Page 41 - WishStream Year of 2023

The grenade range was a personal highlight of the week. I find myself in the waiting bay, where OCdt Barriballhandsmealivehighexplosivegrenade, gravel raining down on his head from the last gre- nade exploding on the range behind him. “Have a grenade!” he beams. Grenade ready? Fly off lever in the web of the right hand, pin in the left, grenade ready. Remove the pin, cock the
low cadets to the left and right, hoping their safety catch is on like mine is. Targets up, fire two shots, take cover, return fire, targets down, return to patrolling, heart beating furiously and finally expe- riencing ‘it’ in the mix of the thrill of live ammuni- tion. Inevitably the enemy appears in overwhelm- ing force, and a tap on the shoulder from range safety staff means I should withdraw. Safety catch on, check pouches, crawl backwards, I’m up, he sees me, I’m down. Maybe I should’ve taken off this warm kit? A sharp pat on the back from a smil- ing Gurkha corporal, who doesn’t mind that I didn’t hit very much because my drills were good, and I showed some of that aggression we’ve heard so much about.
Ex MARTELLO SHARPSHOOTER happens between countless conversations in the warmth of the troop shelter over steaming range scoff, talk of weekends past and still to come, talk of RSBs which are now (mostly) behind us, talk of plans for
arm, throw like a cricket ball. Watch it land, don’t watch it roll, shout “Grenade!”, get down, wait for the bang. WOOMP. Inspect the dam- age. My first throw goes wide by a few metres, but my second is, obvi- ously, bang on, and a neat, smok- ing crater now exists at the base of the target where there wasn’t one before.
It’s unrealistic to expect the enemy to remain in place and politely allow me to build a fire positionn and take a well-aimed shot
leave, debriefing the term as a whole and the exercises which have brought us together as a company in a way that only Sandhurst can as we scrub our gas parts or dig spilled chilli from lunch out of the working parts (this cadet will remain unnamed). Marks- manship is the cornerstone of soldier- ing, but our time on the ranges is also a lesson in that the our role lies in pre- cisely managing and understanding it in the vast range of environments and scenarios ahead of us. However,
The change lever is ever present,
but never have we had reason to use it, until bayonets are fixed for the automatic fire shoot. At ranges from 15 to 50 metres, we fire 2 to 3 round bursts, tightly pulling rifle into shoulder to mitigate spread, dressing up to the Figure 11 to inspect the damage, or rather the extreme spread.
It’s unrealistic to expect the enemy to remain in place and politely allow me to build a fire position and take a well-aimed shot, so the moving target shoot is particularly pertinent. Figure 11s appear and move from one building to another without warning, and at varying speeds. Targets up, take a knee, aim at the leading edge, squeeze the trigger, maybe that was a little bit high? Adjust the point of aim, lead it again, second trigger squeeze, better. All in the space of a few seconds.
The week culminated in the Individual Battle Skills lane, taking up firing positions from a trench, or a curved rooftop, or standing on a ladder, then mov- ing downrange with weapon in the shoulder, fel-
before that, we're back on Old College Parade Square and bulling our drill boots in the corridors, looking at a second round on the Sovereign’s Parade, life’s third certainty.
SANDHURST 39