Page 31 - Bugle Spring 2024

Fire Team Commander’s Cadre Pass Out Parade
FIRE TEAM COMMANDER’S CADRE
5 RIFLES
D Company were responsible for planning and delivering this year’s PJNCO course between June and August; a formal distributed training programme, over seven weeks, designed to test and qualify our Riflemen for promotion to Lance Corporal.
It entailed several distinct elements including the mandated Army Leadership Development Package and qualifications for planning and running training exercises and providing safety staff to static live firing ranges. The bulk of the course focussed on low level infantry skills
and testing the Riflemen to ensure they could command a fire team in the field. This was achieved through a demanding and complex final exercise on Salisbury Plain, which included urban and trench warfare over a protracted period living and operating in the field.
The course makeup was a truly whole regiment affair with Riflemen arriving from 1, 2 and 3 RIFLES to accompany the 26 from 5
RIFLES. From the 56 candidates that started the course, 44 newly promoted Lance Corporals passed off the parade.
Invariably the first hurdle was a physical test, a loaded 4km squadded march, in Marching Order, followed by a 4km individual best effort with Fighting Order. It was a suitable challenge to set the tone for professionalism and effort. Thereafter, the week encompassed the Army Leadership Development Programme which is a diverse educational start to the course reminding them of the increased responsibilities they were striving for. External speakers and voices of experience added
to the array and began to challenge their perspectives; this included a long session with a psychologist who aimed to convey the importance of self-awareness and resilience.
With more PT and battle-fitness tests in the margins, the course moved into Skill at Arms instruction: teaching and developing them to
it was clear to see the fatigue and challenge affecting the students
qualify as static range safety supervisors and to plan and run blank battle exercises.
The next phase of the course saw the first foray into the field as the Battle Craft Syllabus was covered. The weather was less than kind to the course as it deployed onto Salisbury Plain via a 14km insertion tab for its 2-week final
field phase. The first few days encompassed fighting in very close terrain, through woods and forestation. It was a brutal test of fitness and for those in appointment, of leadership, communication, and patience. The environment was more akin to a scrub attack in Belize than rural Wiltshire, exploiting the Plain’s variety
of training environments. The next phases encompassed a long advance to contact, before finally settling in Greenlands Camp. Here the defensive element began as the course planned and operated from the established FOB. Our catering platoon conveniently arrived to conduct their Battlecraft Syllabus for a few days, providing welcome respite and morale boosting hot scoff for all, before an overall lapse in standards put the entire course into a rural harbour area for several days.
The weather continued to grind and as the complexity of orders and tasks increased, it was clear to see the fatigue and challenge affecting the students. The exercise culminated with platoon level attacks before withdrawing to conduct the long-anticipated sword range, a fitting end to a gruelling exercise and thoroughly challenging course.
The final element of the course was the recovery and preparation for the pass off parade. WO2 Hanson and the RSM spent
the week whipping troops into shape before executing an exceptional parade, with top student Rfn Sherborne doubling them off
the square in Bulford in front of a host of senior Rifles Officers, including the Colonel Commandant Lt General Tom Copinger-Symes CBE, their families and the remainder of the battalion.
Fire Team Commander’s Cadre; ‘Grenade, Army Mud Bath’ Battle Physical Training
RIFLES The Bugle 31