I served as an OUT on the Cardiff during Armilla '87 with Lt Cdrs Maxwell (XO), Kerr (SO) and Dyer (MEO) the first two featured in these rather stilted Exec/Ops meeting. As a young middy the wardroom struck me as a pretty intimidating but capable bunch. While on WIGS patrol on Gloucester in '89 I bumped into Maxwell while he was in St Lucia as RN liaison officer and couldn't quite understand how he came to be passed over... he had us OUTs take it in turns to conduct evening rounds of all the mess decks with him 'supervising'. Unforgettable experience - 6 month deployment and as an OUT in the Grot 6 berth on a T42 was not for the fainthearted. Lt Mike Petheram (NO) stood out as an especially kind and capable young officer. Sadly Mike passed away several years back to cancer. Mike, I still remember my first watch as OOW2 on the Cardiff and 'accidently' rubbing out part of your Nav Track - you were gracious enough not to throw a parallel ruler at me! After my first job as an OOW I was to pass FNOs myself. I tried my v best to mimic your example...
Same applies to all 3 services unfortunately, and the 1% that does make the history books will invariably be divided up by 90% Ship/Sqn/regiment, 9% officer Corp and 1% enlisted personnel, but it isn’t really happening like that, it will invariably be an enlisted person that prods an officer into giving the orders that earn the a “gong” or “title”, and the enlisted guy might get mentioned in dispatches, and those enlisted personnel that do get a “gong” their actions must be extremely outstanding. YES, I am bitter and twisted, won’t go into detail but there are a lot of men still alive because of my actions, twice. What recognition did I receive..??????, Jack Sh1t, apart from an early return from Kosovo/Macedonia, thanks for that HTB. 😤👍🇬🇧🏴
During my time in the armed forces I was involved with a lot of dangerous work, all a lot safer if the safety rules and working procedures were followed correctly, and your team did the same, but, I reckon that the resupply at sea must be the most dangerous and have so many physical hazards that you need eyes 👀 in the back of the head and your neck in swivel mode, obviously the hazards during peacetime are enormous, but in a combat theatre then it goes off the chart. Whilst each branch of the military would probably claim that theirs is the most dangerous I think during peacetime it’s, for me, the Royal Navy, in wartime you can take your pick, whoever is in the wrong place and at the wrong time would definitely get my vote.
Surely the most dangerous loading of stores is loading NAAFI store - specifically Beer! With a mixed services team! You'd never be sure who had pinched the most, but at aguess it would be Jack and Royal working together - there again you'd never know because they tend to scupper it as soon was purloined!
Roger that! RAS used to piss me off. But then again so did alot of things in the RN .... defense watches ..... part of ship muster ..... captains table .....
This is showing the process of making a special order for ammo in peace time . In ww2, they would have been prepositioning ammo based on expected usage, so they would have just taken whatever the ammo dump had available. And all the other logistics would have still been going on, just by the logistics staff who would have a rough idea of how much ammo to send where.
Peacetime rules. I read some guys from the Falklands saying that The Rules basically went overboard and they just pulled on ammunition quick as a flash then sailed south as fast as they could. The stopover at Ascension saw a lot of rearranging and restowing. Dunno if true or I’ve misremembered it.
The film was copyrighted in 88 according to the title card, who knows how much older stock footage they used, or how long it took them to release it lol
It's from gun (cannon) drills in the days of muzzle-loading. Every member of the gun team had a number assigned to their position. After the gun was loaded "two six heave" was the command for No.s 2 and 6 to heave on a rope each, which would push the gun out the gunport ready to fire at the French. It's stuck around to this day, about 150 years after all naval guns switched to breech loading, as a general instruction meaning "prepare to pull... PULL".
Civilians handling torpedoes and missiles, and ordinary accountants knowing how many weapons of eacg type are stored? A goddamn spy's paradise. The train should be convoyed by a platoon of RMs and everyone from an ordnance technician down to a floor moppper should be a serviceman and be audited by MI5 weekly
So, In the intelligence community, it's fairly common to have civilians working within military organisations. one such example is "Mothers": the affectionately named secretaries and trusted typists. Ostensibly, anyone in a skirt, according to John La Carres. Other types of workers within the intelligence community: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8765109/The-secret-codes-of-John-le-Carres-Tinker-Tailor-Soldier-Spy.html
I used to be an ordinary civilian designing such things. Nothing special about servicemen. Design data is the juicy info not the number and location of L2A2 ammunition.
