Thread: The Thunderbox!

Since the sad demise of the shovel recce on a lot of UK training areas a far greater peril now faces the troops than simply falling back into it or accidently dropping one into the gusset.

The Thunderbox! This innocuous blue and white box should have made our lives far easier, a handy place to rest and release the hounds, a free source of arse tinder, possibly a shaving mirror just waiting to be wrenched off the wall. Some even boast a novelty handbrake/conveyor belt combo!

Alas it was not to be, the beauty of the shovel recce was the freedom, you could go wherever you wanted, within reason. The Thunderbox should have been a place of solitude, but it’s not they are always located in places where troops congregate, it reduces your spatial awareness to an area 9 feet square, with no other indication of danger than the sound of creeping footsteps and stifled giggles.

These simple blue and white boxes bring out the cunt in people.

These boxes have strict instructions inside relating to how many people they can service during a normal working week, I really don’t know why they bother. On one 3 week exercise we had two of these things for eighty people. After about 8 days and not one visit to our desolate Scottish waste by the honey sucker, these boxes weren't looking pretty. It was now the norm to halt at said box, remove webbing, shake the box to flatten Poo Mountain before tentatively creeping inside.

The sound of the lock closing invokes hyena like pricking of ears, the hurried grabbing of rolls of harry black, the clink of ratchet straps, somewhere in the distance the sound of a forklift starting. The nervous incumbent carefully lowers their strides and attempts to do the business whilst only touching the bare minimum of shite encrusted surfaces and to get the fuck out of there sharpish.

It’s too late though, as soon as they’ve had enough time to lower their guard, the trap is sprung. The door is swiftly barred from the outside. The Turdis, prisoner, now fully at the will of their captors. There is only panic inside, shouted threats, pained pleas, cried begs all going unanswered bar the evil laughs.

The punishments are varied, they range from the feeble “Turdis shake” to the awe inspiring “pushed over door down” which is only dished out by the jackest of ambushers. For pure fear inducement may I recommend driving a rover up to the door and revving the bollocks off it whilst gently nudging the door.

Various counter measures can be employed, one unit I had a part in bullying took to sending another soldier to stag on outside and prevent interference, these can usually be disposed of with a couple of lads and a roll of maskers. Please bear in mind that this will in almost all cases result in the lack of surprise.

My personal advice in surviving The Thunderbox; check arcs before commencing the movement, have a good serrated blade to hand (for tape and straps) and fight like fuck the minute the balloon goes up, if that involves battling your way out with trews round ankles, so be it.

Ladies and Gents your Thunderbox stories please.

Originally Posted by red_square

my mind was destroyed from telic. no, not the war, but walking into a said device at shatt hotel. not been empted since god knows when, and then having to endure the wrath of being held captave and said device being tipped on its side. my, my, did i laf . many thanks to the kingos

One of our mantests on Telic I involved going into a thunderbox under the midday sun and banging one out. I got there but almost passed out in the progress, the combination of heat, aroma and flies made it quite difficult to concentrate on the task in hand.

I have always thought the Turdis will be the classic example of the unintended consequence one of these days...

Up to the first war, disease was always the great killer of soldiers... and the greatest cause of disease was poor hygene. I can remember an old grizzled MO give a lecture about field hygene, he was speaking from bitter experience having been in Germany at the end of the war and witnessed the effects of a breakdown in society. He said that if you put 1000 townspeople in a field they would sh1t themselves to death before starving or dying of thirst.. In other words, if you don't get a grip of hygene in the field then most urban people would not know how to keep themselves clean, and diseases such as enteristis and dysentry would start to break out within days.

At one time, the black arts of how to build and maintain deep trench latrines and "desert roses" were drilled into all ranks. Even tactical sh1tting had to be taught and the skills maintained.

We have to thank our German friends for the change to field hygene. In the 1980s the use of latrines on German training areas was banned, and the use of portaloos mandated, apparantly to stop ground water contamination...(utter drivel btw..)

So the upshot is that very few people now know how to to run field hygene for large numbers without a fully functioning sewage system.. There have been a few close encounters in the FOBs, but the desert is clean, and the numbers few...

Or am I talking cr@p?

So the upshot is that very few people now know how to to run field hygene for large numbers without a fully functioning sewage system.. There have been a few close encounters in the FOBs, but the desert is clean, and the numbers few...

Or am I talking cr@p?


Don't the Pioneers know how to attend to this.

It always amazed me the first time I used these on an exercise (rhino replen I think) than the turds/paper/tampon were shaped in a pyramid that was actually higher than the seat, How did the last people manage to curl one on top? They must have had to balance over the hole by somehow standing up and over it.

I also remember when they finally emptied them it was like the charge of the light brigade to get there first, then as you dropped the kids off you got a back splash of the blue chemicals up your hoop.

There was various talk of sticking thunder flashes down the pipes but I never saw it happen.

Whilst helping run a REME JMC exercise somewhere in BAOR circa 1990, (and when I say 'helping', my duties ran all the way from making tea and banjos to acting as enemy during the practical parts of the show) I was lucky enough to be a mere bystander in bout of practical joking that started with a Landrover being parked with front bumper against the door of the thunderbox but soon escalated to such highlights as a CS pellet being fired in through one of the air vents of the portaloo whilst the occupant was mid grunt.
The victim stumbled out, coughing and spluttering with trouser and skiddies around the ankles minus any dignity.
Revenge was later achieved via a sliver of CS tab being gently pushed into the end of a cigarette that was then given as a peace offering during a very short lived ceasefire.

Originally Posted by stacker1

There was various talk of sticking thunder flashes down the pipes but I never saw it happen.

Saw it once, but unfortunately for the viewer, not with anyone in there.

Some ex somewhere in BFG, almighty bang at daft oclock that had everyone stood to, no follow up fire, every cnut stagging on for the rest of the night.

SQMS grabs all and sundry just after first light and shows us the culprit. Turdis had been thunderflashed at dark oclock.

Tell you what, fcuk being inside one if it ever happened, the resultant redecorating of the interior would have made bobby sands proud.

Always wanted to see it done to someone but never did, always wanted to do it to someone but never had the bottle ;)

All I can say is that there is nothing better than a freshly cleaned and emptied Turdis. Still they are a damn sight better than the long drop thunderboxes on some areas, which positively reek of sheisse.

Thank god for respirators!

I know a few people that would hold it in until the Turdis cleaning wagon had visited come cleaning day. We had a guy in our troop who once activated the flush thing whilst sat on the throne. He smelt of turdis disinfectant for the rest of the day...

Basra Airport, early Telic 2.

The TDA had just been erected, but there were still many who lived in the Airport buildings. All cooking was done in the Airport, so at mealtimes there was a surge of personnel towards the Airport to get fed. Consequently, the turdises (what with D&V as well) were rarely without a queue. The turdises were sited beneath the main Air Terminal building, alongside the road that runs beside the apron.

The first visit of the Antonov cargo plane was greeted with much enthusiasm because of the size of its hold. Its departure was less well greeted. It had parked nose toward the Terminal, so had to be turned to head towards the runway. Once pointing in the right direction, its driver gave a quick blast of full throttle to get it rolling...

The slipstream tipped about a dozen turdises onto their doors, most of which were occupied. Screams for help were drowned out by the roar of the Antonov's engines. Rescue was performed mostly by those who had been queueing - they'd been knocked flat into the ever-widening pool of sh!t, so it wasn't as though they could get in a much worse state. Those who saw what had happened, but were thankfully some distance away, suddenly found that they had more important issues to attend to.

The turdises were tied against columns after that, but they were rarely occupied whenever an aero engine was to be heard...

The whole turdis requirement thing is a load of shit (sorry). Home farm training area in Hampshire was infested with a couple of turdis's a couple of years ago meaning that recruits in their final exercise had to go non tactical for sh it often requiring a walk to the turdis of a couple of k's. And all the while, the foxes, badgers, voles, mice, rats, rabbits, hares, deer, heeland coos, horses, stoats, weasels, frogs, toads, newts, grass snakes, slow worms, beetles, worms, dogs, cats, squirrels, geese, ducks, shitehawks, crows, blackbirds, robins, wrens, sparrows, rooks, hen harriers, pheasants, jays, yaffles (woodpeckers), bats etc. Are all sh itting away merrily, as they have done for a million years or so without any thought of deliberately polluting the environment with chemical toilets.

On exercise in some schloss in Germany somewhere in the 80s, there was one longdrop between about 80 blokes, so after a week there you can imagine how it looked and smelt, especially as we were on a compo diet boosted with the odd Herfy.
Some ‘lucky’ fella was jiffed with the job of cleaning the toilet of which he did a reasonably good job. His final act of cleansing was to splash some liquid around inside that he had “found in the Qs stores”, this liquid smelt like pure creosote and its colour matched the wood surface of the bog seat.
The first person to use the bog did not notice the drops of liquid on the seat and sat down, did his business, finished the paperwork, got his gear back on and came back to the wagons.
A short while later cue the uncomfortable shuffling and wriggling shortly followed by dropping of keks to see what looked to be the result of a nasty attack of blister agent all around the arrse area and nearly reaching to the plumbing.
Much sympathy was given...not.

Old and Bold will remember pre-Turdis days of self dug long drops on various German training areas.

Possibly the most famous, or infamous, was the multi occupant (30 seater?) on Rheinsehlen Camp. It was water flushed, but the flush wasn't controlled by the occupants.

Instead, a large cistern filled up, then let go of its own accord like a tsunami. Not too bad if you were near the start, but by the time that wall of water reached the far end, along with whatever or whoever was in the depths (or got sucked in by the vacuum), well imagine a Vesuvius of sh1te, drowned rats, old wonk mags....


Another favourite was at Sennelager, during NITAT training. About 1975 our neighbours there were some Scots mob. Apart from insisting on doing reveille with bagpipes, they also scoured the thunderbox seats every morning with caustic soda.

Picture, if you will, a poor young Gunner after a week in Tin City and nights on the Strip, savagely awakened by catstrangling across the camp. He goes off for his morning ablutions. then we hear the screams.

Moments later, said Gunner is seen trying to run with pants around ankles, arrse glowing red and, the cherry on the cake, so to speak, a large thunderbox rat with its teeth sunk into his nuts swinging along.

Laugh? We near shat ourselves.

south stack light house for RLI rescue..it was us being picked up.. and on top of the cliff theres two planks..no comments plz...

i asked what they where for.. i was told.. i did not beleave him as i could not see how it worked.. i did find out later on..

the next day the heli dropped a lass into said hole and sat her on said planks..

It was just another dull, damp Monday morning in the UK - until I read this thread