Page 24 - 4RA Regimental Journal 2019-2020

Throughout 2020 many of the NCOs from the Battery came to the fore by planning and delivering some fan- tastic ‘Battlecraft Syllabus’ (BCS) low-level training.
The gunline deployed overnight on the airfield twice to practise gun detachment into and out of action drills and CPX mis- sions. This proved particularly useful just before Exercise SUNDERLAND DAGGER and gave the relatively junior detachments some good experience before the testing conditions they were to face in Otterburn.
The Tac Group under Sgt Cheetham man- aged to enact a drum-beat of day-trips to local national parks to practise silent marking, target indications and TQCC
Anzio Troop proving Digital Fires with the new MCUDT equipment in Warcop
4th Regiment Royal Artillery BCS Exercises
mission practice: Sutton Bank, Roseberry Topping, Pen-Y-Ghent and Wainstones all being picturesque destinations visited in the course of such training organised by the bombardiers.
Perhaps most ambitious was Exercise SUNDERLAND GRAPPLE, organised by SSgt Schofield and conducted in a wet and boggy Warcop training area. FSTs rotated
through this exercise for 48 hour periods, trudging up some very steep heights with heavy bergens to practise their OP skills, their fireplanning and perhaps most sig- nificantly to prove Digital Fires with the Man Carrier User Display Terminals or ‘MCUDTs’ – the Battery thus became the first in 4th Regiment RA to prove FST Digi- tal Fires on an exercise.
Tac Group BCS training at Wainstones
Defence’s contribution to the national COVID-19 pandemic, codenamed Operation RESCRIPT, was to domi-
nate much of 2020 for the Battery.
Immediately upon return from Exercise SUNDERLAND DAGGER the Battery was designated lead sub-unit for the Regimental COVID Support Force. It was not long before the Rednecks were deployed. The Battery spent April sup- porting the construction of the NHS Nightingale hospital in Harrogate. A var- ied task, this involved some days spent transporting hospital beds and ward equipment into the makeshift facility, while other days were spent at the Army Medical Services Training Centre or in Harrogate training to work in the COVID wards as porterage staff. Fortunately, the peak of COVID cases flattened before conventional hospitals were over- whelmed and by May the Battery was stood down from the task.
Operation RESCRIPT
Following some delayed Easter leave the Battery was back in the mix again soon enough. It formed five Mobile Testing Unit (MTU) teams to contribute to the Regimental effort of COVID testing in a variety of car parks and public spaces across the northeast of England.
Fears that summer leave might be lost to the MTU task were eased when sud- denly civilian contractors were ready to take over the MTU duties, though not before the Battery had spent two full months delivering the much-needed testing to the local communities.
The final Operation RESCRIPT duty that the Battery was to contribute to in 2020 was by no means the least. With just three days’ notice, the Battery formed the core of a sub-unit attached to 1st Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment to conduct the very first mass-testing of asymptomatic communities in the world.
Operation RESCRIPT duties in Liverpool
Deployed to the now infamous Pontins Holiday ‘Resort’ in Southport, the Bat- tery spent close to five weeks delivering Lateral Flow Device tests to members of the Liverpool communities from the Ellergreen and Alsop community gym- nasiums.
In total the Battery managed to test 15,000 people from its two sites, includ- ing Sgt Wickstead’s mum and Gnr Wil- liams’ family!
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