At the risk of repeating myself, this has once again been an extremely busy time for the Regiment. The pace at Regimental duty seems never to have been so high and sustaining a completely different task in each Squadron takes great energy from all of those involved. Despite the level of activity, morale is high. I was particularly pleased to hear the manner in which A Squadron cheered the promotions of those that were successful on the JNCO promotion boards. This level of camaraderie is one of the Regiment's true strengths and one that will, I am sure, keep us delivering at the top of our game.
By the time this edition of Tank is published, D Squadron will be deep into their commitment in Afghanistan as the Armoured Support Group. Despite shortages of Viking to conduct armoured training, in every other respect the Squadron is extremely well trained for the task. Much credit has to go to Major Mike Taylor for producing such an effective squadron with such high morale. He has gone out of his way to go beyond the requirement including arranging a very impressive Church Service in St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Among other achievements, D Squadron was the first Army unit to be trained in ground sign awareness; this will hopefully prove a valuable asset in the battle against the Taliban's use of IEDs.
In the autumn, the remainder of the Regiment deployed for 3 weeks to conduct battle group level training and reach certification for its forthcoming task as the NATO Reaction Force CBRN battlegroup. Exercises RED VIPER and WHITE CLOUD provided a real opportunity to stretch the Regiment in the CBRN role. To replicate its potential operational tasks, the Regiment was deployed across the full breadth of the country from Caerwent in Wales, through Salisbury Plain, Hampshire and then back to Stanford Training Area.
To warm us up, battle group HQs completed an armoured planning exercise under the expert eye of a team from the Combined Arms Staff Training Team. G Squadron provided some extremely realistic serials for both H and HQs to develop their low level skills. The exercise concluded with a complex Sensitive Sight Exploitation for which H Squadron was grouped with Portuguese CBRN Explosive Ordnance Disposal as well as other UK capabilities to disable an incredibly realistic mock insurgent CBRN laboratory. Despite exercising so soon after the summer manpower churn, the Regiment was no less effective than it had been in Iraq. The imaginative exercise serials developed by G Squadron knocked those that took the opportunity to visit back.
In this edition of Tank we have produced a series of articles that continue to show the valuable capabilities that the First offers to defence. At the same time we have posed some questions on how these capabilities might be approached in the widely anticipated review of security. Having said that, we have resisted going too highbrow and there are still a number of sport and social articles that show the First at play.