Falklands War - Early Wip pics.

[nikharwood]

Or as some would say "Top-notch". 

Too right 

That's great news Barrie - I think this is going to be spectacular 

[Techno]

Hi Barrie...

From what you've said....Is this guy overloaded then ?



Cheers - Phil...(Who STILL can't seem to change the size of the piccies......AAAARGH !!

[Rob]

Shoot me down in flames Guys...
But....As far as the sights are concerned....Could it be that the artist has taken his reference from the sights that the Argentine army used on their SLRs ?
From the limited research I've been able to do, it appears that the 'bad guys' had more up to date resources than our chaps....(Though they blamed their defeat on THEM having inferior equipment.)?

The 'flash eliminator'......It's been portrayed as something much 'cleaner and neater' than Dazza's rubber thingy pic.....Can't believe it's supposed to represent any of the yellow 'wossnames'.

Is this the mystery flash eliminator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soldadosargentinos3.jpg

or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Century_Arms_FN_FAL.jpg

If so it is the Argentine FAL rifle. If depicted with a British soldier it is a captured weapon. Some British soldiers originally equipped with the Sterling SMG used them.

It seems some countries that manufactured this rifle under licence introduced their own flash eliminator.

Cheers, Rob 

[OldenBUA]

Cheers - Phil...(Who STILL can't seem to change the size of the piccies......AAAARGH !!

Hi Phil. If it's not TOO technical. Try adding width=xxx in the [ IMG ] thingie at the front of the pic ref line. It should go after IMG, but before the ]. Something like [IMG width=480].

[Techno]

Thanks 'Olden'

I'll give that a whirl...Probably not tonight....I'm getting teed off with being the 100,000th (?) person to log on every time I visit  .
I just know it'll be something I'm missing...Though the last couple of times I've tried on Photobucket it says it's done it....Then it stays at the same size when I preview it....There's going to be some silly thing that I'm not doing....I'll get there in the end 

Cheers - Phil.

[fred.]

Photobucket is dreadful. Try Google Picasa web, it is much better, not least for the lack of dreadful pop up adds and the like. It also includes a good editor so you can get the image the right size.

[TimeCast]

Hi Barrie...

From what you've said....Is this guy overloaded then ?

Actually that's pretty close to the size of the loads - it was very tricky negotiating the stairwells on the Canberra and climbing into the landing craft while carrying that lot. I was just glad I travelled by helicopter most of the time - one of the advantages of being on the Brigade staff rather than an infantryman...

:-)

Barrie

[Techno]

Actually that's pretty close to the size of the loads - it was very tricky negotiating the stairwells on the Canberra and climbing into the landing craft while carrying that lot. I was just glad I travelled by helicopter most of the time - one of the advantages of being on the Brigade staff rather than an infantryman...

:-)

Barrie

Thanks Barrie....I reckon I would have needed a couple of Sherpas to carry it for me.

Fred....Might give that recommendation a go too....thanks to you too !

Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

That is a marching load - it would be left at the Form-up point befroe an attack. Then troops would have Ammo pouches, kidney piuches and bum roll. That would often be straped on top of the kidney pouch. Grenades wuould be in pouches, although "66 Heat" (M72 A/T) may have been carried, and No 1 and 2 on Charlie G and Number 2 on Milan would be carring spare rounds, 3 ?. Similar for Lt Mortars, whilst GPMG teams may have had belts in bandoliers.

Final point - Radio Op's with Flags.!

IanS

[Steve J]

IIRC the modern infantry carries the same marching load as a Roman Legionnaire. After a days march carrying his load, the Legionnaire then had to make camp, dig a defensive ditch etc, whilst on campaign that is.

[TimeCast]

IIRC the modern infantry carries the same marching load as a Roman Legionnaire. After a days march carrying his load, the Legionnaire then had to make camp, dig a defensive ditch etc, whilst on campaign that is.

While I have no doubt the Romans had to carry their own kit I suspect that it did not amount to the same weight as that regularly carried by modern infantrymen, with all the extra burdens of ammunition, radios, batteries, night sights/NVGs, notebooks/pens/aidememoires, maps, first aid eqpt etc etc.

In addition, a marching camp probably didn't take too long to put together when there were several thousand of you all working together. Once settled down for the night you had a chance to sleep and rest, unless you were one of those picked for guard duty (probably a relatively slim chance as the duties were spread around so many people - unless you had pee'd off the optio or centurion).

The lads in the Falklands also had to dig in, which takes a lot of time when there's only two of you working on a trench, plus the guard duty would be shared around between the 8-10 guys in the section, plus radio stags for the radio operators, plus finding bodies for any night patrols, recce patrols, briefings, working parties for unloading helicopters, distributing ammunition/rations etc.

Regardless of the weight carried by Roman soldiers or their modern counterparts, the modern soldier generally gets far less sleep/rest than his predecessor, plus he is in danger for a far greater amount of time in the field, with a corresponding increase in stress and exhaustion.

BTW a friend of mine who served in Iraq at Al Amarah in 2005/5, said his basic combat load included body armour, helmet, camelback water system, SA80 and 300 rounds, 2 x frag, 2 x wp and 2 x smk grenades plus a  GPMG and 1000 rounds. It was all he could do to walk let alone run around. All this in temperatures which regularly went over 100 degrees. When I asked him why he carried two weapons he explained that in his first contact the number two on the gun got separated and along with all the spare ammunition for the gpmg. As a result he ran out of ammuntion in pretty short order. After that he made sure to carry a rifle and ammunition for his own protection if he ever ran out of round for the GPMG again. As near as I can figure out he would have been carrying about 34 lbs of weapons, 30 lbs of body armour, water and webbing, plus at least 50lbs of ammunition.

Barrie
TimeCast

[stormrider]

If I can dive in with a slightly off topic question here... (sorry!)

I used to play (still have the rules) a skirmish moderns game in which the british rifle section had 1 guy with an MBT LAW. The rules made this weapon a single-fire only and it never made any sense to me that, even when I queried the official rules bods, he didn't have a rifle too... Would a british rifleman with an MBT LAW really not have a rifle?

Sorry for the intrusion, I return you to normal service

[Techno]

As near as I can figure out he would have been carrying about 34 lbs of weapons, 30 lbs of body armour, water and webbing, plus at least 50lbs of ammunition.

Barrie
TimeCast

Good grief !. . And that in 100 + degrees !

[Steve J]

Believe me you soon get used to such temperatures. When I lived in Nigeria, the night time temperatures regularly stayed at the 100 Fahrenheit mark. When I went into the workshop in the morning at 7.30am, my metal jack planes etc were warm to the touch. During the day the temperature was well into the 130s and upwards which believe me is bl**dy hot and that was not in the sun! Up on the border with the Sahel it was another 20 degrees warmer. Playing a 40 over match of cricket in these temperatures was tiring to say the least.

[Techno]

Hi Steve.

HEAT I can stand.....(Though I'm not sure even my skinny frame would be too keen on 130 degrees).....But as well as the weight those guys had to carry (sheesh!)....Which I would just not be capable of for ANY distance.....The cold would have finished yours truly off in NO time !

Cheers - Phil.