Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre: 1985 Documentary

In my swanning about on the internet recently looking for stuff about fighting in Norway, I stumbled across this set of 30 odd minutes documentaries from 1985, following a bunch of blokes as they try to become Mountain Leaders in the Royal Marine Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre.  I've watched several already and have found them very enjoyable - and I've even changed how I was painting my Royal Marines as a result - so I thought I would share:















Hope you enjoy!

Richard

 

Bundeswehr Training Films

On a bit of a West German bent - so yesterday I was trolling through this thread on militaryphotos.net when I came across a series of training movies set in the 1980's from youtube.

I watched the first one (split into 4 on youtube) and thought it was worth sharing. Now I don't speak German (yet another failing of my education) but found this relatively easy to follow - even with the sound right down.

This first one is more of a history lesson but has some good World war Two training footage of grenadiers attacking Soviet T-34s towards the middle. It also shows how an infantryman is seen from a tank which is quite interesting and a couple of the scenes appear to me to be direct copies of real actions from Normandy.



The second one is where we really join the action. A small Bundeswehr engineering detachment (well that's whatI think they are) are attacked by "Soviet tanks" and have to defend themselves with liechten panzerfaust. As I understand it (from reading a tranlation) the dialogue is appalling - but this is where not speaking German is a good thing. One interesting thing for the wargamer - German infantrty fighting in blue uniforms...



The third film has a "standard" infantry unit defending against an armoured attack. I assume that the armour is supposed to represent BMPs. These are hunted down by a panzerjager team with Panzerfaust 3's. One is taken out by a Marder in a classic scene. One of the things I found interesting in this part was the infantry defending a forest - not from the edge of the forest, but well back from the tree line.



The battle continues into part four - with some good scenes in trenches and with a Panzerfaust 3.



Take some time and have a look - it's well worth it.

Have fun

Richard

Last Flight of the Harrier

Now I know this doesn’t fit in with my standard Cold War timeframe – but this news is just to sad for any long term Harrier Jump Jet lover to not comment on.

I was at high school in the 1980s and interested in all things military, so was probably heavily influenced by the success of the Harriers involved in the Falklands War. About this time we had a teacher who loved planes and showed us instructional movies on the Harrier that I found simply fascinating. I one point I was already to join the Royal Australian Navy because we were going to buy the HMS Invincible and I want to fly Sea Harriers!

Well, yesterday (my time) was the last flight of the Harrier in service with the RAF and Royal Navy. I don’t live in the UK so am a little distant from the whole argument as to why this is happening – years before the Joint Strike Fighter comes into service – and when I read comments like the following from the ABC website you have to wonder:
“Despite objections from the army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF), the decommissioning of the last 16 jets went ahead anyway.
The British government claims the plane's retirement is not just about cost cutting, but many believe there is no sound military reason for their mothballing.”
So – in memory of a revolutionary and awesome plane – here’s a few more Harrier clips:








In Oz we’ve just decommissioned our F-111s so it sad all round

So have fun

Richard

Able Archer - 1983

About a year ago or so SBS TV in Australia showed a brilliant documentary about the Cold War - in particular a NATO command post exercise called "Able Archer" which inadvertantly almost lead to the Cold War.

This is well worth watching - if only to get a glimpse into the Soviet mind-set and the paranoia at the time amongst the Kremlin leadership with regard to the US Build up of nuclear forces in the early 1980's. There is also the eighties music playing through the doco!

So please - if you have the time - watch this doco

















Have fun

Richard

Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle - ENGINEERS

Over lunch today I watched this episode of Soldiers, focused on Engineers. Like all episodes of the show it is full of good stuff, and as a bonus for this blog, has some great shots of the contemporary British Army in action. The episode shows British sappers in action looking for mines, bridging a small river in Germany and then having Chieftains cross the river.

It also shows a variety of 1980's British engineering vehicles in action.

Obviously its full of other great stuff so please - sit back and enjoy this next episode of Soldiers.















Painting plenty - but all for a WWII tournament I'm helping to run in Sydney at MOAB - so not so much 1980's kit at the moment. Hence these last couple of filler updates - but I always wanted to have these up on the blog, so there you go.

Have fun

Richard

Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle - INFANTRY

I should be painting - but I'm too tired - so I thought I'd have a quick look at a documentary on Youtube. This episode of Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle as some great shots of British Infantry at work and in training so I thought it might be the right time to put it up on the blog.

So here it is

















Worth watching just to see the bayonet training!

Have fun

Richard

Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle - Tanks

In the grand tradition (in all of 4 months of blogging) I've established here of "borrowing" things from off youtube and posting them here in order, I'd like to give you now one of my favourite docos from the 1980's.

It's called "Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle" and its narrated by Frederick Forsyth. At the time I thought this show was outstanding and I have always tried to find it on DVD - but have been unable to.

Now some kind soul has posted it up on Youtube - so I thought I would put it up here. Now as I've been posting a lot of stuff about tanks lately, I've decided to start with that particular episode.

So here goes...

Sit back and enjoy.













Have fun

Richard

Some SAS Video links...

According to wikipedia:

For much of the Cold War 21 SAS's role was to provide stay-behind parties in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of western Europe (as part of the Corps Patrol Unit alongside 23 SAS and The Honourable Artillery Company).

I didn't add any video links in the previous SAS post - but I had seen some on Youtube. So these relate to the SAS in the Falkland's War so are not totally relevant - but the uniform's etc are all the same.

So without further ado...







Here are some links to some Weaponology episdoes on the SAS - a bit OTT but it has some interesting stuff anyway:











These ones are from the excellent SAS Heroes Show - recently shown on BBC Knowledge in Oz - this one is on the Iranian Embassy Raid in 1980:











That's probably enough for now...

Have fun

Richard