Page 102 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2018

100 REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
A Lancer in the Communications and Information Systems School
If anything is demonstration of how paradoxical the army jobs appointment board is, perhaps it is my role here as SO3 Communications Information Systems Mounted Close Combat (CIS MCC). I was the first ever Royal Lancer Regimental Sig- nals Officer and for all of 2015 I could safely say I was the best Regimental Signals Officer the Royal Lancers had ever had (my RSWO, Warrant Officer Class II Elce also pointed out that I was, by default, also the worst Regimental Signals Officer the Royal Lancers had ever had). I then spent 11⁄2 years working with the RAF and US forces on Operation SHADER where we did not touch Bowman at all. Perhaps then, this is what made me laugh upon being directed to fill the role as ‘the Regimental Signals Officer’s Regimental Signals Officer’.
I’ve learnt lots. I’ve learnt that we’ve not changed much. I’ve learnt we’ve not learnt much. Which is bizarre. We are firmly in the Information Age; our children interact with digital touch screens before they can talk and the art of writing a letter by hand is quickly going by the wayside. Yet I confess that as an army, I feel we are just a bit behind the curve.
There are many reasons for this, none interesting enough to dis- cuss here. For any nerds still reading, the future is not all bleak.
In 2019 we will field BCIP 5.6. A Combat Battlefield Applica- tion (ComBAT) that will emulate the same intuitive systems we are all used to on smart phones. Next year the planning begins in earnest to start Morpheus, a totally open 3rd party system of communication systems to replace BOWMAN. Any readers who were on CLANSMAN and are still serving, you’ll clock up three systems! If anyone can remember LARKSPUR, please write in. The mythical AJAX sits in the shadows like its enigmatic namesake, but (hopefully) we will soon be delivering teaching packages on the new fleet. And we have run an outstandingly useful Communications Conference which was simultaneously fascinating in its content but utterly terrifying its portrayal of the electronic and cyber threats we face.
Overall, yes, we’re behind the curve but as always, our Army does not solely succeed by technological might. It is the people of the Army that define our capability. I have the privilege of seeing it every day here in the Signals School; all ranks of tech- nologically astute and inquisitive minds who will no doubt be the leads on our developing technologies. We in the RAC will be the first to take this on (Ajax) and I am convinced that we have the right people to do so as well.
AJP
Regimental Sergeant Major Hackney and Regimental Sergeant Major Godfrey at an ARMCEN day out to Epsom Races