Page 17 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2019

REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
Closely following a successful Regimental Gunnery Camp, The Royal Lancers set out to prepare a team of five soldiers, two NCOs and an Officer to take part in the patrol competition hosted by 160th (Welsh) Brigade in the Brecon Beacons.
For the first time soldiers from across the regiment were invit- ed to volunteer themselves for the challenge. Drafting in some hard-workers from every squadron, we began with two weeks of intensive training from Sgt Wilkes to best prepare us for the competition. During this, we hosted the Dutch team who joined us on the area for navigation practice and at the Regimental box- ing night for celebration practice.
As if it were designed specifically, Otterburn training area cut no corners in giving us the best possible ‘beat-up’ offering a va- riety of challenges. Through the training we competed with dif- ficult terrain, boggy ground and heavy, sideways rain. Classroom theory was taught to the team in the day and tested in the eve- nings and night on the area, including obstacle crossing drills, battlefield casualty, explosive ordnance detection and captured persons scenarios.
The selected team made their way to the Brecon Beacons the night before our start date. Setting off at 0345 they encountered an array of stands, each testing a different military skill. As a group of eight, spread from across all five squadrons, the team- work displayed was particularly impressive and without doubt contributed towards the final success of the team.
Suffering a minor injury early on Tpr Hudson continued with a positive attitude throughout (albeit grimacing), whilst Tpr Ni- cholson provided morale in the form of mostly funny jokes to keep the team going.
During a challenging Close Target Reconnaissance, we were able to exploit the advantage of our training as recce soldiers
A palpable sense of relief felt by all on completion
Lt Colquhoun recieves her silver medal
by gathering a significant amount of relevant information about ‘the enemy’ in order to compile a detailed recce report. As much cannot be said for how legible the report was as each scribe was designated another team member to keep them awake whilst they wrote...with varying success.
Throughout our training LCpl Whitehead generated dread in the team with his horror stories of the river crossing from his first Cambrian Patrol two years earlier. In a turn of fate, he ended up boosting morale when after a few short swims at 0300 most of us were wet through, but pleasantly surprised at how it wasn’t as cold as he had warned. The team concluded he should have spent less time moaning and more time practising his front crawl.
During the penultimate stage, the vehicle recognition stand proved unchallenging to Cpl Allen whilst Tpr Brown continued to impress with his consistent and reliable signalling skills. Tpr Thompson and LCpl Stevens received a mention from directing staff at the calm and collected approach in dealing with a bat- tlefield casualty serial and upon completing this stage we were rewarded with our final checkpoint location...23km away.
The final hours, through exhaustion and fatigue were undoubt- edly the most challenging. LCpl Stevens’ unrelenting deter- mination and ‘no nonsense’ attitude shone in these remaining kilometers and after many more hours of walking, not an un- blistered foot in sight, the team crossed the finishing line. And, finally, LCpl Whitehead admitted he was glad to be doing Cam- brian Patrol a second time.
The completion of Cambrian Patrol is no mean feat. Physically and mentally demanding, it truly puts people to the test. It is no surprise that all The Royal Lancers rose to the challenge and the team were happy to be awarded a silver medal for their efforts.
HC
Cambrian Patrol
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