Those bloody helmets the old steel helmet type with visor's bring back memory's, try running in one bouncing around like mad with the visor doing an impression of a pecking bird.
saw a guy almost kill himself, he exited the back of a Land rover (with full makrolon shielding) with his visor at the back of the helmet, and it caught on the top lip of the door,he ended up on the deck, luckily no damage done.
1972 we wore the (new) DPM with flack jacket over it. DMS boots, beret. Rifle sling (SLR) was attached to front swivvle only, other end looped round wrist.
One of my first duties was to escort an item to police forensic lab in Belfast.
Item was a flack jacket with small hole in front breast, large (dinner plate size) hole in rear!
And the Macralon armour on our Rovers broke off & splintered when hit by a half brick !!!
I used to drive around in a Morris 2200 (land crab) car that was civvy looking but it had perspex windows and was lined with makrolon. Very heavy, very slow and impossible to stop but the makrolon did stop a crossbow bolt from hitting me.
I wore a beret when in uniform but most of the time I was in civvies and armed a la James Bond. I do not know how I got away with it!!!
Of course the first thing was done, the trousers had to be tailored so out came the needle and thread. Our boots had to be polished and the toecaps bulled up before we went out on foot patrol or static duty in sangers made of sand bags or sentry box mad up of two corrugated sheets with a roof , what a load of crap that was. We had neither flak jackets or shields. to protect us from flying objects, the good old days
In 1970 we were issued camouflage combats and the next tour to Belfast 1970/71 that's what we wore. I was dab hand with needle and thread, so the trousers taken in, hated any thing baggy, but our boots had to be polished. We were issued with flak jackets, and still had to wear the old type of helmet with no face shield. They were mad up of some sort woven fibre that would only stop a nine mil above that it was luck if you got hit and survived,
1972/73 again in Belfast, not much better. Sangers were not made of sandbags, but breezblocks, still bloody cold
Those old combats take be back a long way, if I remember they were shower proof but not rain proof and it didn’t take long for the dampness to creep into your bones.
I was with the Gloster’s in Belfast in 1975/6 and if my old brain cells are still working, I believe that Smithy was in the old chapel.
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