On this page you will see images that have been sent to me directly and also those I have 'gleaned' from the net and use with the owners permission.

Every squaddie who leaves the Army must remember the kit they had to work with and swear at then look at the new stuff and think 'I wish I had that'. Whilst I've been putting this stuff together I've had chance to look at the new kit and I am definitely one of those ex-squaddies.

Anyway enough of the woffle and cop a load of this lot - both ancient and modern. For starters we'll hit the ancient.

Even I, of tender years, remember the old RL (I think RL stood for 'ruddy lorry'). This one, sent in by Jimmy Rimmer, must be either new, ready for some parade or there was some big wig showing their face.

The trusty 25pdr. We had these in JLRRA towed by the afore mentioned RL - they must have sold off all the limbers! The Command Post was also an RL with the side of the canopy removed! They didn't trust us with anything electrical so we had to use GCI's (paper and pencil to the uninitiated). Ah them woz the days - just a sec me sandbags slipped!!

Talking of GCI's, I being the sad git that I am, just happen to have a picture of a Displacement Graph - in fact I've got a real one but don't tell John Horsley. To those poor souls with the new posh kit this was used to plot the changes in range and bearing for each gun when we didn't hit the target the first time. Any 'not army types' may well wonder why there are 640 degrees in a circle.

On a sadder note I also have a load of Traverse Sheets and the like which should bring a tear to Pete Lawton's eye - but they are for a later time, i.e. when I have a bit more time.

As many know the Armed Forces like to make things different so they use mils and there are 6400mils in a circle! It ain't as daft at it sounds. With degrees you also get minutes and seconds but with mils it is all decimals - they ain't as daft as they look! Can I have a second opinion please.

Yet another blast from the past - GFT's they saved farting about with thickbooks. This shows GFT's for both high and low angle.

While you lot on the guns were bunging bits of metal up other bits metal us poor intellectuals were having to complete bits of paper like this. This is only the end product - you ought to have seen the diffE diffN book they must have been about 30cm x 60cm (12" x 18" to the luddites amongst you) not exactly pocket editions!

To replace all this paperwork, or rather to augment it, came F.A.C.E or to be more accurate Field Artillery Computer Equipment.

This was a very compact computer system that only just managed to fit in a long wheelbase Land Rover with up rated springs! In other words it was built like a tank! What you see in the image is just the control console which had the display and keyboard. The actual computer bit was about 2(w) foot by 3.5(h) feet and piggin heavy. Yet it did it's job and we Surveyors and CPA's used to cry when it died because we had to go back to paper and pencil. Just to emphasise the sadness here is a diagram containing all the parts of FACE, less cables.

Just to give you an idea as to how powerful this steam driven computer was. I bought a ZX81 computer and a 16K RAM pack when they first came out and wrote a program for it that had the same features as FACE. The only trouble was the trajectory, I could never work out how to base it on the real world and not in a vacuum! Even the IG's and the AIG's at the School couldn't tell me!

To try and make sure all the guns were pointing in the same, general, direction we used these - the Director L1A1 (cased). They were also good for burning your eyeballs out when you forgot to put the filter on and you were messing about with the Sun during a Azimuth by hour angle! It didn't hurt once the pain had gone, and anyway you had two eyes.

This little bit of kit was used by our team to give us a bearing to 0.25 mil which we could then pass through the traverse, plus it was a pain in the neck, and the back.

It's official name was PIM or Position Indicator of the Meridian to be posh. All it was was a theodolite on a gyroscope. Getting the thing level was an art in itself it was so sensitive that all you had to do was think of moving and the bloody needle moved. Pete Lawton was our main operator - what we would have done for GPS!

Now we get to thing that bump (or rather bang) in the night and wake us poor surveyors up.

The Abbot. The whole of 2nd had these - noisy bloody things they were as well, they kept us awake in the Command Post. I'm glad I ended up on the Svy Team at least we could 'disappear' for a couple of hours and get some peace.

These were the Guns that all our work was centred around whether we were in the OP, CP, Svy or whatever, without these we could not do our job - well we could but there would have been little point!

I never trained on a Gun as I trained as a CPA in JLRRA missing out the gun bit however I did take a turn as loader on Dave Smart's gun (C sub I think it was). All that laying and the rest seemed too complicated.

However I must admit that the old Abbot and the 432 had a great cooker for compo - the exhaust - as long as you left the stuff in the tin!

This is one of the types of guns the battery used when we were in our punishment posting in Larkhill as support to the school - the 105mm Light Gun. If I have the anatomy of a Gun correct, this is the bit where the shell and cartridge is bunged. And, if I remember rightly that long thin bit was where the shell went and it came out of the end - ingenuous ain't they!

The gun, of whatever type, is a hungry beast and in the days before these new fangled single drop thingies we had to make do with the Stalwart. They were really a hull on wheels. Thankfully, for Anglo-German relations, I didn't drive one but Higgi, who was later to be my best-man, did - in fact he drove most things!

Of course now they have posh wagons such as these. They appear to have everything on there plus it also seems like the driver doesn't even have to get wet. No thought given to the poor buggers who have to get the stuff off the sledge - such was the gunners lot!

A bit of kit that might not been seen around today is the Ferret, this was one bit of kit that I did drive. On a nice day it was great but throwing it down with rain, or worse, then no thanks.

It had a straight 6 petrol engine, 4 wheel drive (permanent) and a pre-select gearbox with 6 gears (if I remember correctly!). By the way, no power steering. The fastest I got out of one was about 65mph - with a following wind. The driver sat in the front middle of thing and unlike a car the bottom of the steering wheel was angled away from you.

The most frightening moment I got into in one (apart from writing off a Merc that decided to hit me on exercise) was going round a corner at about 50mph in a four wheel skid - heaven knows how it stayed on the road but it did.

The New Stuff.

Now we've seen some of the old light the blue touch paper and run artillery lets have a look at the new stuff - I know sod all about this so you'll just have to suffer some pictures.

I suppose the most 'glamorous' piece of kit must be the MRLS or Multiple Launched Rocket System.

Looking at the next image I bet it's weird when the thing is fired it must make a right old racket - that is technical speak for noisy!

As far as I understand it when the Regiment went back to Germany they were equipped with AS90 once again I have not even been inside one of these but from what I've read heaven help us if the battery dies!

This next image of the AS90 is meant to show the Gun at speed but as all ex-gunners know they are just trying to beat the rest of the Regiment to the washdown!

In the good old days , just after they had stopped using horses to draw the Guns, we used the venerable 432 for everything - including as a kitchen sink. Whist I understand that they are still around I believe the OP's of regiments supporting the tankies trundle around in Warriors. However I can't believe they trust the OP's with a cannon!

Whilst I was looking on the web I found some images of kit that is either so new no one has it yet or it has only just been issued. I know there is a new radio system in the process of being fitted because Dave Smart is fitting it - god help us is what I say cos he had trouble using a phone!!! However you will have to wait.

© Richard Fox