Originally Posted by Brotherton Lad

It was Coke in the waisted bottles. The 2 chaps are Norwegian Army LOs and, yes, fly's eyes orange snow shades, NATO planks etc. 1980 above the Mjoelfjell ranges.

Sadly the camp at Voss is now shut, so I imagine the satellite camps at Mjolfjell and Brand? are too. Great people to work with, the Norwegians. Camp handover consisted of "Here are your keys". An absolute lack of BS that we could learn a lot from.


Best bit of kit ? Big green Aladdin Thermos. So many people had them that the range staff thought they were issue kit.
Worst bit of kit ? Honours shared by Shirts, Itchy and that god-awful Bacon Grill.

Boot-blacked 38 pattern webbing at arborfield apprentices in the 70's, as ally as you like in black webbing years before it became fashionable with walts, swats, and airsofters.

Originally Posted by re-stilly

What about the lightweight patrol boots that were issued. They were cracking bits of kit.

Got them issued for a 6 month " trip " in the dear green boggy land , as soon as it rained ( which it did quite a lot ) they fell apart , rumour has it they were made out of compressed cardboard , still , better than boots DMS and brown bandages .

Originally Posted by naguere

Originally Posted by Rodney2q

I visited East Berlin several times in the 80's and got to see some of the Soviet conscripts close up.

Spotty, ill fitting uniforms and certainly not as well trained. They didn't seem quite to scary afterwards.



...but you had to have some respect for their numbers and armour! Quantity has a quality all of its own as Stalin said.

But they don't wear socks, they had a sort of cotton wrapping cloth for each foot,
and still do.

What's that all about?

Actually the Finns, Russians and other former Sov states binned портянки (portyanki) in favour of socks a few years back, and if you're going to tab anywhere it's easy to understand why.

I was told they're supposed to have been popular in europe in the C17th and the Russians nicked the idea from the Cloggies. Fcuk knows what they used prior to that if they thought wrapping your snot rag round your plates was state-of-the-art footcare.

Originally Posted by samain11

Boot-blacked 38 pattern webbing at arborfield apprentices in the 70's, as ally as you like in black webbing years before it became fashionable with walts, swats, and airsofters.

Most have been a Boy Soldier thing as we had the same in Junior Riflemens Company at The Rifle Depot, Winchester in '77, until we passed off the square and were allowed to wear Stable belts and Berets.

Also had to wear pressed fecking covies for awhile too...ironing them was fun..durch.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the best bit of kit the British Army has ever had!!!!

(BIG DRUM ROLL)

The Bedford MJ 4x4 GS Cargo truck.

The company will prepare to move from grid ???? to grid ???? by helicopter - look here they come driving along that road over there.

Originally Posted by wet_blobby

We all know the SLR was the dogs danglies, could shoot down a deathstar just by being cocked, let alone unleashing the big boys 7.62 love slug.

So got me thinking what else was better than today's kit. This has probably been done before but fuck it, I 'm a computer biff and cant find the thread. I nominate the Itchy shirt. Once that thing had been relentlessly washed, ironed and washed and ironed again it was comfy as fuck, you could iron it with a bit of starch and wear it all day and it wouldn't get creased, unlike that pile of crap that replaced it. Iron that crap, put it on, move or God forbid sit down and lean on something and it was creased to fuck for the rest of the day.

Trousers O.G.

Unequivocally the most comfortablest (?) trousers. Designed by God, and tailored by Joseph of Arimathea, I have never worn a trouser better cut for the kind of physical activity involved in so'jering.

Only drawbacks were (a) On the 'alliness' front - you had to tailor them (sooo baggy when issued), and (b) On the husbandry front: being 100% cotton, they were prone to sudden, unpredictable disintegration, so on ops, you had to have a backup plan in case it happened to you t'day . . .

PCS combat trousers (in MTP cam, ripstop) cut like trousers OG - that'd be close to comfort and functional heaven, I woulda thought.

The 'green chimp' and the best bit of kit ever produced - the FRG.

Smartest I ever looked was heavy duty jumper, blue pt shorts, DMS boots, green nylon socks rolled down carrying a green towel rolled up with a pair of enormous blue swimming trunks in the middle carried under the left arm marching proudly to the swimming pool at Shornecliff IJLB.

Originally Posted by uncle_ho

Smartest I ever looked was heavy duty jumper, blue pt shorts, DMS boots, green nylon socks rolled down carrying a green towel rolled up with a pair of enormous blue swimming trunks in the middle carried under the left arm marching proudly to the swimming pool at Shornecliff IJLB.

You'd have looked smarter in a pair of black road slappers.