FTX Lionheart etc.

Discussion in 'Postwar' started by AJ Jones, Nov 10, 2018.

  1. AJ Jones

    AJ Jones Junior Member

    Hello,
    back in the 1980s the British army used to stage these big maneuvers in the autumn.
    • Spearpoint“ - 14. - 26. September 1980
    • „Lionheart“ - 3. - 28. September 1984
    • „Eternal Triangle“ - 20. Oktober - 7. November 1986
    • „Iron Hammer“ - 1. - 27. November 1988
    • „Key Flight“ - 10. - 29. September 1989
    The fields, forest and villages used to be full of soldiers and equipment and the children from our village Ummern bugged the soldiers to give us chocolate and sweets.

    One such maneuver was particularly interesting because a tank column had tried to pass our village by and ended up in a swap. Lots of tanks skidded off the road and lay in the ditches left and right. This gave us the opportunity to bug the Brits even more ;-)

    To me these encounters were an opportunity to practice my English on "real" British people. Probably the best memory I have is when I got some shepherd’s pie in a field kitchen. Most of the soldiers were always very friendly and for some reason they always wanted to know if I had any sisters.

    Eventually big tank recovery vehicles arrived and towed the whole group out by positioning themselves on the main road using very long wire cables. Unfortunately I cannot precisely say which year all of this happened but it might have been 1986 or 1988.

    Perhaps there is somebody out there who remembers any such “adventures” and wants to share his memories here.

    Best regards
    Chris
     
  2. Alex1975uk

    Alex1975uk Well-Known Member

    Hi.
    If you have Facebook there are pages with photos of those exercises.

    Alex
     
  3. minden1759

    minden1759 Senior Member

    I was on Ex LIONHEART in Sep 80.

    I defended a bridge somewhere in West Germany for 10 days as part of a Reserved Demolition. Being a private soldier at the time, I did not know that it was a Reserved Demotion - it was just a trench to me, and I did not know where it was. It was a eureka moment because it confirmed that I wanted to be an infantry officer. I needed to know a lot more about what on earth was going on and why.

    F
     
    Capt.Sensible likes this.
  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I did Ex Bold Guard 86 & Bold Grouse 88 as part of UKMF.
    They were in Schleswig-Holstein & Denmark.
     

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