Mufti

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I am interested in the "Drill" for a 2" Mortar.
As I remember the Beast, in was aimed at about 45degrees and the bomb dropped down the barrel ---- as it reached the spigot at the bottom --- it fired up again and landed anywhere within 50 yards of the target !!!

It may well be, that the Mortar, of which you speak, is a much more sophisticated Animal ----

But to quote the Duke of Wellington (Allegedly, a greater Soldier than I) ---- "I don't know what they do to the Enemy ---- but by God --- they frighten me !!"

[sejintenej]

by the time i was there in 80's outdoor range had been shut due to footpath behind it when a national review of ranges was carried out. We drilled with the 303's using drill rounds (don't know type but mine was dated pre WW1) and uses 22's in the indoor range behind Peele converted for single shot with no magazine.

I was RAF but the army section still drilled with the Bren and there was a mortar although i believe deactivated - there was no ammo for the bren known of.

That was correct for working at CH. However we did fire live rounds at army ranges. AFAIR the Bren used standard .303 ammo.

As stated never saw the mortar fired so I don't know if it had all its bits still.

[sejintenej]

I am interested in the "Drill" for a 2" Mortar.
As I remember the Beast, in was aimed at about 45degrees and the bomb dropped down the barrel ---- as it reached the spigot at the bottom --- it fired up again and landed anywhere within 50 yards of the target !!!
It may well be, that the Mortar, of which you speak, is a much more sophisticated Animal ----

No - I saw only the basic drop the round and get out of the way version. Also saw a bigger one which I think was about the same; certainly no effective aiming.

But to quote the Duke of Wellington (Allegedly, a greater Soldier than I) ---- "I don't know what they do to the Enemy ---- but by God --- they frighten me !!"

Aaaah, but Sir, he might have been only a Duke but you carried a Field Marshal's baton in your knapsack (Field Marshal Montgomery of Alemein if I remember correctly).

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

As I remember FSMO (Field Service Marching Order) I wouldn't have wanted the Baton, or anything else, to increase the weight !!!

The "Larger" Mortar, of which you speak, would be the 3" of that ilk. -----beter aiming, as one had to pull the trigger, to release the firing pin, while the bomb rested at the bottom of the tube .
2" were one per Section, 3" one per Platoon.
I think the last time I saw one was 1951 !!!

[Thepuss]

Dr (as I believe he was) O'Meara certainly did amass (or inherit) a vast collection of old signals kit. I was cadet O/C signals in my last year, rising to "Colour Sergeant" on the last week of the summer term! (And I DID go to the stores to draw the red sash just for a photo!)

Anyway, while I was in the Signals, which would have been roughly 80-83, I know we had "Wireless Set N0.22" as mentioned, and also Nos. 46 and 88 (which were dreadful, but we still had some working batteries for them!). We had a couple of C13s (normally Landrover mounted devices) which I think I successfully tuned in perhaps 1/2 a dozen times, some A41 sets, and a couple of sets that were subject to one of O'Meara's famed "swaps" and we were told went to the Arromanche D-Day museum in Normandy, marked as "Recovered from the beaches" !

We also had a cable laying rig, lots of field telephones and certainly in my day, there were a pair of the microwave rebroadcast sets. They came in a box wooden box with two dishes (one Rx, one Tx) and all the fittings to mount them up trees. Again, we got them working perhaps 3 or 4 times in the 3 years I was there.

The Clansmen sets (officially the UK-PRC-349) turned up about a year before the Falklands, and were used sparingly because of the allocation of batteries. However the boffins at the MOD decided during the war that the battery packs (actually consisting of 6 x AA at a slightly reduced voltage from the commercial variety, and packed in resin) were an expensive luxury as a throw-away item, and "invented" a plastic box of exactly the same profile that took, you've guessed it...6 x AA batteries!

Meanwhile those cunning schoolboys and a craft and tech school master had managed to take one of the discarded battery packs apart, drill out the used batteries and build a replacement... it wasn't terribly successful though because of the need for soldered wiring onto the replacement batteries. But there you go... we think we got there before the MOD did!

regards to all,
Colour Sergeant ThePuss.

[Foureyes]

The basis of this "Signals" collection was built-up by a somewhat eccentric master, CF Kirby, usually known as 'Uncle'. He was an Old Blue and spent his entire career at Housie, except for World War Two service in Royal Signals. He ran the Signals Section of the CCF for many years and also undertook various tests on behalf of the Army. He assembled a vast array of communications equipment, ranging from various radios, through huge amounts of cable, to two-wheeled cable-laying carts, known at Housie as 'Kirby carts' although I doubt that was their official name. He was also a very keen member of the 'Public Schools Wireless Net' (or some such name) where participants communicated with each other at set (bit of a pun there!) times every week.
It is clear from the equipment named by ThePuss that some of these items arrived after Kirby had left the CCF, but I am sure that he laid the foundation, which David O'Meara carried on.
David