Report - Salisbury Plain Training Area - Larkhill Artillery Range, Wiltshire - April 2015

[huey]

Very good report, much better than your husbands. Is it wrong to want to vote twice? One for tit and one for twat??

 

[Bertrina Bollockbrains]

Thank you..
No its fine if you want to vote twice i understand

 

[Roly Mo]

There's a YouTube video of some guy riding his bike all over the zigzag area.

 

[Mr Sam]

my grandad was based at Larkhill for a while, he gave me his old kit bag recently

 

[CptSledgehammer]

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd weigh in with what the zig-zaggy railway things are on the OS map. From what I know, it used to be a rail for moving targets. Only one of the rails is still there today and it's no longer operable. Here are some close up pics.

On google maps you can see roughly where the other rails used to be, and I've circled the area where the still existant rail is:

The orange marker on the top left is where the container is that housed the controls for that rail. Bottom right marker is where they shoot from.

 

[Ken H.]

Salisbury Plain is a UK Military Training Area, it has been since about 1897 and now covers 38,000 hectares (250 sq miles). It is also criss-crossed by by-ways and an old road. Because these remain public rights of way the MOD is obliged to keep them open to the public unless training is going on.

Salisbury plain is bisected into two by the north to south Devizes to Salisbury road. Some tit called Bertie has recently reported on the sites in the western half. See here. So my report is on the eastern half.


HISTORY


Larkhill Artillery Range is located in the east of Salisbury Plain and occupies some 92km² manoeuvre area and airspace up to 16,764m. It has a controlled ground impact area of 29km² and a dedicated aerial delivery dropping zone of 1400m x 800m. The varied terrain includes wet and dry aerial drop zones and a grass landing strip. The range provides a controlled safe environment for the release of land- and air-launched missile firings as well as instrumentation verification and a controlled ground impact area.

A battery of 4.5-inch Howitzers at Larkhill harnessed to full teams of six horses

FH70 (field 155mm calibre howitzer for the 1970s) is a towed howitzer still in service today

The impact area is a no-go zone and for obvious reasons, live fire training is conducted here most days of the year. Warning signs on the perimeter of the range warn of the dangers of touching unexploded ordnance and they are not joking. The landscape is peppered with craters.

Surrounding the impact zones are many observation posts which housed kinetheodolite high speed tracking cameras. The kinetheodolite is a photographic instrument for collection of trajectory data. It can be used to acquire data in the testing of missiles, rockets, projectiles, aircraft, and fire control systems; in the ripple firing of rockets, graze action tests, air burst fuze tests, and similar operations. Kinetheodolites provide angular measurements of the line of sight to the vehicle. This permits acquiring accurate position data. Together with timing systems, velocity and acceleration data can be developed from the position measurements.

I agree that stepping into the live fire impact zone was a daft thing to do, but understand that I have been living with Bertie for 9 years now. My sanity and all sense of reasoning went a long time ago. How would you be after sharing a home for 9 years with that tit? (and don’t hold that awful thought in your head for too long)

Before visiting Salisbury Plain it’s best to check beforehand the access and if any live firing is occurring on 01980 674763. An answer phone recording gives up to date information on areas open for public access. And don’t pass any flying red flags. This explore was done on a day when I was absolutely sure no live firing was occurring. Such days are few and far in-between.

The Explore:

An impromptu unplanned visit mainly due to waking up one morning with the Mother-of-all-Hangovers and needing a long walk in the countryside to clear my head. Do not be alarmed at my alcoholism. Years of living with Bertie and this is the only way I can now cope with the horror. My Mum was right. It was a mistake to marry into the Bollockbrains family.

And this was a long walk – about 7 miles return. The Plain is popular with off-road motorbikes and cars but be warned vehicles still have to be road legal and insured. A recent clampdown has led to dozens of motorbikes and vehicles being seized and crushed.

The biggest Observation Post is marked as Bombard OP on maps. Until recently a public right of way took you right up to it. A recent change in bylaws extended the no-go zone for the public and access to the Bombard OP is now not allowed. Be aware that the OS map is not up to-date and is still showing public rights of way on the Plain that are no more. The OS map also doesn’t show every clump of trees or dirt track. It’s possible to get lost walking on the Plain. Yes Hubby that was a dig at you – don’t go thinking I have forgotten that day. Just another point to raise when we do eventually get onto the Jeremy Kyle Show.

From here observers would observe the fall of live fire into the impact area. Notice the fortified little windows.

All over the ground were these black cases. Wisely I did not touch any. Only on getting home did I discover them to be 30mm rounds most likely fired from an attack helicopter.

The view from the OP to the target area.

I did ask Bertie what these were. With years of military service under his belt he was actually useful for once in his life and told me that they were “tanks”. Thanks Hubby! A bit of homework and I assume that there could be Centurion tanks amongst this lot – introduced in 1945, the Centurion was the primary British main battle tank of the post-World War II period. Still in use in South Africa today!

Some actually look like Soviet T55 tanks, again dating from just after World War II. And possibly British FV432 armoured personnel carriers. I assume that dumping these relics as targets was a lot cheaper than putting them out with the bins.

@Ordnance we need expert help please as I’m just speculating on the ID, and not from that useless man called my husband. A burning question I have is: If these are the targets how come they are still there and not blown up into little pieces? Surely after all these years of trying with several hundred days of trying each year, somebody would had scored a direct hit by now?

The turret on this one was completely off.

On my return from the target area, I visited two historic OPs - numbers 11 and 12

Inside was a swallow’s nest (not in use). The Plain is a fantastic wildlife reserve and was alive this day with skylarks, corn buntings and pipits. Near to Larkhill is an ongoing reintroduction project of the Great Bustard – a bird that was hunted to extinction in the UK. The Plain is host to many rare species of butterfly such as the Adonis Blue (17% of the UK population), Duke of Burgundy, Marsh Fritillary and the migrant Clouded Yellow. Super rare orchids are found here as well as a species of freshwater Fairy Shrimp that is endemic (meaning found nowhere else) to muddy puddles on the Plain. It is precisely because of tanks regularly churning up the land that allows this shrimp to survive. The MOD works with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and other groups to manage the Plain for nature. Awww that’s nice.

This pulley system must had been used to close the metal blast shutters.

And finally the council did a fantastic fireworks display this year. I was well impressed.

Just one thing, the OS map shows this in the Impact Area at a place called Enford Down west of Netheravon…

Looks like a zig-zag railway with a few buildings. Anyone knows what it is? Google Earth doesn’t really reveal anything and no photos seem to exist of it. The nearest legal public access is to within 400m but it’s over the hill and nothing can be seen.


Thanks to all for reading apart from Bertie – I still have that divorce lawyer number on a piece of paper in my handbag. I swear it wont just be the fridge I’m taking, but the whole bloody house. You can keep the goldfish.

Hi, I spent many years in the Royal Artillery, seven of them working at the Royal School ofArtillery in Larkhill. I am very familiar with those ranges and have been in the Bombard OP many times for live firing demos.
The Bombard is used to bring artillery fire down to within a few metres of the observer - normally on the ranges, you are at least a couple of kilometres from where the shells land. This gives you the chance to see the effects of fire up close. I loved it, I used to volunteer for those details.
The tank hulks are in the state they are because artillery fire and even anti-tank rounds won't blow them to pieces - they just disable them. Artillery will blow off the tracks, damage the guns and sights on a tank and destroy the periscopes the crew use to look out of the tank. Tank shells, such as the armour piercing discaording sabot rounds (APDS) will just punch a big whole through the tank and damage equipment and kill & injure the crew inside. Also, tanks don't fire in the area of the bombard, they use other ranges such as the one with the zig-zag target rail system.
There are more tanks by the bombard than there were in my day (I was there in the 80s and 90s). I guess they have a lot more old tanks now and this is as good a place to put them as any.
Safety wise, it is not a good idea to go around the bombard and certainly not any further into the impact area. The Army has been using the area since 1898 and there are many, many unexploded shells at or near the surface, many will be in an unstable condition. There is so much metal in the ground there that it is impractical for the Army to clear it - a single artillery shell might produce a couple of thousand fragments of metal (shrapnel)

 

[OldGit]

I too am sure that the railways are moving target ranges. The one I have seen on the Dorset ranges is 2ft gauge and has a winch towed target (not a locomotive!)