A Saturday Night Story - the Firepower Demonstration
About a million years ago, when I was commanding the Sultan of Oman's Artillery, it fell to me to organise and be responsible for, a demonstration of the Sultan's Army's and Air Force's capabilities. This was not just an entertainment - rather it was a demonstration to any of those in the country who wanted to challenge the Sultan's rule of just what they might be up against if they did so. There was thus something of a political imperative(sp) involved.
But in the army, demonstrations of this sort almost always fall to the artillery, the Gunners, almost the only people capable of reading a map and making their radios work! So of course it was down to me ...
For a demonstration the infantry are pushed to do anything very spectacular. What the audience wants is big bangs, which is what the Gunners and the Air Force can provide. So I duly required my 2i/c to set up an artificial "fort" built of oil drums about 500 metres in front of the grandstand, and a much larger one for the Air Force to attack, about 2,000 metres beyond. We rehearsed hely-ing(sp) in half a dozen 105mm light guns just in front of the spectators to have them then open fire over open sights and "destroy" the fort.
Come the day, all started pretty well until, come the light gun destruction of the close fort, I found that my 2i/c had used the wrong figures for calculating the safe distance of a 105mm round. Sitting next to the Sultan was the Minister for Islamic Affairs and a small shell frag came back and drew blood on his nose. Without a blink the Sultan leaned across and said "clearly you haven't said your prayers properly this morning, Minister!" Thank God it wasn't an eye!
Shortly afterwards the Parachute Company gave a demonstration drop. I had of course discussed this at length with the Company Commander beforehand and felt there should be no problem. But what he hadn't told me was that the last man in the stick was a "walad" - a boy of not more than about 5 stone. The whole stick went serenely down as planned while the boy got caught in what must have been a mini-thermal and started going upwards! He was hanging in the air for what seemed like minutes - while the next item of the demo was four Hawker Hunters coming in at 600mph from behind the stand to bomb the main fort in the distance - wow, was I sweating! But happily I had a rep from the Air Force beside me and, equally happily, his radio to the Hunters worked and they lifted up a couple of hundred feet to miss him (just) before they bombed the fort.
That is all rather exciting :) so not a job i could do though
He was no longer jean valjean but no. 24601 -les miserable
Some of life's mysteries will never be solved, such as why, after spending an entire evening listenong to Bach, do I find myself humming "the birdie song".......
I am reaching, but i fall, and the stars are black and cold, as i stare into the void of a world that cannot hold- les miserables
Im scared of loud bangs, so i rather think id have spent most of my time hiding under things if id been there
He was no longer jean valjean but no. 24601 -les miserable
Some of life's mysteries will never be solved, such as why, after spending an entire evening listenong to Bach, do I find myself humming "the birdie song".......
I am reaching, but i fall, and the stars are black and cold, as i stare into the void of a world that cannot hold- les miserables
Well, makedamnsure, I fear the parachutist wouldn't have survived being accelerated from nought to 600mph in a split second and, being at very low level, the pilot would probably have had to eject. But fortunately none of this was necessary. However it did bring home to me the dangers of recruiting mere boys into the army. They were all very keen to join up since we fed them properly (for the first time in their lives) and, in the Sultan's Artillery, we made a point of educating them to the point at which they could read and write and cope with basic maths. I liked to think that my regiment was as much a social service as an instrument of war ...
And the Salalah Plain, where the firepower demo took place had, a couple of years earlier, been the scene of a patrol of which I was part, which came under mortar fire from the jebel. You'd never believe how much comfort even a small 6" high rock can provide when you're lying totally exposed in the open! I brought down artillery fire on the wooded hills to our front while we withdrew gracefully. We were unharmed and I doubt that the adoo (enemy) were much damaged either. But it made a change from peacetime artillery practice on the ranges of Northern Germany.
Well, effervesence, try rodeos - I'm pretty sure radios is right. But the main thing as a soldier is to get them to work and thus allow sitreps and orders to flow.
I well remember an occasion on exercise in Germany when the Company Commander I was supporting said (in the middle of a particularly black autumn night) "well now, you're a Gunner, would you mind leading the Company - some 30-odd vehicles - to the Start Point for our river crossing". What a delegation of leadership! And the bugger later became a Major General, and I didn't!
