Ras Sadr...

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 05 Jul 2006, 18:17

On a detachment to Sharjah, we searched out a suitable spot on the coast to use for a live firing range...We found a steep sided gully which opened out to the sea, at a place on the coast called Ras Sadr. We obtained permission from the Sheik and went ahead with the project...These shots I took on the first day of firing:-

Here are the crew...A bunch of Trucial Oman Scouts.

I get a bit nervous when I look down the barrels of loaded guns! ...One of the chaps making a low pass to identify the targets.

Here is a rocket (with practice concrete head), striking short of the targets...The group of 40 gallon drums is the target. You can see from the craters that the chaps have been a bit wide of the mark...Might frighten a tank but that is about all.

This 20mm straffing, with ball ammo, is better and the drums are being hit...

...and bowled over.

Just as well that we have these nice chaps to stand them up again for us.

Thanks for looking

TobyV · Post by **TobyV** » 05 Jul 2006, 18:31

Wow... impressive shots... like the head-on Venom over the beach.. and in colour too and pretty reasonable colour at that. I assume these shots are ~50 years old? I didnt realise it was commonplace to be using colour transparency in those days.

Post by **Garry Russell** » 05 Jul 2006, 18:58

It wasn't common Toby

Colour was expensive and few could afford it.

My Dad would sometimes take a year to use up a film.

That lasted through the 1960's

Garry

TobyV · Post by **TobyV** » 05 Jul 2006, 19:23

Thats what I thought, which was why I was surprised to see it. I still have a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 thats been in my 1952 Halina TLR medium format camera for nearly 3 years

DispatchDragon · Post by **DispatchDragon** » 05 Jul 2006, 19:31

Peter
Your a bloody marvel

Gorgeous shots....Im curious what Kind of camera - my father had a
beautiful prewar Leica he used for taking aerial shots of archeological sites
and the colour value and quality looks about the same.

Thank you

Leif

blanston12 · Post by **blanston12** » 05 Jul 2006, 19:47

Great shots,
Kodachrome perhaps?

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 05 Jul 2006, 20:36

blanston12 wrote:Great shots,
Kodachrome perhaps?

Joe,

Those Ras Sadr shots are indeed all Kodachrome Transparencies...I did also use Ektachrome

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 05 Jul 2006, 20:45

DispatchDragon wrote:Peter
Your a bloody marvel

Gorgeous shots....Im curious what Kind of camera - my father had a
beautiful prewar Leica he used for taking aerial shots of archeological sites
and the colour value and quality looks about the same.

Leif,

That was my first proper camera but it was not a very high grade one and certainly not a reflex. It had a normal viewfinder that had bad parallax errors when close and I had a special extra that was supposed to fix that. I bought the camera in Aden (duty free) before going on down to Nairobi. I used it to get a lot of very special shots of wild game...All Transparencies. The camera was a Braun Paxette and certainly not in the same class as your father's Leica

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 05 Jul 2006, 21:11

I had an interesting experience that day which I will explain with reference to the fourth picture down...You can see that I'm standing near the edge of a cliff, similar to the one on the opposite side of the gully. You can also see some sort of black stump down on the floor of the gully just to the right...Well later in the day when there was an interval, I scrambled down there with my revolver and my issued 12 rounds of .38 ammo and stood a few beer cans on that stump thing.

A backed off about 10 yards towards where the camera is in that picture and the Scouts got rather interested and stood at the edge of the cliff where I was standing to take that picture. They were wondering what this mad Englishman was going to do, I guess. So get the picture...I'm standing facing the beer cans and the crew are high above me on the cliff and directly behind me.

Anyway, I start loosing off rounds at the beer cans and do pretty well at knocking them over...Then I got a ricochette off that stump and I hear it wanging around the ravine and then back over my head. Then "THWACK" it hits one of the Scouts full in the chest...The spent and battered round then fell to the ground at his feet.

A brief moment of silence and the thunderous applause from all the Scouts, including the one I hit...I think it was the guy on the extreme right of the first picture.

Anyway, I decided not to try for an encore and after apologising profusely to the guy I hit, there was much merriment and badinage!

It was the most amazing and impossible ricochette I ever saw :think:

smithcorp · Post by **smithcorp** » 06 Jul 2006, 04:03

Peter

Amazing photos and stories - thanks a million for posting them!

smith