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Exercise CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE:
a Blenheim Experience
Ex CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE was the first exercise of the Senior Term for Blenheim Company. Fresh from
the Easter break and now knowing our future homes, we departed for Caer- went Training Area in South Wales, looking forward to Ex CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE. We were warned to bring a book, but this would be proved to be just an added weight.
The harbours and biting cold of Inter- mediate Term were out, and FOBs, Civ- pop, the Sun and company level opera- tions were in. Rotating through QRF, Guard and Urban Operations was an interesting change from previous exer- cises. As it turns out though, operating from an overt defensive location means that the enemy and population know exactly where you are, all of the time, which they unsurprisingly exploited.
Some of the new challenges were enjoyable though. Gone were the days when everyone you saw was to be closed with and destroyed. Now instead we could engage with the ‘local population.’ This added complexity that made being in the Ops Room genu- inely interesting.
Like all exercises, Ex CHURCHILL’S CHALLENGE culminated in a final company attack, but not before spend- ing a night on hard routine in bivvy bags. This was an experience so novel that the other companies didn’t get to
enjoy it all. The final attack started with a move to the forming up point before first light through a dense woodblock before 3 Platoon launched the ini- tial assault. The attack had its flaws revolving around a charge across open ground without appropriate support. However, valuable lessons were learnt, reminding us that although the Inter- mediate Term was over, we could not forget everything taught. Having been exposed to a lot of new content, the Company recovered back to RMAS looking forward to using all they had learnt on the highly anticipated Ex TEMPLAR’S TRIUMPH.
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