Page 15 - QDG Year of 2020

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
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experience, repeatedly stepping back into the vehicle that more often than not had been at a ‘sporting’ angle.
The pinnacle for the Sqn on the exercise was the Battlegroup hasty raid for which B Sqn had the key part. Supplemented with two Troops from C Sqn, giving a set of ‘bonnet brief’ orders in under ten minutes, with no time for rehearsals, a 20+km vehicle insertion, at night and with two troops who
had not worked with us before
was a challenge, but everyone
rose to it. It was an incredibly
dark night with NVG barely
helping as the lack of moon,
overcast and rain made even
following the man in front a challenge. The C Sqn fire
support group got into place
in the nick of time led by an
A Sqn recce team, Lt George
Barham led the assault group
through dead ground to the
start line (where, miracu-
lously ahead of schedule, we
had to wait for 30 mins in the
freezing rain before starting
the advance onto target), the SSM gripped the CASEVAC with Sgt Yeates RY proving a force to be reckoned with in the CASEVAC dept and Sgt Josh Petre putting his Brecon knowledge to good use brought enough Illum to enable the break in over complex terrain, aggression and coordination took care of the rest. The immense relief of seeing the fire support engaging as we moved in was a relief, in reality this would be pinning the enemy down for now though it ensured a big tick for the QDG Battle Group proving we could coordinate fires and movement. The less said about the Sqn’s extraction the better as vehicles got ‘bogged in’, one vehicle slipped off a track into a precarious position and the biting wind cut through the now sweaty crews after a good 2km uphill extraction.
This pinnacle was followed by some less dynamic but equally challenging screening tasks before we were cut to 2 Royal Anglian Battle Group for their final attack conducting Close Target Recon- naissance and supporting the placement of their fire support group. We had played our part well to date not least through Cpl Rich Brown who had found an excel- lent ‘crows nest’ with the ability to view across the AO and bring on to target our anti-tank ambushes, they lasted 48hrs before they were dispatched in a chance encounter with the OPFOR. The end
was sadly ignominious as the OPFOR tanks struck at the exact point of SHQ while credit was due to the OPFOR Recce Platoon who did well to sneak up on a callsign which only found them when they trod on ‘something soft’ as they went to relieve themselves!
The Sqn celebrated a successful exercise with a trip en mass to the Pizza Hut at Solstice services a well-deserved post exercise meal using the money the guys had spent on tick (mostly cans of Monster), little did we think that this would be the last time we would gather socially for the
next year.
As COVID-19 took hold, and with
troops confined to RBSM and the blocks our duty of care was to ensure they remained physically and mentally well. The remote work given, although not always appreciated, produced some outstanding results with the raw intelli-
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gence of our soldiers demonstrated and their solutions to problems enlightening. Standout soldiers in this regard were Tpr (now LCpl) Tekin, Tpr (now LCpl) Sweeney, Tpr (now LCpl) Roberts. LCpl Duthie-Thomas also produced some outstanding work that stood out for its thought and attention to detail.
To ensure the Sqn personnel were getting out of their rooms we organ- ised socially distanced PT in pairs on Mondays and Fridays utilising the airfield we are lucky to have. Tied to this activity would invariably be a number of stands to develop the soldier’s cognitive abili- ties and improve things such as vehicle recognition and problem solving. Led by the recently arrived Troop Leaders (2Lt Sam Upward, 2Lt Dickie Fulloway, 2Lt Ed Dillon) this proved a good distraction from the lockdown and got some much- needed air into our lungs.
The Sqn initially supported testing through 1st Troop led by Lt George Barham with Cpl De Jongh stepping up as Tp Sgt. They did some sterling work
...little did we think that this would be the last time we would gather socially for the next year
The BDTA perfectly replicating the jungle