Page 68 - QDG Volume 9 No. 5

66 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Ex CERBERUS
Ex CERBERUS took place in Oct 24 with
nine QDGs deploying to Sennelager,
Germany to act as LOCONs. The exercise
took place during a ■■■ period in the
FOE, including the CABRIT 15/16 RiP, the
delivery of Op INTERFLEX and the return
of the FLF fleet from DIAMONDBACK. In
the face of this competing activity QDG,
bolstered by the HCRs ‘AJAX Consul-
tancy Group’ delivered the LOCON for
three DRS battlegroups, a LOCON for
the 12X FLF Sqn and a DRS Battle Major.
The deployment commenced at
midnight on a cold October night, cars
were loaded with personal equipment
(and critically the battle box after a
quick dogleg through Swanton Morley)
to travel down to Tidworth. Upon arrival
in Tidworth the journey was only just
commencing with the long coach trip to
Sennelager proving as enjoyable as ever.
Upon arrival at Sennelager Camp the
inevitable brief on accommodation from
the R Welsh RQ was delivered, during
which time he made it extremely clear
that there was to be no movement from
the bedspace that you were assigned.
What followed shortly afterwards was a
mad scramble to find a free bed space in
a transit block that appeared to have not
received any maintenance since at least
the 1970s.
The next few days were filled with RSOI
briefs, ABACUS training for puckster
operators and the inevitable fight for
information to understand the divisional
plan, the PACE plan, attempting to estab-
lish what the JAGIC actually does and the
difference between a General Support
Reinforcing and General Support gun
battery.
During this period of time Maj Cowen
discovered the dangers of deploying late
as he found himself assigned to the night
shift as DRS Battle Maj during which he
That time we asked ChatGPT to represent Ex Cerberus...
spent most of the exercise being told to
sign off on amendments to the AB545B.
These amendments were almost inev-
itably followed by a conversation with
a RA Commanding Officer querying
why he was now in a Reinforcing role
as opposed to a General Support Rein-
forcing role.
The exercise ramped up rapidly
with the DRS BGs pulling the Division
south, dealing destruction to the enemy
throughout. At this point Maj Wales as the
BGLO began tearing his hair out as the
ABACUS system kept killing, regenerating
and replacing vehicles and manpower
with seemingly no rhyme or reason. This
inevitably resulted in a number of frank
conversations with the Brigade ES team,
who held firm in their belief that there is
no such thing as a ‘simism.’
Credit must go to the QDG and HCR
JNCOs and Tprs who suddenly found
themselves acting as Commanding
Officers as the Officers were glued to
combat terminals and map boards.
LCpl Williams and Tpr Lewis performed
admirably with little direction as the
12X recce Sqn Ldrs, and Tpr Paterson
stepped up ably to command the QDG.
Lance Corporal of Horse George and
LCpl Calloway appeared almost too
comfortable in their command of the
HCR, raining fire down on the enemy
throughout.
Following a hard fought battle 3UKXX,
with the DRS BGs at the forefront, once
again achieved a glorious victory which
signalled the end of the exercise and
some well deserved trips to the local all
you can eat Chinese restaurant or steak
house, depending on your persuasion.
The QDG performed to a high standard
throughout the exercise and have set the
conditions for success on Ex WARF-
IGHTER and future deployments.
FLJH
Ed: As part of the annual Journal compe-
tition, if anyone can decode all the
initialisms and acronyms in this article,
please write the editor to receive your free
prize!
A BMP Ksh - this is not
what our HQ looked like
The Foxhound Command
variant. That is also not our HQ. RHQ stands for Really High Quality
A US Headquarters
in National Training
Centre – this is
also not what our
HQ looked like