Losing a track on the battlefield is rarely good news. The hard shoulder on the M25 might be a dodgy place to change a flat tyre, but at least it's unlikely that anyone will be shooting at you.
We were reminded of this when we recently needed to change a track on the 432 Armoured Personnel Carrier. It's a case of everybody out, and then a lot of sweating and swearing as you lay out half a ton of finger-trapping links in a straight line in front of the disabled APC. At this point we were all grateful for the lack of snipers, mortars and other nastiness. But it didn't create any noticeable improvement in the language.
An advanced demonstration of hand signals, telepathy and more profanity eventually sees the tank lined up and rolling neatly onto its new footwear. Then a bit more swearing as we join up the links and it's back to base for tea and Elasto-Plast.
We're proper heroes, us.
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