Page 18 - The Wish Stream Year of 2022 CREST

Exercise SECOND ATTACK
OCdt Coates
Billed as an opportunity for OCdts in Junior Term of the Royal Military Academy Sand- hurst to hone the fieldcraft skills mastered
thus far, Ex SECOND ATTACK was just that. Building upon previous endeavours, from dawn to dusk we approached enemy positions and launched into offensive battle drills under the watchful eyes of our platoon staff.
Ex SECOND ATTACK is an excellent platoon- level activity, building on the section attack skills learnt on Ex FIRST ATTACK, and is a princi- pal tool in preparing for Ex MONTGOMERY’S MARK, the concluding assessment exercise of Junior Term. Ex SECOND ATTACK involves a night in the field followed by a day of three suc- cessive attacks.
Our platoon’s attitude beforehand was one of excitement; we had enjoyed Ex FIRST ATTACK, and were looking forward to getting stuck into more complicated offensive operations.
We deployed onto Hankley Common Training Area on 18th March 2022. It was our first expe- rience of uncharacteristically sunny weather, a welcome change from our previous exercise, Ex LONG REACH. We set out at a relaxed pace to our harbour area where we spent an uneventful night in harbour routine in anticipation of a day of action.
The next day started with a 0500hrs wake-up, followed by a 0730hrs move-off to our first pla-
toon attack of the day, with the platoon direct- ing staff in role as Platoon Commander and Sergeant. The primary aim of this attack was to expose OCdts to the controlled chaos that is a platoon attack without the pressure of platoon command. However, since the Platoon Com- mander was killed before the assault of the last position, it did not entirely work out that way, and an OCdt had to hastily take over the last
16 SANDHURST