Anyone know what the improvements to the gunnery electrictronics on the Challenger in the CAT cup debacle? I know they tried to improve the loading time by making the breech close when the loaders guard was made. I also know they had a dot which followed the comanders sight? What else did they do?

I was the Colonels operator, Twiggy Thompson a thumping good chap and he was 'shot' following the poor show. Never knew what the improvements were though

Originally Posted by StumpyHussar

Anyone know what the improvements to the gunnery electrictronics on the Challenger in the CAT cup debacle? I know they tried to improve the loading time by making the breech close when the loaders guard was made. I also know they had a dot which followed the comanders sight? What else did they do?

I was the Colonels operator, Twiggy Thompson a thumping good chap and he was 'shot' following the poor show. Never knew what the improvements were though

We stopped entering the CAT Cup for one!

Of course Twiggy was a Bon Oeuf, trained by the 11th.

No real changes to the Chally 1 FCS. We went to Gramby with bulk standard tanks as per pre CAT Cup. Nothing really happened FCS wise until CR2. Also bear in mind thatthe CAT Cup failure was not all down to FCS issues although they didnt help. There were rules for 3 and 4 tank troops that contributed and the issues with split ammo over single piece ammo. At the end of the day CR1 was an up engined Chieftain so was never really going to do any better than before, it wasn't a new tank. Performed well on Gramby though. You would have crewed CR1 post CAT Cup surely (although not on Gramby as i remember) ..............did you take no notice of what was going on in the turret titch!

Originally Posted by soprano54

We stopped entering the CAT Cup for one!

I was SO2 Training and Ops at CRAC in 1992, we looked at re-entering CAT at that time, my job was to write the paper as to why we should not. CR1 was sadly not a good gunnery competition tank. The original block 1 CR1 the RH used in CAT had aluminium turret rings that, simply, made it impossible to be accurate to the requirements of CAT. CR1 that deployed to GW1 was a very different tank from the block 1's to the extent that no block 1's were deployed.

CAT was a bit of silly competition but our abject failure in it was not good.

I thought those tanks that went to Gramby were different in as much as they had the Armoured charge bins and some 'Desertisation' but basically the same tank with the TOGS upgrades (Different form the TOGS that we used on CAT and the original issued version). I didnt do CAT, that was down to the poor guys in B Sqn who took the rap for it unfairly but I would have thought that 'very different tank' was a bit of an overstatement.

Just to be pedantic.....Granby not Gramby.

And while I'm at it...CAT, Canadian Army Trophy therefore not the CAT cup cos that just wouldn't make sense, the trophy cup?

There were basically 3 blocks of CR1 manufactured, the first batch, that would have been delivered to Iran were not very good and had a lower grade of armour and technical specification than the 2 later batches.

Hence with Granby only block 2 and 3 were deployed, that is why at 14/20th in second deployment we could not take all our fleet and that is why entire CR1 fleet was disabled to produce the deployable ones, 3 RTR had the brand spanking block 3 but they were in NI, when they got back they had no tanks left.

Originally Posted by Boxy

Just to be pedantic.....Granby not Gramby.

And while I'm at it...CAT, Canadian Army Trophy therefore not the CAT cup cos that just wouldn't make sense, the trophy cup?

yeah yeah yeah, happy with the pedantic stuff, all i had to do was go there and get well and truly fucked about by LG. I didnt really care what it was called but i take the point. At the end of CAT were the winners presented with a cup because that would then give me the opportunity to be pedantic back which would be nice.......................

Originally Posted by crimsonhussar

yeah yeah yeah, happy with the pedantic stuff, all i had to do was go there and get well and truly fucked about by LG. I didnt really care what it was called but i take the point. At the end of CAT were the winners presented with a cup because that would then give me the opportunity to be pedantic back which would be nice.......................

Sadly no one in British Armoured Corps would know that.... we never won it!!!!!!