Exercise Lionheart 84
 

Gents, I came across this poster amongst all my myriad of odds and sods. Anyone else there, laying waste to West Germany farmland and trashing village cobbled streets with 432's etc?

Bess

Took part in Crusader 80 , 432's and 436's (Cymbeline radar).

Ended up "track bashing" in the middle of a muddy field ! :mad:


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Yes, I was there together with the 1 DERR Battle Group. Terrific exercise and which, man for man - tank for tank, showed the World that the UK had the finest Armed Forces in NATO. Outstanding.

Remembered this from one of Ray Westlakes books.

P.

Was there. Have a booklet some where.

Chris

Sprog!
Spearhead ‘78 & Crusader ‘80 for me.

R&R in Hamburg, happy days.

I was Serving with The 4th / 7th Royal Dragoon Guards based at Detmold BAOR.

I remember it well longest exercise I have ever been on constantly moving to new locations.

Images attached Day 1 and later about three weeks in and on my second Land Rover.

I believe at that time largest movement of troops since the end of WW 2 was what we were told.

I recall queuing up to get free cigarettes war issue I collected them although I did not and have never smoked,much whinging going on I exchanged them for 2 box’s of beer after end ex they gave out newspapers re the exercise I still have them.

No R&R back to Barracks clean equipment and back to work as normal First Parade Monday.

A life time ago.

Regards
Stephen

Oh dear!!! I really am getting old. Sorry I was confused with LIONHEART and SPEARPOINT 80. We did not take part in the former but were at the forefront in 1980. Excuse me while I take my afternoon nap.

As a Yank, I was not aware of it, but of course am now enlightened. Really enjoyed the accounts from each of you.

Terry

Been there, did them ALL...Yeah :D

Forward site guard in 80 and Mobile Milan in stripped down land rovers in 84. Great fun. Both with 1 KOSB

Looking back now, the damage those large scale exercises caused (as crucial as they were of course) was pretty poor really.

The last really big one I took part in was 'Reforger 89'. Massive. Probably one of last of the big mass exercises (as the wall came down, shortly after ).

'Iron Hammer' was another . . .

Ah! Spearpoint 80. Gosh 41 years ago! I was with 5 Armd Wksp REME at the time and we ended up acting as umpires. I even got a copy of the official print. See attached.

Going back nearly 50 years, I was in 6 Armoured Brigade 1972-1974. We had deployed on the 4 Division Autumn 'big' FTX (EX FOREFRONT) during September and October 1973. Towards the end of October, ENDEX had been called and we were loaded for the move back to base (Soest/Korbecke) when we were told to unpack and 'cam up' as NATO had gone to DEFCON 2 or similar!
It turned out that Egypt, Syria and Israel were at war (Yom Kippur) and it was assessed by SACEUR that perhaps Warsaw Pact forces might use the opportunity to 'bounce' NATO and move into Western Europe. Thankfully of course they didn't!

Tim

My brother was on that. I did the "Polar Rock/Bear?" in 1990.