Page 73 - Chronicle Vol 17

5 RIFLES Fire Team Commander’s Cadre Pass Out Parade, August 2023
EXERCISES IRON CYCLONE AND CABRIT TEMPEST, GERMANY
In September the Battalion deployed to Germany to conduct its Mission Ready Training ahead of Operation CABRIT (March – September 2024). This saw the formation of the 5 RIFLES Battlegroup that will deploy to Estonia: B, Fire Support and Headquarter companies from 5 RIFLES in our Warriors, A Squadron of the Queen’sRoyal Hussars in Challenger 2 tanks, 4 Field Squadron 21 Regiment Royal Engineers in Mastiff protected mobility vehicles, and the Chestnut Troop from 1 Royal Horse Artillery equipped with 105mm artillery guns.
The deployment was split into two phases: Exercise IRON CYCLONE involved the Battalion training itself up to company level, and Exercise CABRIT TEMPEST which was our battlegroup-level validation by external assessors from the Collective Training Group. Lead elements of the battlegroup deployed in mid- September to begin taking over the fleet of some 250 tracked and wheeled vehi- cles from the readiness fleet in Germany. On arrival of the remainder of the Battlegroup, we set to work conducting both dismounted and mounted range packages whilst getting the vehicles ready for exercising.
After an enormous amount of work to prepare the fleet, 5 RIFLES seized the oppor- tunity to develop our combined arms manoeuvre competency and to give our Riflemen some much needed experience in mounted close combat. The Battalion’s involvement in Operation INTERFLEX (the training of Ukrainian recruits) last
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