Originally Posted by greenbaggyskin

We're running an exercise there next year, and I have been looking on t'inter to see what I could find. I saw the one that you shared with me, thanks, and a couple of others. There are quite a lot of hints about something very interesting going on there, apart from the KZ, sub-atomic WMD, Fuehrer bunker and rockets. It is also a little odd that the Bundeswehr maintain a guarded training area in a region with no real fighting units beyond an Inf Bn in Erfurt.

So...nose a'twitchin', I thought I'd ask people who might know more.

Well, it was PRA, though the post Nicholson map allowed us to get closer to the edge of the training area from the NE. All the Mission could do was watch stuff go in and come out.

Its Nazi history makes sense, being just about as far from Germany's front lines as you could get in 1944. I doubt it had any strategic significance for the Sovs being almost on the IGB. Perhaps the Bundeswehr is just being a little sensitive. These are merely personal opinions.

Interestingly, the new PRA map extended the PRA on the south side to the east of Luisenthal with this stuff in it, courtesy of Google Earth

Panoramio - Photo of einstiges sowjetisches Militärgelände "Muna" - 07/2008

Looks like an interesting place to have a walk around.

Originally Posted by Minnesota_Viking

No spelling mistake. Grimme 501 was an EGA Reserve Division in a vast complex in a wood approx 15 km North East of Zerbst. It's still there if you care to check google earth. So fuck off Arters.

I bow down to your superior knowledge......there are one or two locations in the area
you mention, which is it, be specific. Lat/Long.
EGA??? is this something I don't recognise or NVA?
If it is NVA, I have checked the NVA Forums and can find no trace of this Unit.
I am very intrigued and would appreciate any help you/anyone can offer.
I have visited Ohrdruf, Mittelbau and another u/ground storage facility in the
area used today by the Bundescrunch, blagged it, by god but dodgy as chuff.

Originally Posted by Brotherton Lad

http://www.arrse.co.uk/content/582-r...bivi-tent.html

I had both.

On my first tour the loquacious Roy G took me on the local. I'd packed the poncho and bungees (two, trees, for the wrapping round of). So he deliberately parked up for the night by the railway line bang in the centre of a large ploughed field.

Fortunately, a little bird had told me that this was a possibility and I had time to saw a G1098 broom handle in half and stow it in the boot.

Here's some more pics from memory lane:

Not just a BBQ:

I once locked Roy G out of my car for over an hour,whilst he washed the lower legs of a particularly rank set of lightweights,in a very cold stream,his flying boots were consigned to a sealed black plazzy bag,he was eventually let back in by myself and the T/Nco,and was given a parka to wrap around his lower half while the trousers dried out in the front by the heater,this was in the days when the "brains of the outfit" sat in the front left hand seat,and the "Passengers" both sat in the back!

The boots stayed in the Boot,and we gave him a couple of bin bags to wear when he need a call of nature,other than that he was confined to the car,on the orders of the T/Nco,he managed to blag a pair of slippers at the Mission House,and got a few comments when we went to do the 'Highlight',a lot of the Americans thought the 'Brits' were pretty cool,touring in 'carpet slippers'!

Originally Posted by Arters

I bow down to your superior knowledge......there are one or two locations in the area
you mention, which is it, be specific. Lat/Long.
EGA??? is this something I don't recognise or NVA?
If it is NVA, I have checked the NVA Forums and can find no trace of this Unit.
I am very intrigued and would appreciate any help you/anyone can offer.
I have visited Ohrdruf, Mittelbau and another u/ground storage facility in the
area used today by the Bundescrunch, blagged it, by god but dodgy as chuff.

Best I can do is tell you to put Zerbst Germany into Google Maps. If you then look NE of the pin you will see Grimme
Switch to satellite view and zoom in to the edge of the woods. Place looks a bit like Oranienburg Lehnitz but much bigger. The sheds look
as though they're still in very good condition

As Roofrat says it was in PRA, and I understand it had a full Division s worth of kit there; can't remember if MRD or TD. There was very little vehicle
movement, the occasional T-55 outside a shed is all I can recall. HQ BAOR G2 reckoned it only had a very small cadre.

We visited Ohrdruf after the border opened up, after the Sovs had left. Didn't see anything very interesting at all.

And of course I meant NVA Arters.

Manod Bach, Isn't it a 1V12?

Gotcha!....I was looking for the usual ex GSFG loc. never paid any notice to this place.
I see what you mean, though, that is one hell of a complex.

52 02 48 55N 12 16 42 01E

I don't know how to cut and paste from G.E.

Thanks MV.

Originally Posted by Minnesota_Viking

Manod Bach, Isn't it a 1V12?

I think I knew it as a BTR 60 TACP in those days. Apparently it became 1V18/19. The 1V12 is on a MT-LB chassis and may be on the 2S3 piccie.

1V18/19 Artillery Vehicle Lvov/Lviv Ukraine June 2005 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Originally Posted by Brotherton Lad

I think I knew it as a BTR 60 TACP in those days. Apparently it became 1V18/19. The 1V12 is on a MT-LB chassis and may be on the 2S3 piccie.

1V18/19 Artillery Vehicle Lvov/Lviv Ukraine June 2005 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

You may well be right, can't check the flickr images in work but I seem to remember what we all called the ACRV series became 1V13, 1V14, 1V15 and 1V16. The 1V18 and 1V19 were a ZIL-131 Box Body and a GAZ-66 Box body (not sure which was which) and the 1V12 was the BTR-60 variant used with towed artillery - but it's a long time ago.....

If you want to see loads of mission imagery all neatly classified a wee Scotsman called EF donated the JACIG database to the Int Corps museum. There were a few vufoils of corridor imagery too.

Is that the wee EF, Sgt in the Mission, WO2 in JACIG? I used to tour with him in '86.

It's funny seeing the old pictures, they take me right back to the locations and the 'feel' of each separate tour. A back of fag packet calculation leads me to think I took about 25000 piccies in 2 years.

good to see we have a site on here too Tovarich lol

Здравствуйте!