Page 54 - Mind, Body and Spirit 2016/17

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HEADQUARTERS 20TH ARMOURED INFANTRY BRIGADE
WO1 (SMI) M Harrington RAPTC
The 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade saw the beginning of their Training Year for all OPCOM and supporting Units in BF(G) and Catterick. In turn, this was quickly re-enforced by a BATUS training season which saw Battle Groups (BG) from 5 RIFLES, 1 PWRR, QRH and RDG deploy on a Prairie Storm /Iron Strike Exercises. The BATUS recce to Suf eld commenced in Jan 16 with the rst Battle Group deploying early March.
The rst Adventurous Training package started without fault with the 5 RIFLES BG RAPTCI deploying to Trails End Camp (TEC) for the duration of their exercise. TEC is a Type 2 hutted camp at an elevation of 1540m located close to the Rocky Mountains; it is a Forward Operating Base from which a diverse range of AT activities are mounted within the National and Provincial Parks. The following activities/courses were available to the Bde for the summer months; horse riding, open canoe foundation, introduction to alpine mountaineering, rock climbing single pitch foundation, inland kayak foundation and mountain biking foundation. Unfortunately parachuting was not available for the season which projected a short fall of 560 AT places.
Maj (MAA) White, WO1 (SMI) Harrington RAPTC and the BA(G) RAPTCI’s
The Brigade SMI role was situated both at HQ BATUS and at TEC; this allowed me to travel between both locations to ensure the AT courses were lled to capacity by pushing and pulling the BG onto the transport to attend these courses. The statistics proved that this system worked very well; during the summer period only 19 slots of AT were not lled due to non-attendance. In total; 20X lled 1280 course slots with the remainder being allocated to the BATUS staff. A very successful summer.
Since returning from BATUS in October 2016 the Brigade HQ has been eventful; getting ready to become the Readiness Brigade for 2017 with the main effort to deliver as the Vanguard Armoured Infantry Brigade and as the UK standby Brigade Vanguard Joint Tank Force (VJTF) to NATO. So far it has been a very busy year and the RAPTCI’s in the Brigade are being tasked for role in their Regiments. Whilst they are busy concentrating on Regimental deployment BA(G) sport and boxing is thriving.
QRH Soldiers enjoying the sun on Ex Rough Ride
20X soldiers scaling the Rocky Mountains