Page 23 - Mercian Eagle 2014

Mortar Platoon – Dragon Company
The platoon has, as always, been kept
busy with various deployments on RAAT tasks which included Cpl Percival going to Canada in support of BATUS and Captain Nicholls and Cpl Lightfoot deploying to Malawi as part of a STTT to help train the Malawian Defence Force, a challenging situation as they were deploying to fight
the rebels in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo. The platoon carried out its numbers cadre which concluded with a
live firing package in Otterburn and this
was successfully ran by CSgt Burgess
and Sgt Hornsby. The platoon also had a further week in Otterburn of dry training which saw them deploying tactically around the area and carrying out dry drills as part of company level offensive operations. It enabled the upcoming mortar executives
to practise before attending promotional courses at the Mortar Division (Div), Support Weapons School (SWS), Warminster.
After a well earned Christmas leave
the Mortar-men were straight back to
the grindstone preparing for forthcoming deployments. A section of the platoon under command of Sgt Devlin supported
A Coy on OP FIRIC in the Falkland Islands. This two month deployment consisted
of training and operational cycle before a final live firing exercise on Onion Ranges, with full support from the well armed mortar section. The plentiful supply of ammunition provided fantastic fire power and let the mortar section really get their teeth into some heavy rates of fire. This showed the Rifles Company what support weapons can do when used in a peer on peer context. The only downside was that the section also became proficient in re- digging base plate positions, as the ground
would only take so much punishment on such a high charge; regardless of how much initial preparation was put in. Whilst the Platoon was deployed, Cpl Lightfoot was awarded top student on the Mortars Advanced Course at Mortar Div (SWS).
On his placement to 2 MERCIAN Mortar Platoon he has subsequently promoted to the rank of Sergeant. Congratulations to Sgt Lightfoot.
Concurrently to this the remainder of the platoon had the opportunity to get some more sun on their backs with a deployment to Kenya under Capt Nicholls
and CSgt Burgess, providing safety staff for EX ASCARI THUNDER. When the time came that the entire platoon was back together in the UK, the platoon again lost Captain Nicholls to another trawl, this time to BATUS, and unfortunately said good bye to CSgt Burgess; an 18 year veteran of 1 MERCIAN Mortar Platoon.
New faces had already started to arrive from Germany and it was clear that the merging process had begun. A short
time later it was time to bid farewell to the members of the platoon that are now part of the 2nd Battalion in Chester and say hello
THE MERCIAN EAGLE
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