Falklands Para Loadout

[JamesR7]

Re: Falklands Para Loadout

Oh and get some zinc oxide tape in your airsofting first aid kit. You'll find that much better for holding on dressings.

Haha! Also perfect for removing layers of your skin when you peel it off.

Had a mate who used zinc oxide tape to tape sanitary towels to his shoulders during long patrol exercises... didn't do that much to help him and he really regretted it after

[Gadge Europa]

Re: Falklands Para Loadout

It shouldnt do that at all. Mind you he's not using it for its intended purpose i suppose.

If you need to tape up a dressing around a wound, zinc oxide tape is infintiely preferable to electrical tape. The last thing you want is that gunky adhesive they use on plastic tape in a cut.

[Hawke]

Re: Falklands Para Loadout

Para Smocks were worn by a few blokes "down south", but Arctic Smocks were issued and used - they emptied the AMF(L) stores in Bulford and Tidworth. (3 Para were actually based in Kandahar Barracks in Tidders at the time) I do know of one bloke from 2 Para who wore trops and jungle boots in the Falklands - so there would have been others, but on the whole, the Arctic windproof kit was de rigeur, and very sensible in a Falklands winter.
As for your wings, yep, a bit cut down, then the 2 Para DZ flash, then the chevrons below. No 5 Brigade Pegasus - in 1982, it was 5 Field Force, as an airborne brigade, they didn't exist until 1985, and the brigade flash wasn't brought back until late 1990/early 1991 when the army began to resemble heavily armed cub scouts. Smocks weren't worn baggy like in recent years then either. I was looking at a mate's photo's from the 80's the other day, and I noticed the hem drawcord was done up and the smock bloused over. It was only in the 1990's that Para Reg went for the "big is beautiful" theory on smocks. Whereas Royal rolled his hood, your average Tom wore their smock hoods unrolled. NI gloves, DMS and puttees would be a good look, along with the wooly pully and possibly a Norgie shirt, but more likely the hated Shirt KF. The SAS/Para bergan is good, but in all three Para Reg battles (Goose Green, Mount Longdon and Wireless Ridge) bergans were left behind and the advance to contact was conducted in CEFO.
As for someone suggesting a spork, not in 1982. A metal spoon, courtesy of the dining room on the Norland would have been more likely the cutlery du jour. 2 Para went on a North Sea ferry. The beloved Corps of her Majesty's Royal Marines went on a nice Cunard ship, Canberra, with 3 Para (Initially attached as part of 3 Cdo Brigade) accompanying them to lower the tone.

Edited to add.
Some scrim, camo netting cam and burlap sacking on the helmet net was very "in" in 1982, not just on the airborne helmet, but on the bog standard turtle one. As for the M16, mainly used by SAS, SBS, M&AWC and 148 BTY, but I do remember seeing a few pics of 45 Cdo's RSM, WO1 Chapman, bumbling about with one, and Captain (later Colonel) Ian Gardiner nicked one as well.

[Gadge Europa]

Re: Falklands Para Loadout

Agree with all of the above.

even in the late 90s we wore smocks bloused at the bottom and with waist cords pulled in (bit counter productive as you cant use your lower smock pockets properly), i think a lot of this is that you were banned from doing it in training so it was a 'i'm a trained soldier, f*ck off crow' kind of thing. There was a lot you could get away with once in your company that you'd have been shredded for as a recruit.

I was struggling to recall paras with m16s on corporate but thought i might be wrong so said nowt.

And yep, standard helmet cover was a hessian sack with the wide net over the top then an old shirt or jacket shredded to make scrim (looking like you had khaki dreadlocks and a bit like the predator was quite 'in') , if you could scab any bits of vehicles net sometimes got used too.