Page 30 - 1RHA 2021

1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery
Quartermasters Department (M) Lance Bombardier Clark, O/HQ Battery
2020/21 has been a busy year for the Quartermasters Department. Starting out with some big transitions within the department was a change round of personnel and a few
farewells. The Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant WO2 Mick Sedman who was the longest serving soldier in the Regiment (22 years) left to take up an instructor role at the new Defence Logistics School in Worthy Down, WO2 Hilton-Huish arriving as his replacement from 12 Regt RA on promotion. SSgt Sophie Whitfield left us on promotion to WO2 which saw SSgt Tasha Baxter join the Department. Bdr Lucy Clark joined the dept on promotion from E Battery and took over the MSA account from Sgt Leon Marcelle who on promotion moved to the Tech Sgt at The Kings Troop RHA.
In 2020 The Quartermasters Department supported the Regi- mental Exercise CYPHER DAGGER 20-1 in Nov/Dec. The team provided real life support to the Gun Batteries whilst deployed on Salisbury Plain Training Area. With new waves of the Coronavirus coming to the UK the Regiment were called upon to support the NHS in testing, whilst still preparing and deploying out on regi- mental exercise.
2021 started out with certain members of the department called back from Christmas leave early predominantly Maj S Campbell (QM), WO2 D Hilton-Huish (RQMS), LBdr L Clark and Pte S For- rester, to set up COVID-19 testing site (the first the army had set up), in preparation to test all members of the Regiment deploying on UKRU 15. Once UKRU 15 was called the department worked tire- lessly to keep up with the constant flow of soldiers coming through the testing sites run by the Quartermaster (QM) and Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant (RQMS). The QM and RQMS went and recced the areas the troops would be staying at and went out to various schools to oversee the subunit’s setup of the testing sites. The Department provided all equipment required such as; Lateral Flow devices, which were used in this instance to help make the process more efficient, face masks, visors, rubber gloves, aprons and hand sanitiser. This continued into May 21.
June saw the department once again preparing for Exercise. Exercise CYPHER SHARPEN 21, a 7-day exercise designed to test the G4 logistic chain, predominantly the Quartermasters Depart-
A2 Echelon position on Ex ARIES STORM
ments, out in the field. A round robin was set up to remind and revise troops on things such as MJDI in the field taught by WO2 Isles, the working of a Rolling Replens taught by LBdr L Clark, as well as basic soldiering skills taught by LBdr Godsmark. The following week the BC set up some MATTS Training out in the Salisbury Plain Training area for 3 days which brought OHQ (The Rocket Troop) Battery up to date in the more hands on MATTS.
Following summer leave the department started preparations to deploy on a 3-week Bde Exercise, Exercise ARIES STORM 21, a Brigade exercise that started on the 3rd September 21, on Salis- bury Plain Training Area. This was a great opportunity to test out the department and G4 chain over a longer period. During Exer- cise ARIES STORM, the department deployed out as part of A2 Echelon which included the BQMS, MT and chefs department, the main goal was to partake in resupplying all the Gun Batter- ies whenever needed and provide real life support. While on this three week long exercise, A2 Echelon had the luxury of being pro- vided fresh food throughout, resulting in lots of pan bashing for the troops. Showers were erected for the duration which came handy as many people partook in their own personal phys. Train- ing was conducted such as Navigation, BCD and Basic Soldier-
A2 Echelon position on Ex ARIES STORM
QM(M) personnel on Ex ARIES STORM
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