Where I was stationed in Germany, just to the north of our post was the Baumholder Major Training Area. Just north of there was Idar-Oberstein and the Bundeswehr's Field Artillery School. We also had all 4 Battlions of Artillery from 8th ID's DIVARTY stationed there in Baumholder with 2nd Brigade.
Artillery uses wire commo. The old TA-312's and lots and lots o' WD-1 (Telephone/Teletype wire, 2 strand). However, they would spend a lot of time practicing "Shoot and Scoot" which meant they'd drive to a firing point, align the guns, lay wire to communicate, shoot the mission, and drive to the next firing point and do it all again. (This was so they wouldn't get counter-battery'd had the balloon gone up.)
Having had a commo background, and since I had three commo guys (SSG, SGT, and PFC) along with a pick-up truck, I pointed out that could avoid
one all of Top's "Hey You!" details if they were working on a project that LT Scout26 assigned them. Said project being to go drive around in the commo pick-up and scrounge up all the wire left at the various firing points. Yes, the Arty commo guys were supposed to, but rarely did.
Once scrounged they would bring it back to the commo shop and cut it into 3-4 ft sections and then bag it up. Once bagged, they would head over to the turn-in point and get it weighed and turned in. Later they would go back and pick up DR-8's (small spools) and/or RL-159's (big spools) of wire. As replacements for the wire "turned in".
As and aside, MPs rarely used wire and then only in the HQ's sections. However, we used radios, and lots of them.
Upon obtaining the reels of wire. My commo guys would then go door to door to the commo sections of the Artillery battalions and trade Radios for Wire. Upon their return the Supply Officer (me) would sign off on the paperwork to add those radios to our property books as "Found on Installation" property. When my last Company Commander took over (CPT By-the-Book) he made us uninstall the extra radios in his, the 1SG's, the PL's and PSG's vehicles. (We each had four AN-524's and two 442's. Meaning we could talk to four different units and listen-only to 2 others.
We were only supposed to have one 524 and one 442.
)
We also had 27 extra radios sitting on shelves in the commo shop, which was 27 (plus the extra 30 installed in vehicles) above and beyond what we were authorized per MTOE.
He made us give them all away/back. Naturally when we went out to the field the next time, radios started crapping out, and instead of being able to swap out a broke one for a working one we had sitting "on the shelf" (Actually they would have been in the commo truck). They just stayed broken until we returned to garrison and then we turned them in to Third Shop and would wait 6 months until they were fixed. The Battalion and Brigade commanders were pissed when they couldn't talk to us anymore. "You guys never had commo problems before!! What the hell is going on down there?!?!" At that point my Company commander threw me under the Bus, because I was the Commo officer and therefore, it was all my fault.
Fortunately the BN Commo officer was a friend (and an all around good guy.) We had given him some of the radios we had acquired in the past to help him out. He told the BN CDR what had happen and reason why we couldn't talk anymore.
Shortly after we came back from the field I was told to have my commo pukes return to their old ways by the BN CDR. While having 10 rolling radio stations and 27 extra 524's was considered "a bit excessive" having a few extras seemed to have been a good practice. Oh, and make sure BN Commo has enough spares also.
Did I ever tell you guys the story of the Ambulance I acquired? (Well it was actually my ass't Motor Sergeant, but it was my name on the blame line/paperwork.)
ETA: Why yes. Yes, I did:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=45721.msg932053#msg932053