Page 7 - Mercian Eagle 2013

A Company
In September of 2012, A Company took
a well earned break from a year’s worth of Mission Specific Training (MST) by deploying to Afghanistan. The preceding year had been a long and testing one involving exercises in Lydd, Castlemartin, Norfolk
and Kenya as well as Individual Mission Specific Training (IMST) across the country. As the Company threw itself on to the MST treadmill it was clear that this was going
to be a very different tour to HERRICK 12,
a feeling which was being reinforced from BHQ downwards. Transition was the buzz word with the emphasis
overwhelmingly on
the ANSF and their
development, not on
war fighting.
a cavalry AT who were teaching infantry skills to the ANSF!
The MST A Company received was, as ever, laborious but for the most part very good and thorough. The new role of ATEC was one which would prove very hard to recreate in a training environment. The size of our future AO as well as the diversity of problems the AT routinely faced proved impossible to recreate on the plains of England. It was very quickly identified that the mindset of the soldiers in A Company would be the critical prerequisite to
skills and drills under the supervision of the Royal Engineers. The AAST had put in a very strong performance throughout MST, gaining a great sense of pride and team spirit. 1 R ANGLIAN ‘The Vikings’ were
the incumbents at FOB SHAWQAT. They were extremely helpful and several joint patrols showed the Coy around the Area of Responsibility (AOR).
A Company didn’t have to wait long
for a planned Operation. One day after
the Company had arrived in FOB SQT, the task was to patrol south into the dashte (desert), to an area for which the US
Marine Corps were responsible, but rarely patrolled, in order to search a number of compounds of interest (COI). This operation, in true ATEC form, was led by the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS).
The anticipated danger merely whetted
the appetite of the Company, the majority
of who were on their first operational tour. After a long patrol, through the hours of darkness, the COI were searched. Nothing of note was found and the Company arrived back at FOB SQT without having been engaged by the insurgents. Nevertheless, the patrol had been immensely valuable
in bedding the men into their new role.
OC
2IC
CSM CQMS
1 Pl Comd 1 Pl Sgt
2 Pl Comd 2 Pl Sgt
3 Pl Comd 3 Pl Sgt
Maj C Somers
Lt A Kersey
WO2 E Vezza CSgt J Dickinson Lt P Anderson Sgt A McCabe
Lt A Kersey Cpl L Fowles 2Lt C Parry Sgt N Buckley
success. Being reduced to just two platoons and operating out of FOB SHAWQAT, co-located with BHQ, were small hurdles to overcome but it was in the mental preparation for the tasks that the Company had to get right.
The All Arms Search Team (AAST), a company asset held by
3 Platoon, deployed to theatre first, ahead of the Company main body. The AAST
had spent many weeks training together under the command of Corporal Chambers, and were the Company’s experts on Counter Improvised Explosive Device drills, vehicle/route/person searches as well as compound search and clearance. They deployed a week early in order to complete extra training as well as further practise their
The need to
forecast out months
in advance for Platoon
and Company level
training brought the
same old challenges
of getting the right
men, with the right
equipment, in the right place to be trained by qualified NCOs. The usual uncertainty prior to a tour was rife. Speculation
on Company tasks and prospective locations hung in the air. In this climate of uncertainty, A Company did what came naturally and practised basic soldiering skills specific to HERRICK: casualty evacuation, equipment familiarisation, language training and medical training all featured high on the agenda as experience told us these were the things that would save lives. For those that had been on HERRICK 12 these were familiar, changes in equipment and tactics were quickly assimilated by the old and bold and learned by those who were new.
In this sense much of the build up
below Company HQ was very similar to
the PDT for HERRICK 12. It was however when A Company received the task of
filling the Advisory Team Enabling Company (ATEC (S)) that heads began to be scratched. An ATEC was a relatively new concept and research at all levels was required. The general idea was in the
name. The Company group were to enable small teams of Advisory Teams (AT) to
move about our battle space and facilitate transition through the training of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). We were to manage the battle space, de-conflict
in time and space and be on a high state
of readiness should these small and
often isolated teams get into difficulties.
The role of enabling was to provide very close support; a task which is not always particularly well practised by an infantry rifle company, especially when we were enabling
Pte Cross on patrol
The need to forecast out months in advance for Platoon and Company level training brought the same old challenges...
THE MERCIAN EAGLE
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