Page 23 - RAPTC Mind, Body & Spirit

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HQ 1 ARMOURED INFANTRY BRIGADE
WO1 (SMI) Al Harris RAPTC
The 1st Armoured Infantry Brigade is the British Army’s foremost AI Brigade; operating out of Tidworth on Salisbury Plain Training Area (SPTA) as part of 3rd (UK) Division.
2017 has seen some changes to the brigade ORBAT as we lost 4 RIFLES but gained 3 RIFLES. We also gained the Strike Experimentation Brigade which is a small HQ embedded within us operating from Warminster. What is STRIKE? STRIKE is a transformational opportunity for the British Army that will adopt a new approach to force development, a new force structure and an evolution in how the British Army fights. The STRIKE capability will be fielded incrementally through continuous adaptation and spiral development: each step will be anticipated, tested, adapted and improved through experimentation. This role falls to 1 AI Bde and all the units within it, so the next few years are going to see some major changes to how the Army operates.
I have been in this post for 18 months now and I have managed to spend a fair amount of time away in numerous places; the best of which was definitely Canada where I managed to cling on for 2 months of what was some of the best time I’ve had in 24 years in the Army; hosted extremely well by Maj Russ Bailey and SMI Si Naylor in Trails End camp.
My focus isn’t always PD and I have been involved with a lot of ‘green’ business; something I have enjoyed getting back to. The time in Bde has been extremely rewarding and I would recommend the Bde SMI jobs to you all, these are the last of the few positions we have that can really influence what happens at the sharp end, in the Field Army. I am due to move on soon to take up my new appointment as the ASPT QM and I will be replaced by SMI Adrian Jessey, who I’m sure will enjoy Bde life as much as I have.
SMI Harris Inside 1 Armd HQ
1X and TEC Staff
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