ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Arters

These were the 4Divs...

7 Guards Tank Division..HQ Rosslau, which is 50kms SE of Magdeburg

10 Guards Tank Division..HQ Altengrabow, which is 43kms ENE of Magdeburg

12 Guards Tank Division..HQ Neurrupin, which is 122km NE of Magdeburg

47 Guards Tank Division.. HQ Hillersleben, which 18kms NW of Magdeburg

Except for 10 Gds(nearly all units located in Altengrabow) the other Divs sub units were
spread all over the place but all were basically opposed to us.

Also not forgetting 207 Guards Motor Rifle Division which was originally part of 3 Shock Army, and the East German MD III and MD V, each with three Divisions, albeit with slightly older kit in one Military District, or the Grenztruppen der DDR who became part of the NVA in time of war - lets not rely too much on the Yank version of the GSFG ORBAT

Originally Posted by DavidBOC

Back in '84-'86 I was in grad school in Cambridge, MA getting a Masters and for some reason signed up for a course called "General Purpose Forces" because a couple of classmates said it was interesting despite minimal military skills and experience (other than the ability to field strip an M-1 and put it back together with no parts leftover). I found myself dealing with differential equations and e to the power of (complicated equation) into which one plugged the sum of the weapon unit values of NATO vs Pact. We had to vary things around adding and subtracting things like organic air support, hardened C3I centers etc . After a few weeks of driving myself nuts with paper spreadsheets and a scientific calculator I bought one of those newfangled PC's (no hard drive) and a classmate, a USAF pilot, showed me how to set up the equations on VisiCalc (this was before Lotus 123 and Excel were being used)

No matter how any of us crunched the numbers NATO lasted 6 to 11 days against the Pact if we assumed no nukes used. The only real question at the time was whether Poland would stay in the Pact. Of course a few years later all was changed utterly.

. . . and in '92 I had the very real pleasure of taking over as the SO2 G2 at HQ Last (British) Corps responsible for monitoring the progress of the Soviet (or was it just 'Russian' by then?) horde dragging its big, sorry arrse out of Western Europe, to go and live in tent cities somewhere in the downwind hazard area of the Chernobyl* disaster . . .
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Edited to add
*Stonkernote: Sympathy? It's in the dictionary . . . you know the rest . . .

Originally Posted by cloudbuster

Really? My research suggests that the Strachan-bodied Bedford SB3 was the same length for all Service users. Happy to be corrected, if you can offer a reliable source, H_S..................

Take your point about the Bedford Strachan Body - also an Air Force Bus - the ones I refer to had a more pronounced bonnet and had been around since the 1950s - but unfortunately can't find any reference to them at the moment - only from personal memory travelling to my first posting in Muenster from Gutersloh circa 1970. Believe the bus was on the strength of 8 Regt RCT.

207 MRD never got to be Guards, just a plain old MRD, I'm afraid. They had a shocking bad camp at Stendal, as well. Poor sods.

Originally Posted by Glad_its_all_over

207 MRD never got to be Guards, just a plain old MRD, I'm afraid. They had a shocking bad camp at Stendal, as well. Poor sods.

My apologies Glad - its nearly 40 years since we were in 7 Int Coy and my memory is no longer as clear as it once was.

I also forgot to add in 16 Tactical Air Army in my rough ORBAT.

Wasn't there also a Regiment of HIP E and HIND D at Stendal or fairly near ? I seem to recall being buzzed by a HIP E during one of our weekly trips on the Berliner.

Originally Posted by HIGHLANDER_SPY

Take your point about the Bedford Strachan Body - also an Air Force Bus - the ones I refer to had a more pronounced bonnet and had been around since the 1950s - but unfortunately can't find any reference to them at the moment - only from personal memory travelling to my first posting in Muenster from Gutersloh circa 1970. Believe the bus was on the strength of 8 Regt RCT.

Same chassis, body by Mulliner. Unless 8 Regt were tooling about in Bedford OBs from the late 1930s.........

Originally Posted by CaptainPlume

my Browning, carefully wedged in the back of my trousers as there were no spare holsters available (I'd been told I'd get one in theatre)

I bought a nice black Bianchi holster from the PX in Sarajevo after having been told the same thing. However I found that it was much easier to get my terp to carry it in her handbag.

I was in 8 regt from 67 to 69 and there were no buses there then, but I moved to 2 sqn RCT and I got dicked to drive them, they were petol engined we sometimes had to borrow one off the navy when under pressure and the only difference was they were diesel,...we just referred to them as 39 seaters.