One for Drago........ and possibly others.

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gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
When I were a kid there was still a lot of ammo leftover from the war. Kids would find it in cupboards, we'd find clips and magazines in ditches, freshly ploughed fields would bring it to the surface. Sometimes fairly big stuff that was likely AA shells, 20 or 25mm.

We'd stick them in a vice and light them off with a hammer. How my generation are still alive is anyone's guess.
As a young teenager on a mothballed airbase, we woke one morning to roaring Harriers hovering over the base (the noise , the noise 😃) and soldiers everywhere, an exercise no doubt. The next day we went exploring and actually found a round but probably a blank with hindsight. We tried setting it off by wedging it between two bricks and hitting it with a nail and hammer. I shudder to think now, but it never went off.
 

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
Whenever guns are mentioned I always think of this film. Some of you Tarantino movie fans might recall Jackie Brown with Samuel L as the ruthless gun runner. Here he explains the virtues of various weapons to Robert DeNiro. "When you absolutely positively gotta kill every mother****** in the room AK-47, the best there is, accept no substitute".


View: https://youtu.be/HKv6GQvyWW8

Tarantino made the rather amusing mini movie "Chicks who love guns" especially for the film. Here it is in full:


View: https://youtu.be/RsnWZlEQyLA
 
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oldwheels

Legendary Member
Location
Isle of Mull
When I were a kid there was still a lot of ammo leftover from the war. Kids would find it in cupboards, we'd find clips and magazines in ditches, freshly ploughed fields would bring it to the surface. Sometimes fairly big stuff that was likely AA shells, 20 or 25mm.

We'd stick them in a vice and light them off with a hammer. How my generation are still alive is anyone's guess.
I remember some of my pals at school in Maddiston near Falkirk brought in revolvers brought back by big brothers on leave as souvenirs. We did not fortunately have much ammo. No idea how we survived. Later as a scuba diver I used to find lots of ammo on the seabed which had just been dumped overboard at the end of the war. There were a few pistols but corroded beyond any use.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
As a Lad I had a fascination with guns , I joined the local ACF and had a good intro into using them in a controlled environment.The Unit Officer had a friend who was a private gun collecter , and what a collection he had , we used to go to Holcombe Brook ranges at least twice a month and when he came there was always something different to fire , cap lock pistols and rifles , a blunderbuss , Winchester (cowboy style ) Magnum hand gun , Smith and Wesson pistols to name a few, When I joined the Army I was assigned to what was known then as an Assault Troop of an Armoured Regt , I fired all sorts of things whilst in that , i was in the Regimental Shooting Team at one point , that was an excellent time , spent weeks on the ranges around Tidworth , and used to teamup with the Ghurka Rifles Team , proper nice blokes this Lad here must have remembered me as I was the youngest in the Team , he contacts me on Facebook , he ended up a Captain as far as I know and he held some sort of boxing trophy , Thapa Nam Sing , Top Soldier , View attachment 511313
We upset some Gurkhas in Germany, and the next morning half the camp awoke to find red felt tip pen marks had been drawn across their throats as they slept, yet no one had seen or heard a thing. The Major went absolutely nuts and was cussing some most uncomplimentary things about them, bit I'd certainly not want to go to war against them. Whole companies of argentinians surrendered to the Gurkhas without a shot being fired, such is their reputation for fearsome cunning.
 
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ozboz

Guru
Location
Richmond ,Surrey
I heard a tale about Gurkhas that were on an exercise , it was said that they managed to mark the tin helmets of some infantry who were in dugouts with an X in white chalk , no one saw or heard a peep ,
I recently saw some photos and stories that brought back memories it Must have been Hong Kong where I met Thapa , long story short , myself and another were dropped into a remote area of Hong Kong, we abseiled into a paddy field from a Scout chopper , then had to go cross country about 20 miles to a point that was designated an enemy field comms post if we got there without being detected then it would have been deemed that we had succeeded in taking it out , any way we did it , much to our surprise we had actually managed to breach the lines of the Ghurka defenders , I remember at the de briefing there were some Gurkas present , they were suitably impressed that we had succeeded , I am thinking this is where I must have met Thapa and why he remembered the young ozboz !!
I have another story about raiding an RAF field base in Germay for Harriers , the RAF Regt were on guard ................ old ozboz came very close to blowing up a Harrier ! .......a big oooops . but that’s a story for another day !!!
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Did you see that news report a while back of the gurkhas on holiday? They'd gone for a cruise and pirates tried to take the ship. The unarmed gurkhas weren't having any of it, and despite the crew wanting to surrender they fought the baddies off with fire hoses.
 
When I were a kid there was still a lot of ammo leftover from the war. Kids would find it in cupboards, we'd find clips and magazines in ditches, freshly ploughed fields would bring it to the surface. Sometimes fairly big stuff that was likely AA shells, 20 or 25mm.

We'd stick them in a vice and light them off with a hammer. How my generation are still alive is anyone's guess.
Just before I left RAF Stanley, someone gave me a 20mm Aden AP cannon shell as a souvenir. It had had its cap and charge removed by drilling through said cap...
When I showed it, head still firmly attached, to the Armament Officer, he nearly fainted. I had to remove the head to get approval to keep it.
Then they changed their minds about this stuff, and it was all confiscated at Ascension. Except the RAF copper who asked me was a colleague from Portreath, so I got to take it home. No idea what happened to it since...
 
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