Righteous BAOR clip of Chieftain MBTs and their crews

[Sparker]

This longish vid is hoofing – 4/7 RDG playing on Soltau/Hohne FRG in 1984. Although the clip of a crew having breakfast negative shirts is a bit scary…Interspersed with dits from WW2 vets by the sound of it.

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[John D Salt]

Excellent, thanks for posting that.

A stroke of genius by the film-maker to include “Burning Bridges” from “Kelly’s Heroes” as accompaniment.

4/7 DG would have done especially well to listen to their WW2 veterans, recalling the battle at Lingèvres when they bagged six Panthers for the loss of a single Sherman.

A couple of wargaming points the video brings out:

1. Notice that when on of the Chieftains moves into its fire position, it goes almost all the way along track-marks already on the ground. No doubt the fire position had been recce’d, and the tracks show as far as the turret-down position from which the tank commander assessed his field of fire. It is much easier to go somewhere if it’s somewhere you’ve been before, and you will get there that much faster. But I have never seen this effect accounted for in a wargame.

2. On the radio “you have to talk forward, as well as talk backwards” (meaning for example that a squadron commander needs to talk to his own troops as well as on the rear link to regiment). If you look at the radio net of a battalion-sized organisation, you will be struck by the fact that, first, there are a lot of different nets, and, second, some callsigns are on two or more nets (I think a British armoured engineer squadron commander attached to abattlegroup has to monitor four nets simultaneously). The way a commander has to divide his attention between these, while trying to build a coherent tactical picture of the battlefield by looking at it through a straw, is hard, and gets harder when everyone is talking at once.

All the best,

John.

[Sparker]

Glad you liked it John! Yes I do like that Burning Bridges track!

You make a couple of interesting points. And yes, even up to 5 years ago now radio was the main means of fighting a battle, and similar to your Sapper squadron commander, the various Warfare environment commanders afloat not only have to listen to their principle combat environment net, say Air Warfare Control for Air, or ASW Alfa for subsurface, they also have to listen out for command calls and conferences on the Command Net, all the while continuously monitoring and responding to the Command Open line to fight their own actual ship or platform. And occasionally make main broadcast pipes letting the rest of the ship know what’s going on – nothing more corrosive of morale than having your head stuck in a gas turbine shaft well below decks in the middle of an airraid by psycho Serbian pilots and not knowing what the hell is going on…

I think fully automated data links and HUDs have eased voice traffic these days though….or maybe that’s as much a myth as the paperless office!

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[irishserb]

That was awesome, thanks so much for posting it.

The camera view inside makes it look like there was a lot more room in the Chieftain turret, than in the M48 and M60 turrets.  I suspect that it is just the lens and angle though.   Hard to believe that it is over thirty years ago.

[Sparker]

Yes from what little time I’ve spent inside a Chieftain turret – just me and my host – it is pretty tight!

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[Nick Turner]

The Gunner’s position is very cramped, the loader/operator not so much, then he has the added task of running the BV! They must have had prior warning of the film crew as the beers were well hidden!

 

Have a look at this video and others in the series:

 

Whilst dated it gives a good idea of how we did business.

 

A great deal of time was spent on recce, at all levels.

[Sparker]

Thanks Nick that’s another great clip.

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[grizzlymc]

CORRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

There is something about a Chieftan which says “OK sucker, make my day”

Good point Mr Salt. I would say that wireless data transfer will last until the enemy start jamming it. Invaluable for short distance download of briefings and orders until the battle becomes critical.

A few questions:
1 Why did the infantry fix bayonets inside the APC, surely departure is more complicated and you should have time once you have left?
2. Was it my imagination, or were all the vehicles in Bronze Green with very few with black sploges?
3. Also was it my imagination that the infantry’s woodland camo seemed quite faded?
4. Was all that scrim hanging off the vehicles just for the camera or did theyalways look like a hedge on the move – should I be glueing lots of clump foliage to the1:300 scale tanks et al?
5. Eggs and baked beans in a tank? Horrors of war!

[Nick Turner]

1. Training made it possible! Once out more important tasks to do than fix bayonets.

2. Must, dust and general crap covering everything would blurr everything.

3. Uniforms would fade quickly, a good mix was faded trousers and brighter jacket. A good sign of a “BAOR” vet would be faded kit.

4. Yep plenty of cam. Note in Germany there were very strict rules on the use of natural cam on exercise. These would be dropped in time of conflict.

5. Come off exercise after a month one could repel a civilian at 100 yards!!

 

 

 

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