Page 12 - Cavalry Regiment

12
1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Lt Martel dreams of the glamorous life of the cavalry
OP and some excellent reporting, to remain in place and then wreak havoc to their follow on forces. Suffice to say that the QDG OPFOR left Salisbury Plain with its head held high, a healthy respect for 3 Scots and the reassurance that we had maintained the standard set by those in Kenya earlier in the year.
Upon return to camp the focus once again shifted to fixing vehicles and deal- ing with the routine demands of trawls, courses and training. LCpl Clarke and Tpr Gething successfully badged as snipers with 2 Rifles while LCpls Moon and Edmunds have completed the first sniper cadre run by QDG for many years. A superb achievement that starts to address a capability gap we have had for some time. The drive to re-invest in spe- cialist capabilities has been at the fore- front of the squadron efforts for the last couple of years, with Cpl Turner leading the way with regimental anti-tank train- ing. He recently outstripped many infan- teers and qualified as a Javelin Section Commander. His cadre of Javelin experts
Like a coiled spring
is rapidly increasing across the Regiment with LCpl Hickmott taking responsibility for training many of the next generation of Javelin operators in the Regiment. Similarly, the traditional courses continue: Cpls Thapa, Couch and Bould all suc- cessfully completed Crew Commanders and have now returned to the Squadron ready to put it to good use on Salisbury Plain next year.
With Exercise Wessex Storm in February 2020 looming large in the regimental cal- endar the complexity of training started to escalate. In November we moved back down to Salisbury Plain, this time to spend two weeks going cross eyed in the Combined Arms Tactical Trainer. Despite
The drive to re-invest in specialist capabilities has
been at the forefront of the squadron efforts...
Sgt Wilkins gets briefed up
having completed numerous training events over the last year there had been little chance to operate as a recce squad- ron which CATT gave us the chance to do. Once everyone had worked out which way was up, ‘accidentally’ shot their mates a few times and fallen into riv- ers when crossing bridges we embarked on a series of squadron level simulated exercises to run through our own basic procedures. This culminated in the sec- ond week when we operated for the first time alongside B and C Sqns to fight as a Battlegroup doing our best to find, destroy and evade the simulated enemy who appeared to have a brilliant ability to see through hills and woodblocks (much to Lt Brockless’s dismay).
In and amongst all this Regimental and Squadron activity there have been plenty of individual achievements of note. Tpr Parker spends much of her time repre-
Sharing G4 dits