Whethefakawe
Race Dog
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2006
- Messages
- 621
- Reaction score
- 2
- Bike
- KTM 950 Adventure S
Back from the tooth fundi.
Re the questions,
1. The silencers on those XR's were very efficient, as long as you didn't take the baffle out it was surprisingly quiet. Notihng like modern Hondas and KTMs, if anything they were very much choked off. In the first week or two in Ovambo we got curious about it, and did some informal testing, found that a single bike could sneak up to about 150m before you'd hear it, a section or more made a rumble at 300m or so, but it was very hard to determine what direction it came from. While doing this, we also noticed what a huge difference it made when the headlights were disconnected. With lights on you could easily see bikes coming towards you 2k's away, without lights you couldn't make out what it was till 3 or 400m away. A captured swap at Mahanene later told us that they were shit scared of the bikes, because we would appear so suddenly at high speed.
2. We were all issued red and black MX boots at Berede in Potch, but those soon ended up at the bottom of our balsaks cause walking in them was a bitch. We did lots of THAT during the farm caper, I can remember one specific morning tracking for 15k's nonstop. They were kak boots anyways, I never wore them.
3. The rear wheels were standard 19 inchers, just like modern dirt bikes. Honda moered off the wagon with that big front wheel, they had some handling theory that turned out to be just that.
After the last "special forces" terr, whom we chased for weeks, was accidentally captured by a farmer and his son out hunting not far from our quarry racetrack, we did a period of training with the new (to the loot and me) platoon on the new bikes. We went to Oshivelo for 2 weeks of typical infantry rondfok: ambushes, TB's, mine drills etc etc, as if there was more to a mine drill for bikes than picking up bits and pieces. A "coin refresher" they called it There was a big commotion the day we left, some huge operation starting, the most interesting thing to us was a dog on one of the Kwevoels, by the name of Smoke - he was supposed to be the meanest, most vicious mutt in the whole dog unit. Didn't look like much, just your average pavement special with a curly tail. We kept more than his leash distance away to compensate for errors in judgement though.
Once in Ovambo, for admin purposes we were based at 52 Bn at Ogongo, we only spent enough time there to make a mortal enemy of a typical PF doos, this one was an Intelligence captain (what an oxymoron) who wore a fucking beret in the bush, in addition to shorts with kneelength socks and GRASSHOPPERS :lol: A total wanker, he made us run 2,4's and 7 k's in the sand, and gave me and the loot a sandbag opfok one day just cause he could. I hated that bastard with a passion, especially since he tried and came within a whisker of killing me once, only a decision made in the middle of the night by who or what I don't know to this day caused a Buffel to set off a cheesemine on the cutline instead of me on my bike.
But the RSM was an exceptional character, we called him Asterix cause he looked just like him. Asterix had been my CompanySM at Oudtshoorn in 1980, he remembered me, from day one he assigned us "maintenance" at every morning's parade while the other okes got to pick up stompies and scrub toilets
Asterix was hilarious to watch and listen to, I can still hear him yelling at an MP we had in the platoon in 1980: ....kopperaal Raubenheiiiimeeeeeer!!!! .......maak die plante nat, dis so droog soos 'n non se kont!!!! Pardon my french. A really good oke, not all PF's were bad.
We started doing patrols, first time out we didn't wear helmets, and had a few fuckups, but we learned quickly. We had most of the relatively few flats we ever got during the first week or two, never quite figured out why.
The locals were almost always friendly, they lent us a pump this time:
One of my favourite shots, shows the formation we rode when crossing open shonas
Within the first two or three weeks we had our first serious casualty, the locals cut trees down to just over a metre and used them as preinstalled fenceposts. Just after sunset one day we hit one such steel wire fence, everybody managed to stop except for one poor oke who went right through, the top wire caught him by the throat and he did a double summy off the back of the bike, I was about 30m away on his right and saw it happen in slow motion. The wire tore his windpipe, so that his neck started to swell up from air escaping under the skin. He was casevaced, as I recall vehicles came and fetched him to the nearest base from where a chopper flew him to Oshakati. It was a shame, he was a real character and a good oke, always smiling, he joined the platoon again when we left Ovambo on the way home in December.
Right after the incident, our wounded oke is standing 4th from the right by the bike's front wheel.
On one of our early outings before we wised up and started wearing helmets
Initially we spent some time in the area south of Ogongo, absolutely the best riding terrain I have EVER been on. Supposedly there are no rocks in Ovamboland, from what saw I'd have to agree. Wide open spaces, where we could ride in posed formations:
When on the move, the formation was much more spread out, and these guys were good - they always did it without having to be told:
One of the main reasons we loved these wide open spaces was, of course:
We actually had 14 guys on the back wheel spread out in a line, this was part of it. And yes china, these were balance point wheelies, in 5th gear
Wheelying led, of course, to backflips. I was at the back of the line one Sunday morning, on the back wheel in 5th gear doing at least 80, and flipped it. I could never figure out why, but I now suspect that the front wheel had stopped spinning and the lack of gyroscopic effect changed the balance point. Regardless of exactly which law of physics bit me in the arse that day, I went skidding down a concrete-hard dirt road on my back, my shirt bunched up around my neck - I never tucked it in, for ventilation purposes. I still piss myself laughing every time I replay this in my head, which I can do in excruciating detail, including the glass shards from the flattened speedo tumbling towards me in slow motion. I will never forget that one. When I finally stopped sliding, I sat up, looked around in a daze, took my helmet off, said "fuuuuuuck me..." and next thing I knew I woke up on my back, helmet next to me and not a fucking soul in sight. Those bastards had ridden off without even seeing me go down. I slowly and painfully got up, started the bike and rode off in search of "friendly forces". Just how friendly I found out when, about 5 k's down the road, I found the platoon spread in a circle around a huge tree, bakking ballas and making coffee. I came riding into this circle with seriously bent handlebars, a flattened speedo and the biggest fucking roastie I've ever had - basically my whole back. The whole platoon started rolling on the ground they were laughing so hard, not a fucking ONE asked if I was OK, or what happened - they could tell. After the hilarity had died down all I wanted to do was sleep - I realize with hindsight I probably had a bloody concussion, but I wasn't going to whinge at any cost
Sleeping on the softest thing around after flipping at 80, I was not a happy chappy in this shot, my back was bloody but I fell asleep anyways. We actually rode in this position whenever we had to cover distance on the tar road, if we'd had throttle locks it would have been like sitting on a sofa.
Every night, before sunset, we'd go through the TB (temporary base - tydelike basis) drill. Stop, spread out, make food and coffee, then, when it was almost completely dark, ride 2 or 3 k's and pick a spot with some cover for the night. The idea was that if swapo was watching you, they wouldn't know where to throw the mortars later that night This drill saved many many lives. We often slept in these hollows, in the dry season they provided perfect cover but once it started raining they all became 2 and 3 metre deep mini-lakes. My bed in left foreground and someone just crawling out of his fart sack in the middle rear:
Because we never had a full platoon of 3 sections X 10 men plus HQ section, we modified the guard system. Instead of 2 okes from each section on guard at any time, ie 6 in a standard platoon, two guys at a time would position themselves inside the TB in a spot where they had a good field of vision, and sit or stand there with little movement and zero noise. Shifts rotated every two hours, it typically took 2 or so nights for everybody to get his turn in the rotation. In Angola this was taken very seriously indeed.
Re the questions,
1. The silencers on those XR's were very efficient, as long as you didn't take the baffle out it was surprisingly quiet. Notihng like modern Hondas and KTMs, if anything they were very much choked off. In the first week or two in Ovambo we got curious about it, and did some informal testing, found that a single bike could sneak up to about 150m before you'd hear it, a section or more made a rumble at 300m or so, but it was very hard to determine what direction it came from. While doing this, we also noticed what a huge difference it made when the headlights were disconnected. With lights on you could easily see bikes coming towards you 2k's away, without lights you couldn't make out what it was till 3 or 400m away. A captured swap at Mahanene later told us that they were shit scared of the bikes, because we would appear so suddenly at high speed.
2. We were all issued red and black MX boots at Berede in Potch, but those soon ended up at the bottom of our balsaks cause walking in them was a bitch. We did lots of THAT during the farm caper, I can remember one specific morning tracking for 15k's nonstop. They were kak boots anyways, I never wore them.
3. The rear wheels were standard 19 inchers, just like modern dirt bikes. Honda moered off the wagon with that big front wheel, they had some handling theory that turned out to be just that.
After the last "special forces" terr, whom we chased for weeks, was accidentally captured by a farmer and his son out hunting not far from our quarry racetrack, we did a period of training with the new (to the loot and me) platoon on the new bikes. We went to Oshivelo for 2 weeks of typical infantry rondfok: ambushes, TB's, mine drills etc etc, as if there was more to a mine drill for bikes than picking up bits and pieces. A "coin refresher" they called it There was a big commotion the day we left, some huge operation starting, the most interesting thing to us was a dog on one of the Kwevoels, by the name of Smoke - he was supposed to be the meanest, most vicious mutt in the whole dog unit. Didn't look like much, just your average pavement special with a curly tail. We kept more than his leash distance away to compensate for errors in judgement though.
Once in Ovambo, for admin purposes we were based at 52 Bn at Ogongo, we only spent enough time there to make a mortal enemy of a typical PF doos, this one was an Intelligence captain (what an oxymoron) who wore a fucking beret in the bush, in addition to shorts with kneelength socks and GRASSHOPPERS :lol: A total wanker, he made us run 2,4's and 7 k's in the sand, and gave me and the loot a sandbag opfok one day just cause he could. I hated that bastard with a passion, especially since he tried and came within a whisker of killing me once, only a decision made in the middle of the night by who or what I don't know to this day caused a Buffel to set off a cheesemine on the cutline instead of me on my bike.
But the RSM was an exceptional character, we called him Asterix cause he looked just like him. Asterix had been my CompanySM at Oudtshoorn in 1980, he remembered me, from day one he assigned us "maintenance" at every morning's parade while the other okes got to pick up stompies and scrub toilets
Asterix was hilarious to watch and listen to, I can still hear him yelling at an MP we had in the platoon in 1980: ....kopperaal Raubenheiiiimeeeeeer!!!! .......maak die plante nat, dis so droog soos 'n non se kont!!!! Pardon my french. A really good oke, not all PF's were bad.We started doing patrols, first time out we didn't wear helmets, and had a few fuckups, but we learned quickly. We had most of the relatively few flats we ever got during the first week or two, never quite figured out why.
The locals were almost always friendly, they lent us a pump this time:
One of my favourite shots, shows the formation we rode when crossing open shonas
Within the first two or three weeks we had our first serious casualty, the locals cut trees down to just over a metre and used them as preinstalled fenceposts. Just after sunset one day we hit one such steel wire fence, everybody managed to stop except for one poor oke who went right through, the top wire caught him by the throat and he did a double summy off the back of the bike, I was about 30m away on his right and saw it happen in slow motion. The wire tore his windpipe, so that his neck started to swell up from air escaping under the skin. He was casevaced, as I recall vehicles came and fetched him to the nearest base from where a chopper flew him to Oshakati. It was a shame, he was a real character and a good oke, always smiling, he joined the platoon again when we left Ovambo on the way home in December.
Right after the incident, our wounded oke is standing 4th from the right by the bike's front wheel.
On one of our early outings before we wised up and started wearing helmets
Initially we spent some time in the area south of Ogongo, absolutely the best riding terrain I have EVER been on. Supposedly there are no rocks in Ovamboland, from what saw I'd have to agree. Wide open spaces, where we could ride in posed formations:
When on the move, the formation was much more spread out, and these guys were good - they always did it without having to be told:
One of the main reasons we loved these wide open spaces was, of course:
We actually had 14 guys on the back wheel spread out in a line, this was part of it. And yes china, these were balance point wheelies, in 5th gear
Wheelying led, of course, to backflips. I was at the back of the line one Sunday morning, on the back wheel in 5th gear doing at least 80, and flipped it. I could never figure out why, but I now suspect that the front wheel had stopped spinning and the lack of gyroscopic effect changed the balance point. Regardless of exactly which law of physics bit me in the arse that day, I went skidding down a concrete-hard dirt road on my back, my shirt bunched up around my neck - I never tucked it in, for ventilation purposes. I still piss myself laughing every time I replay this in my head, which I can do in excruciating detail, including the glass shards from the flattened speedo tumbling towards me in slow motion. I will never forget that one. When I finally stopped sliding, I sat up, looked around in a daze, took my helmet off, said "fuuuuuuck me..." and next thing I knew I woke up on my back, helmet next to me and not a fucking soul in sight. Those bastards had ridden off without even seeing me go down. I slowly and painfully got up, started the bike and rode off in search of "friendly forces". Just how friendly I found out when, about 5 k's down the road, I found the platoon spread in a circle around a huge tree, bakking ballas and making coffee. I came riding into this circle with seriously bent handlebars, a flattened speedo and the biggest fucking roastie I've ever had - basically my whole back. The whole platoon started rolling on the ground they were laughing so hard, not a fucking ONE asked if I was OK, or what happened - they could tell. After the hilarity had died down all I wanted to do was sleep - I realize with hindsight I probably had a bloody concussion, but I wasn't going to whinge at any cost
Sleeping on the softest thing around after flipping at 80, I was not a happy chappy in this shot, my back was bloody but I fell asleep anyways. We actually rode in this position whenever we had to cover distance on the tar road, if we'd had throttle locks it would have been like sitting on a sofa.
Every night, before sunset, we'd go through the TB (temporary base - tydelike basis) drill. Stop, spread out, make food and coffee, then, when it was almost completely dark, ride 2 or 3 k's and pick a spot with some cover for the night. The idea was that if swapo was watching you, they wouldn't know where to throw the mortars later that night
This drill saved many many lives. We often slept in these hollows, in the dry season they provided perfect cover but once it started raining they all became 2 and 3 metre deep mini-lakes. My bed in left foreground and someone just crawling out of his fart sack in the middle rear:
Because we never had a full platoon of 3 sections X 10 men plus HQ section, we modified the guard system. Instead of 2 okes from each section on guard at any time, ie 6 in a standard platoon, two guys at a time would position themselves inside the TB in a spot where they had a good field of vision, and sit or stand there with little movement and zero noise. Shifts rotated every two hours, it typically took 2 or so nights for everybody to get his turn in the rotation. In Angola this was taken very seriously indeed.
