Page 44 - 103RA 2018-20

103 Regiment Royal Artillery
103 RA REME Detachment
By Cpl Witterick
It’s July 2019 and I have arrived at 103 Regt RA to start a new phase in my post regular service employment. The now newly expanded Equipment Support (ES) attached element of the Regiment comprises of 1 x WO2 (AQMS), 3 x Cpl Armourers & 2 x Civilian Fitters.
It is a busy period that I find myself arriving in, with the Regimental LEA in full flow. With the main effort on these events my familiarisation training and introduction to the day to day workings of the Regiment takes a bit of a backseat for now. Once the mundane paperwork and system checks are out the way and external agencies have been suitably briefed, normal jogging can commence.
Focus was now turned towards prepa- ration for ADE in October and achieving maximum equipment Availability. Having not served with any Artillery Regiment previously myself, then 105mm Light Gun was a bit of a change from my beloved Small Arms, however with the expertise of Cpl Chris Erskine & Cpl Tony Ellison to guide me I was in safe hands, and the AQMS Steve Clare chipped in with some words of wisdom occasionally.
The next couple of months consisted of getting refreshed with all tasks from basic servicing to main component changes, inspections and ‘Ex of O’s. The work was constant and interesting, at times I appar- ently was a bit too keen trapping a finger or 2 here and there, thankfully not mine!
ADE was soon upon us, myself and Cpl Tony Ellison deployed to Otterburn in our all-terrain all-purpose Vauxhall Astra to provide support to the live firing element. It was definitely different to your standard 400m rifle range. A few days with no showstoppers and we were on our way back to barracks for tea and medals.
November saw another audit, this time in the form of Techeval, step up the AQMS and bat them off for another year. Also, we were getting a new home in the form of 4 PARAs old real estate. This required a bit of a changing rooms DIY approach with some self help to get the place in good order and resemble a workshop, the Empire grows. Then it was time to wind down for Christmas leave and enjoy a couple of weeks off.
Rested and refreshed we returned back to work in January to carry on the good
work. Normal service resumed with MEIs and servicing being carried out, next target on the horizon being Strike 3/19 in March.
With Strike complete and all personnel returned safely there followed the official announcement of COVID-19 and LOCKDOWN measures, strange and sometimes confusing times lay ahead.
With no one really 100% sure of how we were to carry out normal business we applied common sense and followed the
AGC SPS Detachment
By Maj J Lamb AGC (SPS)
The Administrative Management Team consists of Maj Joanne Lamb RAO, Band D Jean Jackson FSA, WO2 Derek Ralphs RAWO, WO2 Carol Cowan RAWO Reserve. The administrative manage- ment team are supported by 4 PSAO’s, 8 Civil Service AO’s and 8 Military Reserve Administrators who are dispersed across a wide geographical footprint; together we conduct financial and administrative processes which ensure the 103 RA force is administratively and financially fit to deployinsupportofFdArmytaskings. We didn’t realise that 2020 would test our preparedness to deploy a large number of 103 RA Reserves...
At the start of the year, many of us rang in 2020 full of hope and anticipation that it would usher in a new decade of peace, happiness and prosperity for the entire world. However, it became clear that we were off to a dire start when, within the first few days of 2020, #WorldWarThree was trending worldwide, after the US assassinated one of Iran’s top Generals and we also watched with great horror,
scenes of massive bushfires across Australia, destroying wildlife and human settlements on an unprecedented scale. Yet just when we thought that it couldn’t get any worse, concurrently another major calamity of biblical proportions was silently working its way around the globe: one that would bring the entire world to a grinding halt. The ‘silent enemy,’ as it came to be known, was a novel coronavirus causing COVID-19. I remember reading about this coronavirus at some point in Januaryinanewspaperarticle.Likemany others at that time, I was too distracted with other events to think about delving further into what this new pathogen was about. After all, I remember that similar outbreaks like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012 were brought under control relatively quickly. However, over the next few weeks a rather grim picture started to emerge from Wuhan, China. The disease had started to spread at a much faster pace than anticipated and horrifying images of
people afflicted by the epidemic started to appear more frequently on news channels and social media. China quickly imposed a lockdown in Wuhan with the hope of containingthespread,butitseemedthat the damage had already been done as many countries started to register their first cases. How does this impact on a reserve artillery unit with AGC (SPS) reservists? – at the time no one would know that the AGC detachment would become the ‘go-to’ HR administrators alongside their civilian counterparts. Mobilisation for the Reserves was looming, training had become virtual and administrators were conducting every process they could through laptops at home. No one under- stood HR policy surrounding mobilisation as it had always been completed ‘Face to Face’ at the mobilisation centre in Chilwell. Our unit had been completing personal details and record checks for almost a year in preparation for a G1 Audit. Luckily these checks had covered every detail which is required to be administered before the deployment of troops. Brigade started
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