Article Bombers second Tour 10th January - 16th July 1992

[Bombardier]

Well actually Rotor me ole chum, this particular tour was mostly Rural areas, apart from the odd town we had to navigate through. I have however done a tour where 100% of our patroling was Urban. It can be pretty hairy but I dont think its much different to the jungle in that you dont know where your opponent is. :shock:

 

[rotorwash]

Good point, but in the jungle you and your opponent are out of context, in the urban areas, man built it, he belongs there.

 

[Bombardier]

True, very true.

 

[Frisco-Kid]

Andy, thanks for the great response. Pretty interesting stuff. Would you guys set up for the night at a different spot each night, or return to a main basecamp or CP each night? Were you allowed to live off of the local economy at all, i.e., buy a local meal, stay at a local hostel, etc.? I can definately see where you could be susceptible to being ambushed, but were you ever able to ambush the Bad Guys? I figure this could probably be hard to do, not wanting to ambush some innocent locals, but would a curfew be put on a road and anybody on it after curfew could be construed as a combatant? I can see several parallels between VN and NI.

 

[Bombardier]

Frisco, we would set up a base camp within a wood/forest and use a different place each night. during the night we would conduct 4 man patrols around the area. We would never return to a base camp until the patrol was over. We did on occasion find a friendly farmer who would sell us fresh eggs and milk but we would avoid going to shops and would never stay at a hotel or B+B. We would never set up ambush but would constantly look for contact at the usual places, normally on un-manned border crossing points. As far as curfews, this is something we would avoid doing, yes it would be combatant and would piss the decent local people off to no end.

I agree definately some slight similarities with VN :mrgreen:

If you look back through my posts to where I have posted links to images, you will see soldiers assisting the RUC at one such un-manned border crossing point. :mrgreen:

 

[Frisco-Kid]

Thanks for all the great info, Bomb.

 

[Bombardier]

No probelemo buddy. just glad I can offer you something in return for all your great posts. :mrgreen:

 

[Bigbird]

Very interesting Bombardier. Is there much left to this escapade?.
Great pictures.

 

[kenskydiver]

N.i.

Tom
Just been reading the interchange between you and Bombardier (interestingly enough he is helping with a small contribution to my book "Forgotten Voices of Northern Ireland: Squaddies Voices" (web site www.forgotten-voices.co.uk) I too served in NI (1969 and 1971) and have some interesting stories to tell. look at my website and you will see where I am coming from. A lot of my memories are bitter ones, mind. Where in the US do you hail from ? I skydived at Titusville,and Deland in Florida last year.
Best wishes, mate
Ken

 

[GeeDubYa]

Hi Frisco.
Well we used to patrol in teams of 4 men, commonly known as 'bricks' we had 3 bricks which made up what we called a 'multiple'. A second Leiutenant would command one brick and either a Lance Bombardier or Bombardier would command the other 2, Obviously in theory the 2LT would command the entire multiple, but in practice this was not always the case, for obvious reasons.
We would carry enough food, ammo and sleeping and cooking equipment for about 5-6 days worth of patrol. The rucksacks would also contain some electronic counter measures (cant really go into that too much) but it was large, so some of the carriers kit would be shared around the brick.
The patrols were rural and in the case of Operation Loren were to show a prescence more than anything. However the patrols were designed to restrict our opponents movements throughout the area by use of Vehicle check points etc.
We were usually inserted by Chopper, either lynx, Puma or Chinook. Although on occasion we would use covert vehicles such as large vans, and usually only at night.
I never had a contact but the possibility was always there, I put that down to good patroling techniques Lol :mrgreen:
If we did have a contact then the call would be made and further troops would be deployed and would include some Helo support in the form of a Lynx with a 7.62mm Machine gun and no more than that.

Hope this answers your questions sufficiently buddy. :mrgreen:

The rucksacks would also contain some electronic counter measures (cant really go into that too much) but it was large

That was some of the stuff we repaired at NIEW (not I, I repaired explosive detectors)