Page 76 - Chronicle Vol 17

working hard to chase the armoured infantry qualifications that degraded during our time training recruits for the Ukrainian Armed Forces so that we are ready to deploy to Estonia.
Your battalion currently has 87% of our required workforce with the majority of gaps at Rifleman level, symptomatic of the difficulties to recruit in the current economic climate. This has proved difficult for all departments within the battal- ion; however we remain in a better place when compared against other infantry regiments and, as mentioned in your recent visit, our workforce is close to what we will transition to under Future Soldier when we reorganise from Armoured Infantry in WARRIOR tracked vehicles to Heavy Mechanised Infantry in wheeled BOXER vehicles. We expect to complete this transition, a reduction of approxi- mately 100 soldiers, by April 2025.
I am delighted to inform you that we recently promoted 32 Riflemen to Lance Corporal thanks to D Company’s Junior Non-Commissioned Officers’ Course and another 19 Lance Corporals to Corporal.
SPORT AND ADVENTUROUS TRAINING
This year the 5th Battalion has benefited from some consistent time spent in Bulford, and has grasped the opportunity to take part in numerous sports and adventurous training events. The battalion was placed first in the Army’s Southwest region “Festival of Sport” and was only narrowly kept to second place in the Army Indoor Rowing League. We have soldiers from the Battalion repre- senting the Army in triathlon, rugby and powerlifting.
Lance Corporal Cozens, Army Triathlon, will compete at the Ironman World Championship in New Zealand in 2024, Rifleman Salusalu was selected for the Army Rugby 7’s, Lance Corporal Needham and Rfn Tamanivalu have rep- resented the Army and Combined Services at U23 rugby union, Rfn Suguvanua is playing Army rugby league (and selected for pre-season trials with the Midland Hurricanes, a National League One team) LCpl Pantelli represents Army Swimming, Lt Hamilton has been selected for the Army Nordic Team, Rfn Saukawa is playing Army u23 basketball, and both WO2 Hopkins and Rifleman Gregory will prove their strength in the Armed Forces Powerlifting competition. Impressively, Rfn Carter (Biathlon) and Rfn Young (Olympic Skeet) have been awarded Army Talented Athlete Scholarships Schemes, which provides S&C, nutrition, psychological, lifestyle and physiotherapy services to athletes who are currently unfunded by UK Sport and who sit somewhere close to the standard required for entry into Podium/World Class Development programmes.
The Battalion’s adventurous training emphasis has been on individual courses rather than larger overseas expeditions. This has allowed us to boost the num- ber of our instructors whilst giving junior Riflemen the opportunity to gain basic qualifications; this should pay dividends next year when we hope to run major
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