V BOMBER TELESCRAMBLE

[Sisemen]

Thought this might be of interest to a few on here. Taken from the RAF Bawtry (HQ 1 Gp) Facebook page.

Recollections from Headquarters 1 Group RAF Bawtry Hall, RAF Finningley and the Bomber Box.

Although I worked for the General Post Office (GPO) or BT as it became, most of my working life was spent on attachment to the RAF, working at HQ 1 Group RAF Bawtry, RAF Finningley, RAF Lindholm and RAF Northern Radar. Part of my work involved maintaining the "Bomber Box" as we called it; I think the RAF knew it as "Telescramble".This system comprised of two ring circuits. One started at Strike Command HQ at RAF High Wycombe and went all the way round the country to 1Gp HQ RAF Bawtry Hall and finished up back at Strike, the other circuit Started At RAF Bawtry and likewise all around the country to Strike and back to Bawtry. The two rings were collectively known as PW (Private Wire) 7892.Each Bomber station in the UK had two feeds into it, one from the Bawtry loop and one from Strike loop. These feeds were monitored by a carrier tone and if one of the circuits failed it automatically changed over to the other loop, also either Strike or Bawtry operations could take over as Bomber Controller. My two feeds at Finningley were PW 7892/28 and PW 7892/128.The ‘Bomber Box’ system at Finningley was distributed to control boxes in Station Ops, COC (Combined Operations Centre) Ops, ATC and the four Vulcan dispersal Ops situated around the airfield. There was a feed from control boxes at these dispersal Ops, out onto the associated pans via “Goosenecks”; rubber connectors situated on the grass between the pans. The “V” bombers were connected via a flexible cable plugged into the underside rear of the aircraft (See picture, middle plug), which then put the aircraft online into the system. Any broadcast from Strike Command or Bawtry came directly to the pilot and crew via their headsets; the local Ops could speak forwards to the aircraft on their dispersal pans but not back into the system. In this way aircraft could be brought to readiness.At the side of the threshold of runway 20 at Finningley was the ORP; Operational Readiness Platform. This is where up to four aircraft were parked ready to take off. The aircraft were also plugged into the “Bomber Box” system but the lead connecting the line to the aircraft was tethered to the ground by a chain, and when the spine chilling command “Finningley Vulcans scramble, scramble, scramble” came over the system to the crews headsets, the aircraft throttled up and one at a time they taxied directly on to the runway to depart to their designated targets with a body shaking roar. As they did so, the connection unplugged from the aircraft and dropped to the ground. The crew of the aircraft departed Finningley not knowing whether they would ever return; or if they did what would be awaiting them. This of course, took place at all the “V” bomber airfields around the country.Should the system go out of action nationally due to enemy action, the bomber controllers at Bawtry or Strike Ops could talk to the individual station Ops by radio and then the relevant Station Ops could scramble their aircraft.This maintenance of the “Bomber Box” and other equipment on the RAF stations I looked after was my small contribution to keeping the peace during the latter part of the “Cold War”. © Derek Frost GPO/BT engineer retired.

The 'Telescramble' connection mentioned in Derek's article with the two pin connection socket in the middle.

[boing]

Sise,

I sat at your "Bomber Box" in Finningly for several months as Operations Officer awaiting a slot at 230 OCU. When you heard the preamble " Attemtion, Attention this is the Bomber Controller for XXXXX. " it was always interesting to see what came next. Hopefully not "for the QRA force -- Scramble, for the QRA force -- Scramble". That would ruin your night, still - not much paperwork to do.



The B2s were a bit smoky at high power and low altitude.
The crews would also not have been quite so casual for the real party.

The crew of the aircraft departed Finningley not knowing whether they would ever return; or if they did what would be awaiting them. This of course, took place at all the “V” bomber airfields around the country.

Of course nobody spoke about this openly but inside I think nearly everyone saw an actual attack on Russia as more of a revenge mission than a strategic strike, I certainly did. They knew that minutes after they had got airborne the airfield and the local area would be subject to vaporization.



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[Sisemen]

I sat at your "Bomber Box" in Finningly

Not mine - I was on BCDU! The text is from an article by a Derek Frost, GPO engineer.

[boing]

That's OK, we were all on the same team.

[Pontius Navigator]

Thank you. That of course was a very specific time period.

Around 1967, as it was frequently proven for the lines to fail, more lines were installed. Initially this was increased to 4 and subsequently 8. This of course was possible as we switched from lines to microwave. I think the stations had just the 4.

At the desk at Waddington we had lights to monitor the lines in addition to the confidence beep every 30 seconds or so. We would 'tune' out and usually notice the silence.

On one occasion in 1967 all aircraft were dispersed on exercise and had been brought to co cockpit readiness. We got a call from Machrihanish that their line had gone down and also that one if the aircraft had gone u/s with an oxygen fault. Then the PBX line went too - this was the old manual system.

I was told to get a line and order the captain to scramble and then abort with a peacetime safety of flight fault.

I got one in the girls in ops to place a flash call and I called the GPO and placed a Military Flash call. The GPO won.

Line outages were common and it was frequently the West side trunk breached by a JCB in the Midlands. Microwave towers improved things but raised the spectre of intercept by the Sovs. While land lines were not secure they were better than microwave. If we needed to make a sensitive call we would call the operator and place a Modicum call which would be routed by landline. No idea how often that was ever done.

[Pontius Navigator]

Siseman, I presume you can contact DF through FB?

[Sisemen]

Will try, but the passage was posted by someone else. Derek Frost isn't known to me.

Moving on.... I remember a security briefing once where it was mentioned that the Soviets had bought a country mansion for "R & R" for their London staff. Why that particular place, which didn't have a lot going for it location-wise or ambience-wise? Apparently it was in a prime position to 'bend' the microwaves emanating from High Wycombe and listen in!!!

[llondel]

No concept of maintaining separation to avoid wake turbulence then.

As for 'revenge', surely that was the whole point of it. No one wanted to start something because they knew they'd get clobbered too.

[boing]

llondel

The target was given at least a facade of strategic or tactical necessity. Nobody said just go and drop that thing somewhere in the middle of a big city, doesn't really matter where. The actual targets were usually militarily connected even though everyone really knew that after the first opening salvos the command and control points etc. that we were going after were probably non-functional in any case. For example, I remember targets that were military airfields miles from the nearest cities. In terms of conventional warfare they would have been quite logical and important targets but under the conditions of a nuclear exchange they were really irrelevant.

I suppose you could say that we trained for and assumed a logical war with logical strategic targets but we really knew that we were doing it because of the wife and kids.


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[boing]

On the wake turbulence you will note that the first aircraft onto the runway taxied over to one side of the runway centreline. The idea was that alternate aircraft used the left or right side of the runway and immediately after lift-off you turned slightly away from the aircraft ahead of you to avoid his vortex. If the briefing plan still worked alternate aircraft were also supposed to climb steeply or shallowly to provide separation but that usually went out of the window and it became a case of finding a bit of sky that nobody else was using.

Four aircraft was no problem but I watched a scramble of 12 aircraft from a position half way down the runway and quite close to it which left the airfield in a deafening, shaking, exhaust shrouded hell. The ground was shaking and the air was torn apart by a continuous shrieking and thunder of engines. That really was a case of finding your own little space of clear air.


.

[Pontius Navigator]

The majority of targets, probably after the RN took over the immediate retaliation, were fighter airfields. Now in retrospect, apart from being overkill, it would have b*ggered up any Soviet fighter turn round plan and their chance of countering the B52s following through.

As far as the city targets boing mentioned, they were part of British plan for hitting the major cities in Russia. Boing is quite right, there was a fig leaf for the Geneva Convention that the targets had a Military function. One, for instance, was the headquarters of the Western Military District; this would probably have been abandoned come a war. An analogy would be the TA HQ in Lincoln.

[Cacophonix]

I assume that the plan for the opening salvo of such a war today, on all sides ( US, Russian or Chinese, at least, anyway), would involve lobbing nuke(s) primed to deliver a powerful EMP into the magnetosphere aligned to cause maximum communications and electronic and electrical disruption in the planned target areas before for the first salvo of ICBM's, SLBM's and slower Cruise Missiles had even made a part of the way to their ultimate targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Pr ... lear_tests

Caco

[Alisoncc]

Whilst the 'Muricans sincerely believed that the Cold War was all about them and the Soviets, on the line at Finningley we envisaged a totally different scenario.

There was a belief that the Russians regretted stopping at Berlin at the end of WWII. By taking out the UK and BAOR they could do a Blitzkrieg through Western Europe. Effectively extending the USSR through Greece, Italy, the low countries, France, Spain and Portugal, to encompass the whole of Europe.
Given the military state of Western Europe post WWII, this may have been quite achievable.

If the Septics were sufficiently distracted by a few nukes on the US, then the UK was all that stood between Soviet hegemony from the Atlantic to the Pacific. With a highly radio-active island off the coast of little concern. For them a worthwhile ambition.

Whilst our day-job at 230 OCU was building Vulcan crews, our aircraft and ground crews were considered Bomber Command assets, with operational aircrews racing up from Waddington to man the aircraft. Thus ORP's and QRA caravans during Mickey's and Mickey Finns were staffed by the likes of me. What fun, not.

If not rostered on one of 12 hour QRA shifts, then, in order to get everything flyable flyable, we ran everywhere. Irrespective of trade, we were a labour pool for everything from engine changes, to "on the jacks" for undercarriage checkouts, to hangar doors, etc. With Chiefies yelling across hangar floors to move it.

Alison

[ian16th]

Irrespective of trade, we were a labour pool for everything from engine changes, to "on the jacks" for undercarriage checkouts, to hangar doors, etc. With Chiefies yelling across hangar floors to move it.

Alison

This was SOP for any night shift for me.

Yes, you did 'your job' to de-snag and after-flight, after that it was all hands on deck, 'cos no one knocked off, until we all knocked off.

All of my time in Bomber Command, over 7 years, a Sqdn night shift started at 17:00 and ended when the last a/c had landed, was de-snagged and after-flighted.

At Lindholme on a foggy night, we sometimes knocked off with the day guys. On a bad night, we knocked off when the day guys came in at 08:00 next morning.

[Pontius Navigator]

Once, at Gan, the only NBS Tech was a Victor 1 tech. I got him to do an AUC change in the Vulcan 2. First task - show him where the H2S was.

We got into the scanner bay, me in desert boots and he in black shoes, leather soles and possibly steel tipped, and both of us just in shorts.

We got the one removed and I handed him the new one. At that moment, with the extra weight and leather shoes, he toboganned to the bottom of the radome narrowly missing the scanner assembly.

[boing]

As a young single officer put in charge of an activities club and hence meeting the younger technicians frequently I can say I had nothing but admiration for them. OK they were bolshi, OK they did not do more than was asked of them, OK they spent most of our club time getting up to things that would get me demoted but when the job was critical they were marvelously dedicated and even though we met the next day after a club meeting as officer and airman I never had one act with less than military correctness.

Happy retirement guys.


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[Alisoncc]

Thank you for your kind words Boing.

We got into the scanner bay, me in desert boots and he in black shoes, leather soles and possibly steel tipped, and both of us just in shorts.

Think the big black radome up front gave the Vulcan character. Removing it and replacing it with a nipple on a boil made them look effete. The black radome suggested they meant business.

Alison

[ian16th]

Once, at Gan, the only NBS Tech was a Victor 1 tech. I got him to do an AUC change in the Vulcan 2. First task - show him where the H2S was.

We got into the scanner bay, me in desert boots and he in black shoes, leather soles and possibly steel tipped, and both of us just in shorts.

We got the one removed and I handed him the new one. At that moment, with the extra weight and leather shoes, he toboganned to the bottom of the radome narrowly missing the scanner assembly.

PN,

I assume that you sweated as much in the front of your Vulcan, as I did up the back hatch of a Valiant on Gan, working on the Green Satin.
It was the only time in my more than 4 years on Valiant's that I had a problem with the mounting tray and cooling blowers.
A straight forward job, but it weren't 'alf 'ot Mum!
I was in there for about half an hour and had the Instrument guy holding a torch for me.
We were both running with sweat and when we walked into the air-conditioned Electronics Centre, we just about froze.

It must have been absolute hell working on Canberra's on Gan.

[Sisemen]

The black radome with TFR pod; red white and blue roundel and white undersides is the archetypal Vulcan.

XL 444.jpg (84.61 KiB) Viewed 722 times

[Alisoncc]

Sorry Sise, the configuration I much preferred didn't have the nipple on it's nose.

Ours were still going off to Woodford to get the new paint job when I first got to play. So we had some all white ones and some camouflaged ones.