Military Members post pics of you in your uniforms.

mkloby · 10-13-2006, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ndicki

And don't ask the obvious question!

What's the obvious question?? I like the pics.

lesofprimus · 10-13-2006, 04:39 PM

If u go back to the beginnings of this thread u'll see alot of the more senior members pics, mine included.... What with being in the Teams, we didnt exactly run around with a camera in our web gear...

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 10-14-2006, 11:33 AM

Good pics there ndicki. Here are a few from about 12 years ago when I was in Cadets before I joined the Army. We were training with the British Cadets in Bristol.

I need to sort through all my actually Army pics because I know I have some good ones to post but I have litterally thousands of them.

ndicki · 10-14-2006, 12:27 PM

The Cadets are a fantastic thing - I was one from 14 to 18, although we weren't anything like so well equipped - we had 1937 Pattern webbing, .303 No.IV MkI Lee-Enfields, and .303 Bren Guns! Just like WW2! (Hear me complaining?)

Did you enjoy playing with what has to be the civilized world's worst service rifle?

Never used it myself, thank goodness, but apparently:

A:if you hit the ground hard, as one does, the pistol grip falls off.
B: the issue bugjuice eats the furniture.
C: the mag release catch is on the left, just where your thumb falls when you grasp the mag - and rubs on your webbing so the mag falls out at interesting moments.
D: the optical sight takes you longer to acquire a target.

And so on. I expect these faults have all been addressed by now, but it doesn't give you much confidence.

I liked my old SLR. You could shoot through all sorts of things with it, walls, trees, etc.

This pic was not taken while in service - just having fun! But the rifle, an FN FAL/R1, is nice!

Nonskimmer · 10-14-2006, 02:32 PM

Good stuff everyone.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 10-15-2006, 10:14 AM

I never had any problems with the one they issued me 12 years ago in England. I was just having fun running around playing soldier and getting to make new friends in England.

I even started dating a British Female Cadet. Her name was Jade and she was from Little Stoke. Beautiful little girl and we had a great time. I would fly up to England and stay with her.

Man that was a fun time with the Bristol Cadet Force.

I actually ran into a few of the British Cadets 12 years later in Iraq when I was in the US Army and they were in the real British Army as well.

ndicki · 10-15-2006, 10:52 AM

The cadet version was introduced a bit after the service version, and may have benefitted from some of the teething troubles of it's parent!

It is slightly "dumbed down" compared to the original - it has only single-shot capacity (which I don't see as a problem; the FN FAL in its British L1A1 SLR version was also modified to single-shot only), and no optical sight - again, IMHO, a better idea!

Edit: The cadet version has to be manually reloaded by pulling the breech-block back, and is not semi-automatic. Needless to say, the SLR is.

The thing I don't like about rifles which have a full auto capacity is that people tend to use them on full auto rather than doing aimed shooting. Call me old fashioned, but I value marksmanship for a number of obvious reasons!

Had my Crossed Rifles when I was in the Cadets...

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 10-15-2006, 01:02 PM

We had SUSAT sights on the quad light machine gun (I cant remember what kind of gun we were using).

Anyhow I got to play with the real guns anyhow when I joined the real army.

ndicki · 10-15-2006, 02:29 PM

Light Support Weapon, basically an SA80/L85 with a heavier barrel and a bipod; sort of the British Army's answer to the RPK.

I liked the old L4 Bren Gun, as it fired 7.62mm ammo from a 30rd mag which fitted the SLR too - made for good interchangeability. That died the death when they took our Brens away and replaced them with FN MAG GPMGs, which accepted only disintegrating link ammo - OK for some purposes, but rubbish for leg infantry. Spend hours camming up, and then wrap yourself up in shiny belts of gun ammo! Not to mention the stuff catching in bushes, falling off, and so on. Very good gun, but it needed some sort of ammo box fitted, like they finally did with the Minimi.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 10-15-2006, 02:39 PM

Yeah that was deffinatly a fun time. The British Cadre were all great too, really tought us some great stuff and we all had a good time. My favorite was on the Bivvy we went out and played war games with Artillary simulators.

Man I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to be in a war until I actually went to war and then I realized how scary it really is and how much hell it really is.

ndicki · 10-15-2006, 02:44 PM

That's the problem. War would be great fun otherwise.

If all you ever got to do was exercises - I mean really good, tough ones with lots of challenging things - it'd be the best job in the world!