Page 26 - QDG Year of 2022 CREST

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1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Maj O’Shea hosting the Kuwaiti Delegation
volleyball skill to a standard that would have almost certainly guaranteed a podium place in the Games themselves.
During the first week August, 2Lts Toby Clark and Harry Swailes took a novice crew of QDG soldiers to Cowes week. There they competed in a week of competitive, and extremely prestigious, inshore yacht racing. The QDG were racing onboard White Knight VII, a J109 belonging to the Royal Armoured Corp. The best result of the week was 6th out of a fleet of 20 boats with the QDG finishing the week with an overall position of 11th.
Once the Sqn retuned in September 2022 there had been a major re-orbat. WO2 Navunisaravi moved from B Sqn SSM to MT, Sgt Williams to the Training Wing and Lt Fulloway to an RHQ role. Whilst it is always sad to say goodbye to friends and colleagues, it is also a crucial part of Regimental life and very impor- tant to ensure that the four Sqn remain balanced with experience and leader- ship. WO2 McKinnon arrived to take the reigns as SSM and Lt’s Clark and Swailes “parachuted” in post a good showing on Crew Commanders. This also coin- cided with the move of QDG from 7X / 1(UK)XX to 1 DRS BCT / 3(UK)XX. This would mean a return to conventional warfighting as a mainstays and a much greater focus on NATO based exercises.
This allowed B Sqn to harness the hard-won experience gained throughout
On parade the night before the state funeral
sequential Op NEWCOMBE tours and then distil it into something that would generate a potent reconnaissance force for the Warfighting Division.
the only unit who actually has oper- ational experience on the platform we’d
use for real.
The Deep Recce Strike
Brigade Combat Team (DRS
BCT) also stood up as a
formation at this time. QDG,
RL, and HCR provided the
ground manoeuvre elements
supported by by a plethora
of rocket and heavy artillery
regiments. For the old and
bold (most likely to be found
in the MT / QM Dept...!)
this can be seen as a return
to “old school” Formation
Recce doctrine. This is not
an inaccurate assessment,
but crucially for the QDG we are the only wheeled recce unit within the Brigade, and, with AJAX being slower than we would all like to arrive in service,
The new Sqn was imme- diately put to the test during Op BALLAM (security support to the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II). Both B and C Sqn arrived at very short notice in to central London, accommodated in a disused office block above St James Tube Station, in regards to the accommo- dation I think it’s fair to say its’ charm lay in its austerity, but the less said about that the better! The main task revolved around supporting
the Metropolitan Police in stewarding the enormous crowds that had descended on London from around the globe. Again, B Sqn did extremely well, already used
crucially for the QDG we are the only wheeled recce unit within the Brigade
Ex BRAVO FIND