They. Did. Not. Get. Urban. Camouflage.
Ever! Bit of a rant today!
Worse, I think all three of the ones I'm
looking at here weren't even service-vehicles in the brigade, so they are
doubly fictional.
It's a long time ago. But I don't remember
1-Ton's in Berlin, at all. The Wombat platoon had old stripped-down series
threes with a false floor to stow the Wombat's ramps, while the mortar platoon
had series threes (replaced by defenders in 1986, maybe '87) with trailers for
the base-plates. There was a Milan platoon, but I seem to recall they
man-packed everywhere, broken down to one tube per infantry company? They ('Milan')
had had Forward Control's in Tidworth though . . . I think!
The other uses for One-ton FC's was as 105mm Gun-tractors - we didn't have 105's in Berlin - and as
ambulances, but in Berlin we had the old 'camper-van' overhanging-bodied'
3-series (as modelled by Corgi!), or - uniquely in the British Army - Unimogs.
So this vehicle wasn't in Berlin, and if it
had been, it wouldn't have got the urban camouflage, which was confined to the
larger AFV's - The Chieftains had it (for summer 1986?), the FV432 and 432B (Raden turret)'s had
it first (they were wearing it for the Royal Hampshire's 'trooping of the colours' as senior battalion on parade for the Queen's Birthday Parade (QBP), so '84'ish?) and the Armoured squadron's Chieftain ARV's, Ferrets and FV438RE's had it,
but our Fox's (bigger than a Ferret and armoured) were green and black.
This example also has far too much grey and
not enough chocolate and white for the BB urban camouflage scheme's ratios
which were closer to 40/30/30, but that’s going to be the obvious trouble with
an invented paint-job!
This is comical, not only were
'lightweights' not service vehicles in Berlin Brigade, the camouflage on this
has been copied from a combat-wombat's own civilianised Q-plate vehicle (Q568
GFV) which can be found on the internet; his mate had the most ridiculous
aerials on a series-3 LWB and they spent their time worrying sheep between
petrol-head events like those mentioned at the start!
Lightweights were considered 'special'
vehicles, and while I seem to recall one FFR per company-HQ in Tidworth, it
just wasn't a vehicle that the Berlin Brigade ever qualified for, there being
no air-portability requirement for units written-off the strength of NATO, due
to their low survivability 'forecast' in the event of the shit really hitting
the fan!
Again, Land Rovers didn't get urban scheme,
again; too much grey, not enough of the other two colours, but also, the
series-3 safari's we had tended to window bodies with heavy, full-length
(over-hanging) roof-racks (the CO had one I think), and while we did take
delivery of the new 110 Defenders while I was there (ahead of both UKLF and
BAOR), they were all green and black, and the hard-tops were fibre-glass
pull-on's, windowed and all-green. But time's a bitch; and of the three, this
is the one I'm not so sure of - as a service vehicle - and it could have
arrived in the brigade after I left, but it didn't have the camouflage.
Again there's a combat-wombat one (soft-top
Series-3) wearing military plates at shows (85 KB 80), but he's got both
colours wrong, the chocolate being instead a camel-shit orange and the
dark-grey; a pale ducks-egg colour!
He uses the scheme on the original
experimental vehicle (01 GF 98?)'s scheme (from 1982?) which was placed on an old series-3
long before my time in the city, and which was only cleared for use with colour
modifications, on the larger AFV's.
The thing is, the AFV's had a war-function
of providing fire-support as rolling or emplaced 'bunkers' for ad-hoc
battle-groups carrying out whatever task/s they had been given, within (holding
actions) or through (breakout-infiltration-harassment) what was to be assumed
would be a shattered or damaged city - if they had survived whatever indicated
the beginning of hostilities! As such, they were painted to effectively
disappear into the rubble.
Minutes 2.18 and 3.10 - 432's only, 1984 or '85
The soft-skins (and Fox) were primarily
tasked with normal, day-to-day, 'peace-time' transport, patrolling the wire
(foxes) and regular exercising 'down the zone' and therefore carried the
standard NATO/UKLF scheme of broad black regions over an mid-olive drab-green (called 'Deep Bronze Green). The Fox'es were eventually painted 'urban' as well, but not until '88 or later.
They were not expected to survive the
opening of hostilities, or be much use in the confines of rubble-strewn city
streets, and would have been unlikely to have had time to be covered in a
non-existing series of schemes. There was supposed to be a secondary function of the schemes - which were 'identikit' for each vehicle type - that of confusing the Russians into the exact numbers of armoured vehicles we had.
1987 - Chieftains now done - minute 13.30 - Striped-down brand-new
Defenders still NATO standard.
Foxes (briefly visible extreme right at one point)
still NATO too - I'm in there somewhere!
However - given that A) each vehicle had a unique number-plate clearly visible, B) 'Soxmis' (the Soviet Military Mission) were allowed to roam freely over our sector; looking and counting, and C) the Russians knew exactly how many of what AFV-types had gone up and down the 'corridor' rail-lines over the previous 30-odd years - it was an excuse for playing with paint; which only the ruperts at MOD could come-up with!
And why don't the model manufacturers produce Bedford's or
other larger soft-skins in the BB scheme? It's lazy, easy, pandering to
vicarious combat-wombats! And if you've bought one - give it to your
'Nottingham' space-marines, for that is where it belongs . . . La-la Land!
La-la Land Rover's!
