Page 16 - KRH Regimental Journal 2022

14 The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars
The Senior Squadron Visit our ancestral home
of beers, this new attitude had a refreshing effect on the cynics and we all enjoyed hearing their dits about their experiences with their new Danish friends.
After Easter leave the Squadron was split between Monchengladbach and Sennelager to prepare the fleet for Ex DEFENDER 22. The change of scenery clearly suited some, and it wasn’t long before scooter-ing into town, watching foot- ball games and heading to Triangles for essential team bonding became a staple of after work activities. However, sadly all good things must come to an end, and after some painfully long HET moves across the border, we arrived in Assembly Area Alligator on Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area, a.k.a. the Dustbowl.
The Dustbowl became home for the next three and a half weeks, and the combination of the American food huts and the glori- ous weather created an up-beat atmosphere in the Squadron. We familiarised ourselves on a multitude of armoured platforms from
Cpl Bellingham, LCpl Pell, LCpl Thomas and LCpl Lawrence try their hand at Klettersteige
a variety of nations and wondered in amazement at the space-age turret of the Danish Leopard 2A7. Shovel cricket became a staple in day-to-day activity as well as tank washing lines resulting in the Squadron Leader’s boxers and LCpl Piercy making the front page of The Times! After a week of being overcaffeinated from chain drinking BV brews, and hyper from the Sergeant Major’s fruity vapes, the Squadron finally pushed out to conduct tactical training. This training marked our transition from conventional armoured tactics to fighting in woodland and forest tactics used in both Poland and Estonia. Squadron level training allowed for the newer members of the squadron to learn from the experi- ence of those who had operated in similar terrain previously. Ex DEFENDER 22 culminated in a Battlegroup exercise allowing us to incorporate our new operating procedures both in a dry exer- cise and alongside the Danes live firing.
By the end of our stay in the Dust Bowl, the novelty of the Americans singing whilst running around our crew shelters had