple miles a couple hundred feet off the ground, but once we were away from all the buildings, they plunged toward the ground flying nap-of-the-earth through the woods. I was in front and watched the pilots and gauges as much as the speeding ground go by. For the rest of the flight, we never went above 100 feet or slower than 75 knots as they yanked and banked in between the hills. There is nothing like looking out and seeing the tops of hills and trees to be above the rotors! By the end of the flight my mind and my spirit was satisfied, if not my stomach, because rapelling was the next stop....


I also had the opportunity for a "humvee capability demonstration" This was a convoy of four softskin 998s showing off in a rock quarry. They pushed those vehicles to the limits and beyond...one bottomed out on a small mound and another driver rolled his humvee, writing it off in the process and injuring himself, two Soldiers and one of the Soldier's little daughters. The fun ended there.

Oh and while I am throughly not bragging, as of March 2007, I can say that I've ridden in the back of a 5-ton with nothing but a k-pot as the !@#$%^!@#$% driver did not a U-turn but a doughnut! I didn't think it was possible, but never underestimate the ingenuity of the idiot.

Jeff

When I was in Petawawa, we had a squad in a M113, and made the driver do circles for 10 minutes lmfaooo. We all got out and fell to the ground, it was hilarious

Well, I was MI at a Field Station in Augsburg, Germany, so not only did we not have vehicles, we didn't go into the field either. We DID have to go from our barracks (Sheridan Kaserne) out to our job at Gablingen Kaserne, so the US Army contracted with a local bus company (Carl Domberger Reisen) to get us there. We got to go to work in a series of buses, from plain-Jane city buses to 1.5- and double-decker tour buses. One driver was this big German with a really wild black beard - we called him Mad Max. Early one winter morning, Max was bringing us home in a double-decker and went to a stop near the hospital on Flak Kaserne. Suddenly, he turned into an empty parking lot - and promptly put that big bus into a beautiful power skid on the ice - it felt like he turned a full 360! From that day on, they only let him drive the city-type buses.

I really liked my 1911A1 Colt Automatic that I was issued in Vietnam. It was an old weapon..if I remember right it had a 5 digit serial number that dated it to between the two World Wars. It was totally worn out - would only fire one shot before it jammed and that one always went wide of the target. But the daggum thing had character.

I usually carried a sawed off pump shotgun I got from some Special Forces guys when things looked dicey....but for every day wear in the rear, the old 45 was just fine. I knew I couldn't likely hurt myself (or anyone else) with it.

Semper Fi,
Dave

As a SAPPER, in the royal engineers, I started driving the odd looking CET, combat engineer tractor, then I was posted out to the desert with my battle group, and some idiot gave me a CRAV, Chieftan Armoured Recoverey Vehicle, OOOHHH WWOOWW
In Batus, Canada I was given the latest bit of kit the British army had to offer, A CHARV, Challenger Armrd Recoverey Vehicle, I stayed on these to the end of my army life.

I remember recovering several warriors in my time, the crew always said thanks by buying my crew enough beer to last the exercise we were on, out in the desert, it was boiled sweets, love em!!!!!
them were the days,

malc

I have crewed alot of vehicles during my military career. My all time favorite was the LVTP7A1 I was a crewmember on when I was In the Marines. Fun vehicle to drive and swim. I also really enjoyed crewing the M88A1 recovery vehicle. Trying to figure out how to unstick and recover Dumb @$$ Tankers was always a great challenge and good source of beer!

hello all,
many years back,i use to do a little jumping (over 250 jumps) in the morning and lots free fire ex's in the afternoon. but the most fun was going out in the 80's with some Ranger friends, in thier FAV's.
one time we had to call in for some help, an 18 year old got the FAV stuck on a BFR ( that is a BIg F***ing rock) of course partyng with the ROK Marines all night and then getting up a 0dark thirty, to do a little jump was also fun.lol lol. all in all for 4 years i had a lot of fun.
cheers,
Bruce

I would have to agree with the landrover. The army drivers got my section to almost every nook and cranny just to save us the walk. be it hill or marsh or tracks..he got us there

Pullin the trigger on a M110a2 the first time.

im only 16 and i have been in cadets and i was in a bedford tk going into the field no seat belts and metal = ouch it was so much fun! passers by thought we were off to war LMAO i will never forget that!

Our ride was..the M151A2. Broiling in the summer, freezing in the winter. As long as you kept the accelerator mashed they could slog and swim through just about anything. One nasty drawback was that the short wheel base that made them so good at plowing all the mud and crud, also made them top-heavy and very prone to rollovers. Many an MP lost their stripes to the infamous "missing the phantom armadillo or deer" and the resulting rollover. Never mind the fact that we ( I mean they) were way out in the boonies four wheeling...With this mind, the addition of the M-60 mount saved a considerable number of lives. Instant roll bar.

Well, being light infantry my fav piece of kit without a doubt was my boots. These "Black Cadillacs" took me everywhere, and brought me back again day in, day out and never let me down. It was a sad day when they finally gave out.

60mm mortar hand firing that a the range was a blast. I also got to fire 120mm when I was assaigned to Tradoc 1/29th Inf Out on Red Cloud during a visit of civilan VIP and Brass back in 1990ish Oh yeah cant forget the t-10bravo what a relief when I saw that beautiful silk filled with air 239 succesful jobs without a streamer or a meawest

best bit of kit in the british army was your green maggot [sleeping bag]when you had time to get in it.

I started out in a Jeep. Then I moved up to a M48A5, M-60A1, M60A3, M88, M1.

As far as personal weapons, M1911, M-2, M-16, M-60 and my favorite, The Beretta.

As a new 11B in the Cav I started out in a MOGAS 113 ACAV. That was one noisy sucker when we got to open up all three mg's. but the most fun I had was in the 9th I.D. in TOW's. We must have gotten our 151's from the Marines, cause they sure couldn't read. When South Ranier training area flooded in the spring (almost every year) we would drive along in water up to the head lights in some parts. As long as you kept the intake clear and dry, maintained some throttle (with the hand control), and did not stall out, you could go anywhere.
Kind of fun to watch when they are tied down in a C-130 flying NOE for a night assault landing (did that twice - once on a normal runway and once on a dirt strip in Yakima).