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Post by Ratty on Jul 2, 2020 13:24:22 GMT
I was range officer when my sons attended St Pauls School, Bald Hills ( MAP) The range was on the flood plain to the right of the South Pine River name. We shot our .22s away from the road. No cricketers were harmed in the process.  There are several father-son trophies and #1 son - a natural - won the first inter-school competition in which he competed. None of us shoot any more, no means. Sigh. Ah, the good old days. |
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2020 13:33:48 GMT
I was range officer when my sons attended St Pauls School, Bald Hills ( MAP) The range was on the flood plain to the right of the South Pine River name. We shot our .22s away from the road. No cricketers were harmed in the process. There are several father-son trophies and #1 son - a natural - won the first inter-school competition in which he competed. None of us shoot any more, no means. Sigh. Ah, the good old days. Meanwhile in other news..... "Gun Sales In 2020 Are Absolutely Crushing Records
2020 keeps seeing gun sale records beaten month after month, with an all-time high 3.9 million NICS firearm background checks being conducted in June alone, according to FBI statistics.
So far in 2020, three months have sported over 3 million NICS background checks, more than any previous month since the FBI began recording the statistics 22 years ago in 1998. March saw 3.7 million checks, May say 3.1 million, and June 3.9 million."newsla.localad.com/2020/07/02/gun-sales-in-2020-are-absolutely-crushing-records/ |
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Post by missouriboy on Jul 2, 2020 13:50:16 GMT
Those were the days. We had only 'Air Training Corps'. But the school had a basement 50yd range for .22 with what would be now a valuable half dozen Martini Henry rifles. I ran the armoury where we had ~30 Lee Enfield .303, a few Stirling submachine guns and some Bren guns. For a time I was one of the two 'armourers' and many a lunch time was spent blindfold disassembling and reassembling the various weapons for fun. All this in a school in central London. I doubt it is allowed today. We had a underground range at the school i went to in Bath, no idea if its still in use. Early '90s 40 or so of us went from Bath to Wales for exercise in a coach with a 4 tonne carrying kit. The CCF officer parked the lorry on double yellows, how are they going to clamp it he said! We had a cadet SA80 for each cadet on back seats of coach. They couldn't fire in auto and required re-cocking for each round, but otherwise were active. While the adults went into a service station for loo break, we kids 'may' have picked some up and pointed at some younger passing children through the coach windows. I can neither confirm nor deny this..... Bad cadets ... bad.  |
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2020 15:31:35 GMT
Those were the days. We had only 'Air Training Corps'. But the school had a basement 50yd range for .22 with what would be now a valuable half dozen Martini Henry rifles. I ran the armoury where we had ~30 Lee Enfield .303, a few Stirling submachine guns and some Bren guns. For a time I was one of the two 'armourers' and many a lunch time was spent blindfold disassembling and reassembling the various weapons for fun. All this in a school in central London. I doubt it is allowed today. We had a underground range at the school i went to in Bath, no idea if its still in use. Early '90s 40 or so of us went from Bath to Wales for exercise in a coach with a 4 tonne carrying kit. The CCF officer parked the lorry on double yellows, how are they going to clamp it he said! We had a cadet SA80 for each cadet on back seats of coach. They couldn't fire in auto and required re-cocking for each round, but otherwise were active. While the adults went into a service station for loo break, we kids 'may' have picked some up and pointed at some younger passing children through the coach windows. I can neither confirm nor deny this..... With a group of others from the RAF I was briefly with the 17th/21st Lancers in Berlin, who at the time were equipped with Centurion Tanks. I can remember sitting in the 'gunners' position and being told how to operate the gun looking through a periscope gun sight. One of our senior officers was strolling along a few yards away and it seemed like harmless fun to keep his head in the cross hairs of the sight so the turret was slowly motoring around as he walked past - he noticed the muzzle of the tank gun following him and did not seem overly amused  |
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Post by duwayne on Jul 2, 2020 15:43:26 GMT
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Post by acidohm on Jul 2, 2020 16:11:03 GMT
We had a underground range at the school i went to in Bath, no idea if its still in use. Early '90s 40 or so of us went from Bath to Wales for exercise in a coach with a 4 tonne carrying kit. The CCF officer parked the lorry on double yellows, how are they going to clamp it he said! We had a cadet SA80 for each cadet on back seats of coach. They couldn't fire in auto and required re-cocking for each round, but otherwise were active. While the adults went into a service station for loo break, we kids 'may' have picked some up and pointed at some younger passing children through the coach windows. I can neither confirm nor deny this..... With a group of others from the RAF I was briefly with the 17th/21st Lancers in Berlin, who at the time were equipped with Centurion Tanks. I can remember sitting in the 'gunners' position and being told how to operate the gun looking through a periscope gun sight. One of our senior officers was strolling along a few yards away and it seemed like harmless fun to keep his head in the cross hairs of the sight so the turret was slowly motoring around as he walked past - he noticed the muzzle of the tank gun following him and did not seem overly amused Centurion, that's a real tank 👍🏻 |
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2020 17:47:14 GMT
With a group of others from the RAF I was briefly with the 17th/21st Lancers in Berlin, who at the time were equipped with Centurion Tanks. I can remember sitting in the 'gunners' position and being told how to operate the gun looking through a periscope gun sight. One of our senior officers was strolling along a few yards away and it seemed like harmless fun to keep his head in the cross hairs of the sight so the turret was slowly motoring around as he walked past - he noticed the muzzle of the tank gun following him and did not seem overly amused Centurion, that's a real tank 👍🏻 Yes I was on top of the REME maintained rescue tank talking to the sergeant (known in the army as 'the competent Senior NCO') and asked him what kind of speed the tank could do. He said well they're meant to do around 25mph over normal ground - and he looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot - and said "but we've breathed on this one a bit and had it up to 40mph". Not too bad for a 52 ton tank. The 17th/21st took us out to an exercise area on the boundary of Berlin which meant driving through rush hour traffic across Berlin. Now if you drove 4 tanks through any normal city everything would stop while people gawped. Not in Berlin pedestrians were jay walking between the tanks and cars pushing in to the lane ahead to turn - the locals were taking as much notice of a line of main battle tanks as they would green panel vans. |
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Post by acidohm on Jul 2, 2020 17:54:43 GMT
Actually pretty jealous!
Drove a tank (apc really) at one place nearby, another has a number of tanks visible from the road, including a Centurion 😍. Everything else there is more modern mobile artillery mostly which i don't know too much about....but there is some sort of '50s Russian medium tank there too, not very tall and domed turret....
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Post by acidohm on Jul 2, 2020 17:58:44 GMT
This showed up at supermarket couple of weeks ago......
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2020 18:09:27 GMT
This showed up at supermarket couple of weeks ago...... Looks like a Ferret scout armoured car |
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Post by acidohm on Jul 2, 2020 18:29:59 GMT
This showed up at supermarket couple of weeks ago...... Looks like a Ferret scout armoured car Perfect for near-apocalyptic shopping scenarios 😉 |
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2020 21:03:16 GMT
Looks like a Ferret scout armoured car Perfect for near-apocalyptic shopping scenarios 😉 Often to be found in Tesco car parks |
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Post by acidohm on Jul 2, 2020 21:22:09 GMT
Perfect for near-apocalyptic shopping scenarios 😉 Often to be found in Tesco car parks 🤣🤣🤣 standard at peak times 🤣🤣🤣 I didn't mention it was Tesco tho....🤔 |
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Post by Ratty on Jul 2, 2020 23:32:26 GMT
[ Snip ] With a group of others from the RAF I was briefly with the 17th/21st Lancers in Berlin, who at the time were equipped with Centurion Tanks. I can remember sitting in the 'gunners' position and being told how to operate the gun looking through a periscope gun sight. One of our senior officers was strolling along a few yards away and it seemed like harmless fun to keep his head in the cross hairs of the sight so the turret was slowly motoring around as he walked past - he noticed the muzzle of the tank gun following him and did not seem overly amused  ? |
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Post by missouriboy on Jul 3, 2020 2:55:18 GMT
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