Enjoy....

http://www.otterburnranges.co.uk/

Originally Posted by Dandy-Angus

Enjoy....

http://www.otterburnranges.co.uk/

Cheers for that link Dandy :D Brings back many memories both good and bad.

I predict mostly bad !!

Originally Posted by hammy123

Originally Posted by HE117

Originally Posted by tarpaulin

It's been a little while since I've been down to Otterburn - Barrybuddon seems to be the barren wasteland of choice these days - so my memory is a little hazy.

Jagman, where is the hill with the masts and the bunker?

..look on google maps at Otterburn in sat image. Follow the A696 south to Raylees. Carry on for another 4km.. There are a number of buildings on the east side of the road... follow the tracks up to the masts.. They are quite clear in shadow..

I know which ones you mean, any ideas what they are for? remembering OPSEC and all that, as you do. However, since they are protected by Otterburns finest wooly warmers, no one would get near the place to do any damage.

It's an old ROTOR radar station which replaced the wartime CHAIN HOME system. Many of these sites were used for ROC and regional seat of government locations.

They are mostly abandoned now, although the masts may still be used for "this & that". This one is called "Ottercops Moss"

http://www.cannybevvy.co.uk/pillboxe...oss/index.html

[quote="AlienFTM"]

Originally Posted by Dandy-Angus

Im trying to think of an army ex area that was worse than Otterburn ??

(quote) July 1977 B and HQ Sqns 15/19H did Orange Forces for Ex Trident (NATO SF escape and evasion exercise). Pre-Kielder Dam, I didn't think it was all that bad cabbying around in Scorpions (or driving the OC's FFR LR) (end quote).


I was on that exercise (not with your unit) - lot of strange people masquerading as SF - particularly some overweight Danes IIRC. Time flies - 32 years ago!

It was a great summer though - we went from there to Kenya - Christmas at home - then off to Belize for six months, a welcome break from NI tours!

Worse than Otterburn? Easy - Sennybridge.

You are the DS and I claim my £5

Originally Posted by Dandy-Angus

Im trying to think of an army ex area that was worse than Otterburn ??

Sennybridge .......

Originally Posted by Themanwho

Worse than Otterburn? Easy - Sennybridge.

You are the DS and I claim my £5

Bugger you got there before me

Originally Posted by AlienFTM

Originally Posted by Dwarf

Also if the Boxheads had arrived at the Coquet stop line then I would suggest that we would have been royally screwed by that point, and getting to the Game Over stage. How could we have mounted a credible counter-offensive from here with most of England occupied and only Scotland free?

I think you missed the point that the pillboxes face north. (I was surprised by that too, assuming the Salmon Trouts would land on the Northumberland beaches and that this defence line would keep them out of Scotland. WHY???)

So why was so much effort expended on putting in these fortifications in the first place, when it could have been better used elsewhere?

I'd suggest it's a bit like building the Burma railway. You could only get a finite number of builders into the area to build a stop line around London (or a railway line from one terminus to the other) so you break up the tasks into discrete locales and get everyone working flat out on his own little bit, thereby getting a series of stop lines built in the same time it would take to build one. Or one railway.

It also gives the whole country a chance to feel useful while the country is lying t!ts-up waiting to be invaded. Good for morale.

North-facing? Must be for the Jocks then, - only explanation.

Take your point about discrete locales, but really a lot of this stuff was put in without really thinking about it. The Boxheids had no real seaborne capability, so how were they going to be able to go all the way up the coast and land with their supply lines dependent on ships?
The only thing I can think of is if they had already got a foot ashore and were heading northwards with a secondary landing to get behind our defences. But by that time would we have had the manpower or kit to waste manning the line?
I also remember the tank-traps (big concrete blocks) along the side of the Town Moor in Newcastle*. What possible military purpose could that serve? FIBUA through the rest of the City would hold them up much better. As for an airborne landing they had no tank-airlift capacity and the traps could only have provided cover for the Fallshirmjager.
Did all this raise morale or give the idea that we were about to be overrun the following week? I mean if landings are expected around Hastings again, then if they are building defences up in the NE we are in deep do-do and expecting to lose. It could just as easily have had the opposite effect to morale building.
I just think that a lot of effort and material was expended that could have been better applied in other tasks. And how much input did the military have in all this? Some of those pill-boxes were simply death-traps, badly sited, or as you say facing the wrong direction, and with no depth or support to them. Why even bother doing that much? Who chose the positions Harry the Builder, or a local liason officer? Think I know the answer.
Would you commit your men to those places? Except at the beach I doubt it, the situation would probably be too fluid for them to be effective.

(*If memory serves me and I am not yet ready to be put away in a home with pretty nurses to wipe my bits. - Though thinking about it I am ready for that part right now.)

Originally Posted by rickshaw-major

Originally Posted by Dandy-Angus

Im trying to think of an army ex area that was worse than Otterburn ??

Garlochhead I claim my 15 year old Malt :D

A wetter Otterburn with velociraptor midges.

What was that bizarre abandoned factory/camp (Strone?) down the hill from that single FIBUA house all about?