Page 96 - RSDG Year of 2021 CREST

102 EAGLE AND CARBINE
Lieutenant J Cooper
The harr creeps in during the early hours of the morn- ing, clinging to cam nets and beginning the onslaught of rust on weapon systems. Shortly before dawn, shad- owy figures reveille from the comfort of their sleeping bags, bristling as they take their first steps into a damp, chilly morning. Ignitions stutter, radios crackle to life and the leaguer that emerges from the gloom would be quite at home on any training area in the UK. But, within a few hours, the dragoons of B Squadron will be battling a hostile combination of sun, sand, dust, and heat. This is neither Thetford, nor Salisbury Plain. It’s Oman. The Mutants are in the desert.
No sooner had SCOTS DG 50 passed than B Squadron’s next task came sharply into focus. Exercise KHANJAR OMAN 21 was one of several high-profile joint exercises in Oman throughout the autumn. B Squadron, along with 3rd Troop A Squadron, deployed under the 1st Battalion Royal Irish battlegroup, nearly 800-strong, to Duqm, a port bordering the central arid region of Oman. Our home was Renaissance Village, with the nearby Joint Land Support Base (JLSB) our staging area, home to the weapons, vehicles and freight, once they arrived after a month-long voyage from Southampton. It was also where we completed our acclimatisation PT as we adjusted to midday temperatures of nearly 40 degrees. Across eight days, in increasingly restrictive dress states
and with heavier loads, the squadron totalled 33 laps of the 2.5km perimeter. It was only once we had finished the package that someone pointed out that we may be significantly more acclimatised on our right legs than our left.
After three weeks of preparation, the battlegroup deployed. Mission 0 was a three-day window for sub- unit level training. With the overhaul of the squadron chain of command came a desire to maximise the train- ing value of the desert ahead of the upcoming deploy- ments on Op NEWCOMBE in 2022. Excellent radio communications allowed the troops to roam comfort- ably at reach, refining mounted and dismounted SOPs over unfamiliar, challenging ground by day and night. There was great enthusiasm at all levels for our excel- lent Fire Support Team attachment’s education on bat- tlespace management, use of fires, and sighting systems. Elsewhere, 3rd Troop conducted training with EOD & Search assets and proved that they had a knack for find- ing dummy IEDs, although admittedly often not in the way in which the Royal Engineers were hoping.
The exercise comprised three missions of increas- ing complexity. Mission 1 saw B Squadron (callsign “Dragoon”) operate alongside B Company, 1 R IRISH (callsign “Ranger”) for a battlegroup strike. After cov-
Ex KHANJAR OMAN – Exercising Troops