NBC for Cadets in the 80's

[Entropy]

Have a cnut in my team that thinks he knows everything about the RAF as he made WO in the cadets. His latest opinion is that he was exposed to CS gas as a cadet in the 80's.

Before I call him out on this, could there be any truth in his claim given that duty of care and H&S was looked at differently back then?

 

[Witty_Banter]

Exposing civvie children to CS gas?? I sincerely doubt it.

I went through basic with a lass who reckoned she'd done CS training with cadets, and that she was 'CS-proof'. Turns out she wasn't. When we got in the chamber, she was the most confident but the most shocked when she breathed in (then realised she couldn't breathe or speak any more); maybe the cadet leaders tell their kids that 'we're doing CS training' and they just use smoke grenades. She was an utter mess and had to be pulled out 3 times before she managed to get through it.

Website here for cadets talks about initial exposure to CS gas during basic training after they've left cadets. Doubt they did it back in the 80s, either.

 

[FOMz]

Nope... I think he speaks with bullsh1tty tongue. Can't see that happening one bit. I was a spacey in the 80's and never heard of that at all..

I bet his 'exposure' was being near to someone shaking out an old NBC suit whilst on Space Camp and he got the tiniest whiff... can you REALLY see the RAF Regt training spaces on NBC procedures..

Or call his bluff and ask him how he dealt with the Combo pen training...cos those neeedles ****ing kill when inserted

 

[Mustang]

ex ATC instrutor, I smell something that came out of the rear of a cow.
Pyros and the like absolute no go, that includes any irritant gas.

 

[vim_fuego]

Maybe they did the almond smelling stuff and embellished it in their minds?

 

[Fu Fu Valve]

Unless it was during a summer camp on a unit i doubt it. We used to get them in the engine bay to 'help out' for a day or so as part of the summer camp - maybe they got thrown at the Rocks occasionally!
I'm an ATC instructor now and we can't even teach them field craft so there's no way we'd be allowed to gas the little dears.

 

[Wobbly_Jon]

As an EX-ATC instructor they NEVER got the full benefit of CS, we couldn't even give them cam cream incase it caused skin irritation. They MIGHT have got a wiff of pear drops if they visited the Regt Section but that was all they ever got

 

[J Y Kelly]

Maybe they did the almond smelling stuff and embellished it in their minds?

I think you are getting confused, Acetone was used to test the seal of the respirator which smelt of Pear Drops. Cyanide smells like Almonds. Mind you it would have made the test more interesting.

 

[SAXAVORDIAN]

Ah the waft of CS gas in the morning washing machine before next combat duty was sight to behold or blearily while coughing.DT_Xtremez_34: I remember doing a 3 mile run in NBC full gear at Swinnerton outside Stafford for TSW training then enter the Gas chamber to unmask to bellow out those immortal words "Name Rank and Number". Only to run another Three blooming miles to wear off the stinging with my fellow group in tow. By heck I lost more weight in that carbon clad suit.
DT_Xtremez_14:

 

[Entropy]

Cheers guys. will call him out on it next time he mentions it. The chuffing fun vampire will no doubt stand by his claim as he has the arrogance of an MP that is never wrong.

 

[Gonterseed]

I was an ATC instructor (service helper as we were called then) for most of the 1980's. Gas masks, NBC kit or anything like that was nowhere near their curriculum. It is so unlikely that they went anywhere near anything worse than an adult instructors fart...

 

[OneTimeSooty]

I was a cadet in the early 90's - then a Service Helper until I left in 2012.

When I was a cadet there were a lot less rules about combat stuff - we did blank firing, pyros et al (with the TA -
we were acting as their enemy), and a few of the instructors at the time liked to embellish the curriculum with their own experiences.

We had a small pile of NBC kit in the store which may have had some traces of CS lingering but nothing like a full dose in the chamber.

The rules changed a lot while I was a service helper, to what's being described above. But there was definitely a period where the rules were quite lax and almost anything went... so maybe never say never?

 

[sulky]

I was a cadet from 86-94 then a CI till i joined up in 96. We didnt do any NBC stuff at all, the only remotey soldiery thing we did was go on a joint ACF excercise to cyrus for 2 weeks to fire blanks and throw thunder flashes at each other and then play the enemy for some royal irish at episkai garrison.

In those days (late 80s) virtually every RAF Camp hosted summer camps, the only thing i casn think off is that he went to a summer camp at the then RAF regiment depot and "may" have been put through the chamber excersice but i would suggest using smoke instead of cs, the chamber would have had a CS whiff, but i doubt tablets would have been used.

defo a little bit of the brown wiff