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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-05-01, Page 15leisure, features and entertainment Serving over 20,000 homes in Ontario's heartland. Crossroads Wednesday, May 1 , 1985 The Leopard and the friiIiPAC by Marion 1. Duke ..This is the fifth in a series of articles by Marion 1 Duke, editor of The Listo- ' wel Banner, who participated in,a Ca- nadian CommunityNewspapers Asso- ciation study tour of Canadian Forces in Europe, NATO's military headquar- ters at Mons, Belgium, and the Cana- dian embassy in Bonn, Germany. It's Day 4 of this tour and we are ready for work — up early for breakfast and loaded down with cameras and notebooks. Given the pace since we ar- rived, I'm amazed we look as alert as we do. All of us marvel at the resilience of Rick James. While he's a trifle pale, Mr. James is a 100 per cent compared to the previous. day. Mr. James and a couple of others, in- stead of coming back to the hotel from the Bacra Bar had decided to take in a few mote joints. Somewhere along the line, said Mr. James, he was given a glass of "funny tasting wine". in any event, the follow- ing day which was spent on a leisurely drive through the Black Forest area, was anything but enjoyable for Mr. • James. He might have been interested in the large farmhouses, The tilled areas of steep slopes, the kind of pioneer village near Triberg, the lumbering and the souvenir shop with its cuckoo clocks, but his stomach wasn't. Recalling the day at breakfast, Mr. James says, "I wasn't seeing the Black Forest; I was making a tour of WCs." He looks relieved to find he actually enjoyed a second orange juice. However, we've no time to doddle • over breakfast, or to swapstories. The bus is picking us up at 8 a.M. and we're to spendthe day visiting units of the 4 CanadianMechanized $rigade, Group, First we are to see something of the • armour unit, The.Royal Canadian Dra- goons, then the artillery., the lst Regi- ment,, Royal Canadian Hdrse Artillery, both atCFB Lahr. At noon we are to depart for CFB Baden-Soellingen, locatedabout 50 km to the north. There we will visit the in- fantry, the 2nd Princess Patricia's Light Infantry.,, We are no sooner tat the bus than our escort officer, Capt. Philip Anido, tells us there .has been a slight change in plans. Instead astaying another night at Hotel zum Ldwen we will have to book out at noon and go to another hotel There has been some kind of mix-up. A groan goes through the bus. I guess everyone's room is in the same kind of mess my own is. Thisis an inconven- ience on a tightly scheduled day. Had . we known, we could have packed last night and booked out at breakfast. Ah, well. THE DRAGOONS After clearing the guard at the gate, we proceed through the base. Capt. Anido points out the various kinds of shelters. "These," he says, "are personnel shelters. They are all over the base, put close to places of work." Each personnel shelter, he says, holds about 110 people and is equipped with a supply of water, etc. Some of the larger bunkers, which look like big culverts, are built to with- stand chemical warfare. The ammuni- tion bunkers look like mounds of earth. We then pass the "hardened shel- ters" which protect the fighter aircraft. Now they hold the CF -104 Starfighters but will soon house the new CF -18s. Capt Anido says in every 48-hour _, period deployment is practiced. "They start them up inside the shelter, do their checks, and are gone." Not far past the aircraft shelters is "the hut where we get gassed". The captain says members of the Forces go through the training at least once a year, wearing masks with fuller's .earth. "Some people get quite sick." We arrive at the briefing room at 8:35 a.m. Providing us with some back- ground on the Dragoons is. Maj. Mike Appleton. It's an old unit. The Royal Canadian Dragoons, Maj. Appleton says, seriied in the Northwest Rebellion, in the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars and in Korea. The Dragoons have the distinction, of being the only unit in which three mem- bers won the Victoria Cross in a 24-hour period. That happened backlit July 1900 during the battle of Springbok. The RoyalCanadian Dragoons have been in Lahr since 1970. In 1978 the decision was made to equip the two squadrons with the German -made Leo- pard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks. • 1 Members of a Canadian Community Newspapers Association group on a study tour of Canadian Forces in Europe and NATO get a close look at the Leopard tank at CFB Lahr. From left are: Ev van Duuren of Huntsville (back to camera), Richard Collicutt of Kentville, N.S.: unidentified soldier, Allan Willis of Sterner, Alta. (crawling up on tank); Sgt. Breckenreid- (standing beside antenna flag), Peter Schierbuck of Fairview, Alta., talking to a member of the tank crew; and on top, Lorne Eedy of St. Marys, and Richard James of Bowmanvilie. These British -made Centurion tanks are part of a display at CFB Lahr, Germany. Today the Royal Canadian Dragoons of 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group are equipped with the German -made Leopard tanks. Sgt. Brepkenreld of the Royal Canadian Dragoons (centre) talks to Timothy Crump of Kindersley, Sask., and Lorne Eedy of St. Marys, Ont. before they are given a ride on a Leopard tank. The driver is located in the right front of the tank (left in photo), beside the turret. "I don't buy there, but think it's around a million each." Maj. Appleton explains each tank carries a crew of four, a commander, a radio operator -loader, a gunner, and a driver. There are four tanks in a troop and four troops in a squadron. Then squadron headquarters has three tanks, for a total of 19 tanks in each squadron. The tank squadron back in Canada is located at Gagetown, N.B. The Dragoons also has a reconnais- sance squadron, supplied with the 20 - .year -old Lynx,equipped with a_.50 -cali- bre machine gun and a 7.62 mm ma- chine gun. "They're our scouts" Maj. Appleton says. "They find out what is happening and tell the tanks what is going on." We are now ready to go out and have a look at a demonstration arranged for our benefit. Before leaving the briefing room, I ask the major how much a tank costs. "A good question," he replies. "I don't buy them, but 1 think it's around a million each." Before heading out to see the tanks, we are outfitted in olive-green cover- alls. Mine are roomy, leaving lots of space to get my notebook from an in- • side pocket, and to shelter my camera. Ev Van Duuren of Huntsville, the big- gest guy in ourgroupp has a bit of diffi- culty though. "I think I'll be all right as. long as I don't try to bend over tooter," he grins. Outside I..get my first look at a Leo- pard tank. I don't know if it's the model 1 or 2. There are a number of them lined up and my first impression is that they aren't as big as I expected. I've read where this tank weighs about 43 metric tons, is somewhere between eight and 9.5 metres long, de- pending upon where the gun is located, is something over three `metres wide and about 2.5 metres high. That information sounded massive, By comparison, I think these are trim fighting machines. We are introduced to Sgt. Brecken- reid. He's short, stocky and looks about as eaay to push around as thetank he's telling us about. WEAPONS' SYSTEMS The Leopard Mkt was developed in the 1960s. It can hold 895 litres of fuel, has a road range of 500 km and a maxi - Mum speed of 65 kmh. Later I ask one of the soldiers how often they get it up to 65. "Not very often," he grins. The tank is equipped with a 10 -cylin- der, multi -fuel engine, rated at 818 bhp. Complete engine replacement is pos- sible in half an hour under field con- ditions. Sgt. Breckenreid says the squadron commander has "lots of leeway as far as shallow and deep fording is con- cerned".Properly fitted with external gear, the tank is capable'of deep -ford- ing or submerged fording where river banks are prepared for exit and entry. That about exhausts my knowledge of things mechanical. However, what makes this machine the fighting force it is, is its weapons system. In preparation for this trip, I have done considerable reading. At least one thing has stuck in My mind. It was in an article in The Atlantic Monthly on the new.lsraelitank, the Merkava, which I read just a day before leaving. According to that article, if NATO and Warsaw Pact forces ever fight a conventional warin Europe, the victory will go to the side with the best tank. Given all the ballyhoo we've heard about the importance of getting the best 'fighter aircraft for our Forces, and whether we should have bought the F=16 instead of theF-18, I don't know quite what to make of this statement regard- ing the tank; but I'm determined to at least wade through the stats on the Leo- pard. Besides, one ought to know what is available these days for a million bucks in tax dollars. The Leopard weapons systems in- clude a main armament, fume - extracted 105 mm gun; a 7.62 co -axially mounted machine gun, and a 7.62 mm crew commander's machine gun. , In addition, the tank is fitted with two banks of smoke grenade dischargers on the turret to create local cover. On -board ammunition is 59 rounds -for. the main armament: and 4,000 rounds for the 7.62 mm guns. The main armament ammunition is mean sounding stuff. It includes: ar- mour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot (outer casing), known in military jargon as APFSDS; armour piercing discarding sabot (APDS) ; high explo- sive squashhead (HESH) and high ex- plosive plastic (HEP); high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) and smoke. The descriptions are awkward. They are also accurate explanations of what this kind of ammunition does. The APFSDS is a Tong -range projec- tile, capable of piercing the armour of another tank and then splintering into who knows how many particles. The-HESHslams.against whatever it hits, with the explosive setting off shock waves to destroyinterior surfaces. The HEAT projectile has its cone lined with metal, usually copper. Upon impact, the metal is gasified and forms a kind of drill that pierces the opposineirmour. Sgt. Breckenreid tells us the tank has a maximum weapons range of from 600 to 7,800 metres, but is most effective be- tween 600 and 4,000 metres. For communications its two long- range radios are good for 20 miles. We are also told the Leopard can be sealed - off against nuclear contamination on the nuclear battlefield. Please tum to page 6