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Ex Iron Hammer Footage

Just come across this which has some great footage I'd not seen yet (this is quite a recent upload) and had some horrible flashbacks of an 18 year old Speedy freezing his nuts off (OK, I was driving P Info bods, so not that cold!).



Apologies if this has been posted before, but not found it after a quick search. Very interesting to see the Warsaw Pact observers towards the end and mismatched kit as SA80 and the new helmets were coming into usage.
 
Just come across this which has some great footage I'd not seen yet (this is quite a recent upload) and had some horrible flashbacks of an 18 year old Speedy freezing his nuts off (OK, I was driving P Info bods, so not that cold!).



Apologies if this has been posted before, but not found it after a quick search. Very interesting to see the Warsaw Pact observers towards the end and mismatched kit as SA80 and the new helmets were coming into usage.

I didn’t realise there was so much snow during the exercise as I was in HQ 4 Armd Bde so never saw the outside world for the whole exercise, was very cold though as you mention.

The WP observers were interesting, we had to host a lunch for them in the field, conversation was difficult as most claimed not to speak any English and there were not many interpreters with them though once the vino did it’s work some did reveal their linguistic abilities.
 
Brill, I think I umpired on that one. Did it end early because heavy snow made the roads dangerous? I remember infantry trying to warm up round fires of wet/damp wood until they were allowed to go home. We had a 9x9 which we pitched round the back of a Gasthof and a kero heater so we were pretty comfortable
 
Just come across this which has some great footage I'd not seen yet (this is quite a recent upload) and had some horrible flashbacks of an 18 year old Speedy freezing his nuts off (OK, I was driving P Info bods, so not that cold!).



Apologies if this has been posted before, but not found it after a quick search. Very interesting to see the Warsaw Pact observers towards the end and mismatched kit as SA80 and the new helmets were coming into usage.

Sterling hung on back of Panzer , surprise contact , next thing to happen ?
 
I was on that with 16/5L. I recall it was bloody cold, I'm pretty sure the Ex got suspended for a couple of days and we were told to find a barn to lay up in because of the snow and temperature. My veh comd wasn't too happy about that as he thought it wasn't realistic enough, we were happy though. Great to see all the old kit, surprised there were Scorpion there, I can only think they were Inf close recce, as we as cav had got rid of it by then.
 
I was on that with 16/5L. I recall it was bloody cold, I'm pretty sure the Ex got suspended for a couple of days and we were told to find a barn to lay up in because of the snow and temperature. My veh comd wasn't too happy about that as he thought it wasn't realistic enough, we were happy though. Great to see all the old kit, surprised there were Scorpion there, I can only think they were Inf close recce, as we as cav had got rid of it by then.
I believe that Scorpion was still in service as the close recce vehicle for the Armoured Regts at the time, whilst the Inf Bns had Scimitar, as did the formation recce regts.
 
You know your old when you see the Imperial War Museum logo in the corner.
I wasn't there, but the wooded starting scene was a flash back to BAOR and combat team hides in the early 80s.
Thanks for posting.
 
Where was Wolfgang? :dance::hungry:

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Brill, I think I umpired on that one. Did it end early because heavy snow made the roads dangerous? I remember infantry trying to warm up round fires of wet/damp wood until they were allowed to go home. We had a 9x9 which we pitched round the back of a Gasthof and a kero heater so we were pretty comfortable
I don’t think it ended early, but it was effectively suspended for a few days. We (Close Support Engineer Squadron) were lagered up on top of hill for a few days; nothing could go down the hill because the routes were too icy.

IIRC it was supposed to end with a Divisional Counter Stroke but Endex was called as the lead Brigades hit the line of departure.

Happy, but very cold days....
 
I don’t think it ended early, but it was effectively suspended for a few days. We (Close Support Engineer Squadron) were lagered up on top of hill for a few days; nothing could go down the hill because the routes were too icy.

IIRC it was supposed to end with a Divisional Counter Stroke but Endex was called as the lead Brigades hit the line of departure.

Happy, but very cold days....
It sounds more like Operation Typhoon in 1941. All you needed was the counter attack by the Siberian Divisions.
 
It sounds more like Operation Typhoon in 1941. All you needed was the counter attack by the Siberian Divisions.
IIRC it would have been the first (and only) time the British Army had attempted a Counter Stroke since WW2, albeit (and obviously) only in training.

Iron Hammer was supposed to be the culmination of the doctrinal shift from positional defence to manoeuvre warfare that Bagnall started. Of course, that shift ended up as a blind alley because the Berlin Wall fell within months.

The exercise was supposed to be quite different from previous Divisional FTXs, with a lot more Brigade level manoeuvre. Not very sensible holding it in November though; IIRC a lot of the manoeuvre never happened because of the weather. We ended up shivering in the woods.
 
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