Perhaps a little known fact

[Dave Homewood]

While I was at No. 1 TTS at Hobsonville in 1991, the RNZAF contingent that had served in the Gulf War returned to NZ. A couple of those guys, and I have no idea who, had gathered a large collection of captured weapons and under the auspices that they were destined for the RNZAF Museum to commemorate our part in the war, they were transported back to NZ (I think from memory in an RAF VC-10).

This cache was rather large and even included a large anti-aircraft gun. I saw it, or at least some of it, as our class was shown into the 1TTS Armoury by one of the Armourer Instructors, There were some amazing weapons there.

I heard a little later when i was at Wigram that when the Museum had gone to claimm the weapons that they believed had been brought back for them, a great deal of them were gone. These two had been selling them off on the sly. I believe they were charged with arms dealing or some such thing.

Does anyone know any more about this? It'd be quite interesting to know if the story I was told later was true.

[phil]

There is something in that story, from what I know one of the weapons made it to WB, an AKM that I have fired. It has arabic writing painted down the side of the receiver, we always joked that it was probably arabic for 'unserviceable - not to be fired'!

I have heard stories about the barrels from an anti aircraft gun, but have never seen them and don't know what happened to them.

Wasn't one of the guys a doctor?

[Dave Homewood]

I'm not sure whether one of the guys was a doctor. I know I was told at the time who they were but they were not known to me and I have forgotten such details after 16 years.

I recall the RNZAF Musuem did install a small temporary Gulf War exhibit in the Atrium in about 1992 and some of the weapons appeared in it. I think it was when they were setting that up I was told by an insider how all the gear had gone missing.

I recall seeing a lot of AK-47's which was the first time I ever saw one in the flesh.

[paddy]

Hi Guys,
A little off thread but what happened to all the weapons that were in the Armanent Section at #1 TTS. I remember from 1975 there was a 50Cal from the Sunderlands, several mk? 20mm from vampires, a 9mm Luger (Operational although it tended to jam every now and again.) A vampire seat, a Gryroscopic Gunsight (Operational) and a publications library going back to WW2 including American Turret Manuals.

Regards


Paddy

[phil]

The luger is still at the school, but now in WB. Hispano 20mms weren't there when I was on techs course in 99. I think I recall a .50, but I seem to remember it was a macchi one? The Gyro Gunsight was there when I was on mechs, but no one else had any idea what it was, it may even have been thrown out! I hope not. No idea what might have happened to the vampire seat and I don't think the library had many really old pubs in it. It look like it may have been cleaned out when the shift was made to WB.

[Dave Homewood]

I recall in the Armoury School workshop in 1TTS there used to be a couple of different min-gungs hanging on the wall and some other weapons that had misfired and blown holes in the barrels. None of this stuff was firable, just wall displays. They also had bombs on display, one of which, a Skyhawk pracice bomb, we would have to borrow from time to time to run round the hangar with as punishment (like the famous chuck key at 4TTS).

They had lots of fascinating weaponry that had been collected from other Air Forces as well as our own when I was there in 1990-91. I hope if it's not at Woodbourne that it's all gone to a good home.

[stu]

phil said:

The luger is still at the school, but now in WB.

Not that I don't have faith in the "Security Review" here at work but I wonder if I could borrow that Luger for a while ... www.stuff.co.nz/4042250a11.html

[phil]

I wouldn't rely on that Lugar, it misfeeds nearly every shot!

A nice shiny new SIG 226 would be much more useful. In fact nearly any of the fascinating weapons at the school would be more useful than the Lugar. As SLR for example. Or even better, the Bren!

[Dave Homewood]

Ooh yes, I was rather taken with the Bren they had there. I wanted to take it back to barracks and use it against the 3 Squadron Iroquois that used to hover just over our roof at 2.30am almost every fricking night! But I didn't of course. That would be mad!