Page 24 - QDG Year of 2020

22
1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Cassino Tp
In early May B Sqn chain of command (CoC) were told to stop thinking of Sub Saharan Africa and start considering how to pull a hybrid Sqn group together built predominantly of Army Reserves from the Royal Yeomanry (RY) and 103 REME Bn who themselves were pulling together from locations across the country. While disappointing to no longer be taking B Sqn complete on Ops the challenge was pronounced. There were plenty of ‘known unknowns’; What level of ability would the Reserves be? How many would pass their upcoming Crew Commanders course? How would they take the regular CoC, how many QDG would
be required to step in at varying degrees of notice? And how would we manage that mindset and people’s expectations?
Initially we needed to
understand the situation
better which resulted in
multiple drives from Swanton
Morley to Bovington where
the RY were based for
their initial mission specific
training (iMST) under RY
RHQ. The group of reserves
that greeted us were intelli-
gent, enthusiastic, switched
on people and receptive
to our arrival, it was immediately clear we had a team that could be moulded into a good Sqn but there were many hurdles ahead before we could consider ourselves a formed group ready for oper- ations.
The name of the Sqn was to be Cassino Troop (Tp), an appropriate title given the area we would be deploying to (Poland) and the ally we would be working closest with (US) all of whom played significant parts in the Battle of Monte Cassino. Much like the battle itself the Sqn had a mountain to climb to get
on Ops in good order.
RY RHQ focused on bringing the group into line with the skills and qual- ifications of their regular counterparts, a significant challenge. With each visit we got to know each other a bit better engendering trust that would underpin the Tp. The team was diverse; from a nuclear engineer and management consultants (Officers) to hugely expe- rienced ex-regulars, a 1* civil servant, postmaster, cyber analysts and a lobbyist (soldiers), not to mention the regulars,
the Tp could run a small town!
The Crew Commanders course was
a resounding success, with Lt Cour- tenay Hallwood, 2nd Plt leader, earning top student. The RY success meant that B Sqn would only need to supply one crew commander, this would be Cpl Gaz Hugo who willingly stepped into the breach. The next target for the Tp was to complete up to Annual Crew Test and dismounted section attack day and
Acclimatising to the winter tour
In perfect harmony
night in Warcop, alongside QDG ranges. A non-stop programme with some standout performances from Sgt Biddle- stone (RY) and SSgt Beal (QDG) plus a lot of hard graft from the RY element ensured the target was met enabling the Tp to focus on mounted manoeuvre live firing on the final range package. The RY had a group of reserve chefs from 167 RLC supporting them, they served up some incredible range food that quickly became legendary. Luckily one of them, SSgt Lee Whitely would be deploying with us.
After a short consolidation exercise back on STANTA and a long weekend the reserve element of the Tp was
it was immediately clear we had
a team that could be moulded into a good Sqn
“To those that have done well, well done”