TACEVAL humour

[ricardian]

This was posted to an RAF Farcebook group just recently:

Sgt Regt decides he will use some of us as casualties.
We are made up to look the part.
One lad sits on the floor behind toilet door, another slouches across the table, I'm unconscious with a open fracture of my upper arm.
Plus four others made up including one acting in shock.
To make it more interesting it is a burning building so smoke canister set off in airlock between outer and inner door.
Ok they're on their way.
Canister let off, doors shut.
Doors open, place fills with smoke, that wasn't supposed to happen most of it should have gone outside from the airlock.
Big strapping WRAF steps in checks toilet but opens door with force, all we heard to start with was bang, scream, bang, ear piercing scream.
She had hit the door so hard it hit the lads head bouncing his head against the brick wall and back against the door.
The door was one of these that had about a 6 inch gap underneath and as she stepped forward the lads hand was on the floor and a large boot of a heavy WRAF stood on it.
Breaking 3 fingers and a bone in his hand.
He also now had concussion.
So from practise acting casualties to a real one.
To add to this because of the thick smoke the lad sprawled over the table was inadvertantly push off of it and table legs departed table top.
Remember the legs with the bolt?
Well some how he managed to land on one of the bolts which perforated his side, through his woolly pully and skin.
So 2 real casualties.
A Cpl rock shouted for everyone to stand still whilst another attempted to waft the smoke out of the building, in doing so caught a poor lowly SAC in the eye giving him a black eye.
Not to worry they had 2 field ambulances Landover type.
Med centre is given a call to say the made up casualties for the purpose of the exercise had now become 3 real casualties and would be transported once they had been attended to.
Meanwhile exercise casualties would continue in 2nd field ambulance.
SAC is placed on stretcher and dropped.
SAC put back on stretcher whilst moaning "That F in hurt"
As he is put into field ambulance his fingers got caught in the runners and he screamed.
So we now have, a concussed casualty with broken bones, a casualty with a bolt piercing his side with a lump of wood attached.
A casualty with a black eye and in the other landy an SAC with his fingers stuck between the side and the runner with blood dripping off.
They couldn't move him forward and they couldn't move him backwards either. So with the door slightly ajar they tied the doors shut the best they could.
Off they went.
Door tied landy in front, going down the main drag to the med center there was speed humps commonly known as sleeping snowdrops, landy goes over one, string snaps doors open SAC on stretcher slides out at speed into road and disappears under following landy and appears from under rear of said landy screaming as he rolled along the tarmac.
This type of exercise was never repeated.
It was like something out of a Carry On.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Superb. Even Dad's Army wouldn't have gone this far.....

[k3k3]

It's a good job I haven't got Ex-A's or OFSO's ribs.

[Boac]

I got scrambled in a Frightning onto a tanker towards the end of a TACEVAL at RAF Leuchars. While I was 'up there', doing not much but occasional prodding and some Tanker 'intercepts', TACEVAL ended. "Endex" said Buchan, "go home". Me, smartypants, said "authenticate Endex". They got it wrong. Back to the tanker for another drink (Tanker happy 'cos he can go home sooner without having to do ILS's and circuits for ever. ).

"Go home - Endex" said Buchan in a slightly more excitable voice. Same again. More prodding. "OPS order you to return". On it went. "Station Commander orders your return" You guessed it.... Much tittering on the freq on the towline.

After an hour, I said "OK, give me the nickname of my wife's car and I'll RTB." 20 minutes later, "Bye bye Tanker, thanks for the fun", and off I went. Mrs B much confused.

Mucho brown stuff in the air at base. I stood my ground. They were wrong Authentication at Buchan took a large lesson.

[Pontius Navigator]

Or a survival scramble to Kinloss, well we actually just set in the aircraft while Admin played nuclear amagedon. My skipper asked if we could open the rations. No. We asked again. Wait.
Then we were permitted to open the tea and coffee but not the food.
Over the RT "Munch munch"

Then there were the "I'm fed up"
"Who said that?"
"I'm fed up too"
"Unknown callsign, say callsign"
"I'm not that fed up"

[Boac]

Shades of the R/T at a training station in Yorkshire:

"God I'm bored"
"Station calling say again"
"I say again, I'm f**ing bored"
"Station calling say callsign"
"I'm not THAT f**ing bored"

[ExSp33db1rd]

After someone used the Fxxx word .......... ATC, don't use obscene language on the R/T. Unkown aircraft .... did someone say Fxxx ? Another unkown ... I didn't say Fxxx. Another unknown ...I didn't say Fxxx Another unkown ... Who said Fxxx Another Unknown ... I didn't say Fxxx either and so on for about 5 minutes.

[Ex-Ascot]

It's a good job I haven't got Ex-A's or OFSO's ribs.

Yes that did hurt. Brilliant.

[4mastacker]

Taceval at Leuchars. Pi$$ing down with rain and out guarding No 1 BFI with a self-loading pick axe handle and a bit of paper in me pocket stating it was loaded with 5 CPX rounds. The other guard was Cpl Jimmy Eckford who was a very dour Glaswegian. We had been on guard for over an hour, were pissed wet through and Jimmy was on the point of replicating a volcanic eruption - he had been enjoying some liquid refreshment in the Commie when Taceval was called.

He spotted a shape approaching the BFI and gave the usual challenges. The individual couldn't produce any ID so Jimmy goes into full-on aggressive mode. Tells the individual to face the f***** wall of the BFI office, f**** hands on the wall and to spread his f***** legs, Jimmy gave the leg spreading a little encouragement with his pick axe handle. Asked the individual again who he was and said "I dinnae f****** believe you. Get on the groond, face doon". At this point Jimmy told me to call the guard commander and let him know we had a suspected intruder.

Waited for a few minutes for the guard commander, all the while the "intruder" was complaining he was lying in a pool of water.

Guard commander arrived and the identity of the "intruder" confirmed - t'was a brand new Supply officer who had just been posted in. Turned out the Taceval team had roped him in to test the guards, thinking that most of the Sqn wouldn't recognise him. Jimmy was then introduced to his new flight commander.

[Pontius Navigator]

At ISK, bravely defending our coffee bar two Masters from the next lower numbered sqn made their way down the road on front of us.
It were very dark and they were very peed off. On being challenged they refused to identify themselves thinking we should recognise them. We didn't.
They spent the next 20 minutes spreasdeagled on the road. It was so cold the diesel in the power sets froze and had to be thawed out in the hangars. The temp was - 17 and ground probably lower.
Give them their due, they didn't complain.

[Pontius Navigator]

Another stn, the SAS bounced into the Mess, that Mess was technically no-play area. Anyway they ordered everyone up against the wall, everyone did except:

"I'm a VC10 captain and......." Whereupon the SAS assisted him. The blood washed off the wall quite easily.

[ricardian]

Army exercise on Salisbury Plain - it's December and it's a case of hurry up & wait as the cold, wet troops maintain watch on the radio network.

Outstation1: I'm a bear and I'm bored
Outstation2: I'm a bear too and I'm bored
Control: Cease chatter
Outstation3: I'm only a little bear and I'm frightened
Control: Cease chatter IMMEDIATELY!
Outstation1: He's frightening the little bear
Outstation2: He's not very nice is he
Control: All stations cease chatter immediately!
Outstation2: Oh dear! He's not a very happy bear is he

[Ex-Ascot]

The words Taceval and humour should not be used in the same sentence. A stupid exercise which should have ended after the Cold War. The idiots just couldn't come up with anything else to assess a Station it's Station Commander and destroy morale. Fortunately in 16 years I managed to duck out of most of them. On the last one before I retired I was stood down by the boss because apparently I was a bad example to the junior officers.

[Pontius Navigator]

We had an ex-supplementary list stn cdr who had the best hardened airfield in UK and got a 1st in his exams with only one recommendation which was to improve on chemical war fare. We got an exemption from the next test and he duly handed over to the next man who survived the piano burning expose in the Sun, but I digress.

The new man held a major crash/disaster exercise which was a complete fiasco, as much organised by the distaff as executed by the players.

The next move around the greasy merry go round saw the new stn cdr promoted and the original stn cdr, still a gp capt, now serving under him.

Rarely do ones sins come home to roost. (to mix metaphors).

[Rossian]

I was the T/val umpire on a German Atlantique on the last mission of the exercise. We were to be the crash/disaster event to wrap it all up. The brown envelope stated we had suffered AAA damage and were to be speechless from crossing into German airspace. All OK so far. Speechless procedures go OK so I retire to the back of the a/c to be out of the way but still listening. A kerfuffle breaks out in German which I don't understand. Then my minder, a navy commander, appears wearing an O2 mask and carrying a walkabout O2 bottle. "you have to have your mask on" "I don't have a mask" "We all do - always" "I don't have a mask and it's only a paper exercise" "NO!! Now we have a real fire in the copilot instrument panel with acrid fumes!!" "OK scrub the simulated emergency and declare a real emergency and let us get back on the ground ASAP!!"
On the ground chaos reigns, what is real and what is simulated? The German mindset is fully kicked in and "we are having the station disaster plan to do".
In a spirit of self preservation I corner the F/E and ask for the back door for access to the get out ladder as soon as we get on the ground so I can get out quickly. As we came to a halt my feet were on the concrete but I was looking at the final moments of "Close encounters of the third kind" fire engines, police, ambulances, recovery vehicles all with flashing lights and spotlights and a bloke with a big megaphone shouting at me in German, which turned out to be "Get on the bus!"
The medical exam in the local town hall was odd. The guy looked at me, sussed I wasn't German and said that he couldn't listen to chests in English. "I can say 99 in german" "Ah OK"
Eventually I got back to the hotel and after a large dram from my duty-free bottle slept like a baby.
What a strange day that was.
I spent the next morning trundling around the German Bight in a Dornier 27 "surface surveillance we said". And then went for a beer.

The Ancient Mariner