Page 8 - Mercian Eagle 2017

Foreword
Lt Col CRP Ginn CO 1 MERCIAN
In reviewing the excellent articles for this journal, I was struck by the volume of tasks and missions completed by 1 MERCIAN in 2017. The list is extraordinary and represents a level of sustained effort unmatched by an Armoured Infantry Battalion that is not at war. A quick review from late 2016 suffices to illustrate the point: the Battalion re-deployed from Operation ORBITAL having made a marked improvement on the training delivered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces1. In rapid succession, A (Grenadier) Company deployed to the Falkland Islands on Op FIRIC, B (Malta) Company conducted an overseas exercise in Lithuania and the Battalion demonstrated the best of the British Army on the Combined Arms Manoeuvre Demonstration (CAMD).
2017 began with A (Grenadier) Company deploying on the Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE) and showcasing industry’s innovative, modern, battle-winning equipment; C (Kohima) Company provided a superb lessons consolidation event to share the salutary insights from the Ukrainian experience; we supported the Army with troops and vehicles for the first of two periods
of training support; and B (Malta) Company and most of Dragon Company
deployed to BATUS to
become OPFOR for the R
WELSH and the YORKS
Battlegroups. The articles
herein will illustrate how we
fought our countrymen hard,
always to a standstill and often
annihilating them, all in good
spirit, of course. At the same
time C (Kohima) Company
were in London on Public Duties and I hope you have all seen photographic evidence of how brilliant they were – smart as Guardsman and twice as hard. We achieved an average 97% first time pass in mounted gunnery on Castlemartin Ranges and then conducted the second period
of training support to the Army, with soldiers spread across the Army enabling activity (from beating up special forces to beating up the SCOTS GUARDS Battlegroup!). This last period stretched to Christmas in what felt like an endless swirl of training, exercise and deployments but at last Battalion Christmas Day arrived with some time to ‘take a knee’ with families. And we somehow found time to plan, train and execute Op TEMPERER as the UK’s standby Battalion.
Now in 2018 we must refocus on training ourselves; you may have heard of the new Battlecraft Syllabus (BCS) and the drive to re-learn
1 In the RUSI, “Urban Warfare Conference, Past, Present, Future”, on 2 February 2018 Major General Borys Kremenetskyi, the Defence and Air Attaché, Embassy of the Ukraine to the UK, publically thanked the Op ORBITAL trainers for saving his soldiers’ lives in the Ukraine conflict.
how to train to fight our peer adversaries. BCS focuses training, and the delivery, back to the lowest level with the centre of gravity at the Cpls’ Mess; I could not be more proud of the grit and grip they have exhibited in embedding this training into our DNA and our experience so far has shown that it provides time, space and the physical resources for some first class training.
‘Our soldiers have consistently displayed excellence; whether sporting or soldiering’
We must also focus on recruiting and retention to maintain our numbers in a competitive manning climate2. We must lean into the plan produced by CO 4 MERCIAN wholeheartedly; recruiting endures as my Main Effort. Whilst there is considerable discussion about the National Recruiting Campaign (NRC)
and the efficiency of Capita and the Targeted Operating Model (TOM), this at the moment
is not our fight. There are gains to be made in the trenches and this is where we must situate ourselves at the moment; it is the regiment’s vital ground.
Our soldiers have consistently displayed excellence; whether sporting or soldiering3. I am in no doubt that our soldiers will continue in this standard throughout 2018 during our deployments to BATUS and Oman4. It is testament to the hard work of the soldiers over the last 12-18 months that 1 MERCIAN was selected as the centrepiece for this exercise. In everything, the officers and soldiers of 1 MERCIAN have displayed grit, grip, humility and the constant pursuit of excellence.
I could not ask for more, and I want to say a heartfelt thank-you to the men and women of this fine Battalion.
2 Every soldier is a recruiter. #IamaMercian.
3 Gold on Ex CAMBRIAN PATROL and a very close second in the Brigade Boxing against the Army champs.
4 Ex SAIF SAREEA 3.
1MERCIAN