Page 83 - Cavalry Regiment

The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
navigation in challenging terrain, leading patrols and to give and take lessons whilst living out of their bergans. We established a climate and wrap where the soldiers could make and learn from mistakes. This made sure that the troops all had a go at the basics instead of mindlessly following the man in front of him. The ground at Gairloch is what the soldiers would describe as ‘lifting Sir’. It is hilly, boggy and heavily wooded. This makes nav tricky and even a section attack overmatched in your favour a hard car- dio session. Overall, it was excellent preparation for crew com- manders and PNCO courses.
C Sqn had responsibility for training The Light Dragoons’ next cohort of JNCOs in July. The 2019 PNCO Cadre was held between Gaza Barracks and Otterburn. We ran a challenging event that was not an attendance course. Tprs Wilkinson and Annal of The Legion were stand-out performers, both coming in the top three.
The summer was rounded off with another multi-activity AT package. This time The Legion was in the Lake District rotat- ing through rock climbing/abseiling, canyoneering, hill walking and mountain biking. The activities were brilliant (even the hill walking!) and made even better by the great weather. However, the best thing to come out of the week was the inaugural run out of ‘The Rusty Helmet’, The Legion’s new bar. The evenings were filled with talent shows, quizzes and skits, with plenty of bokkies and stubbies at bargain prices!
Another highlight of the short northern summer was the 1 UK Div Bismark Challenge relay race. The Light Dragoons were crowned team champions, with Legionnaires contributing impressively on the day. The event consisted of 4 laps of a 4.4-mile course with a 16kg load. The weather was hot and the ground tough, but we still managed some stand out performers. Special mention must go to Cpl Rae for his Anchor leg as part of the regimental A team.
With the nights closing in and the temperatures plummeting one could have been mistaken that it would be time
for another exercise on Salisbury Plain. No
such luck! The heavily coniferous and cana-
lised terrain of Galloway Forest would not be the obvious place to practice manoeu-
vre on our annual CT2 regimental mounted exercise. However, GALLOPING DRAGOON was a great opportunity to practice mounted TTPs in challenging conditions. You can’t always pick your terrain, or the weather in this instance! This ex-armoured sol- dier for one certainly wasn’t prepared for the body tissue induced permafrost of a sub-zero rainy convoy road move in a Jackal. Lt Cav on this platform is potent in many ways (firepower and mobil-
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