9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2013 - Page 0050
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 2013 |
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48 REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES'S) With the intelligence gathered from our respective recces, we were able to successfully mount a claymore ambush against the enemy General’s convey and essentially save the world from tyr- anny, starvation and mass destruction. We all felt pretty good about that. Sadly the feeling of achievement and self satisfaction did not last as we were ambushed on our return to our Viking longboats by small arms fire. We were forced to split up and individually make our way to the emergency escape and evasion extraction point “LISA” which was approximately 14km away. After a few more hours of electric fences that were both impossible to see in the dark and strong enough to stop a raging bull, and a few navigational errors, the entire patrol was reunited at the extrac- tion point. Feet slightly wetter, and stomachs more than slightly emptier, we had survived and would live to recce the forces of darkness another day. Ex BLUE HUSSAR was a truly fantastic experience for all of us who were kindly invited to attend. A huge thank you to Maj Lars Bo and all of the Patrol members who made the exercise such a joy to take part in. CDH Ex DYNAMIC VICTORY n chilly mid-November, thirty Battlefield Casualty Replace- ment (BCR) personnel from A, B and HQ Sqns were tasked to support Ex DYNAMIC VICTORY. The final exercise for Of- ficer Cadets at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS), this was to be staged — for the first time — on Hohenfels Training Area in Bavaria under the ever-watchful eye of the US Army. The exercise had a multinational dimension with Danish cadets joining their British peers and an American OPFOR working hard to frustrate their best laid plans. Throughout the exercise we were taken aback with the quality of the American Training Area; whilst the buildings in the villages were no more substan- tial than those in Copehill Down on Salisbury Plain, the detail on the inside was remarkable: racks upon racks of clothes and other goods in markets, computers and fax machines in offices and fully furnished and decorated houses were the norm. Our task was to play the role of the civilian population in the trou- bled and war-torn village of Kittensee, a tangled mess of simmer- ing discontent, shifting loyalties and tribal nepotism. Thus we had to cease to be a highly-disciplined, razor-sharp band of fighting Lancers, and instead become a rag-tag bunch of thuggish malcon- tents, venal government officials and long-term unemployed drift- ers. It was perhaps alarming how seamlessly we made the switch. Troop Seniors were promoted to Tribal Leaders and Village El- ders, and 2Lt Randle was given the ‘Gucci’ job of leading the local insurgency with a bespoke Small Arms and IED Team to control. After a day spent exploring our new home and buying baseball bats and American footballs in the PX, we were ready to go. The first objective for many was to positively identify Offi- cer Cadet Harnett, the only future 9/ 12L Officer on the exercise. If he had hoped to slip through the urban phase of the exercise inconspicuously, it didn’t last very long! There’s no reason an insurgent can’t have great hair As was remarked many times over the course of the exercise, we bought a huge amount to the party; indeed several members of Di- recting Staff told us they’d never had such an engaged and enthusi- astic CIVPOI’. Whether it was the simple-but—amorous farmer Mor- ris Fidi (LCpl Morris) terrorising female Officer Cadets with his lecherous advances, or the entire population chasing the hated and corrupt Governor Shamzi (Lt Freeland) around town with chants unrepeatable in this august publication, everybody fully embraced their role and its attendant complications. Shuras were held (some tame, some decidedly fiery), agreements reached and troubles soothed (sort of). In the process, a great deal of fun was had by all. We gave the Officer Cadets brilliant training value, and perhaps also an insight into the ways of the ordinary soldier so far denied to them in their very-stratified training at the Academy; this was their final exercise and a short 3 weeks after ENDEX they would be newly-minted ZLts with Troops and Platoons of their own, Who wouldn’t want their first exposure to ‘real soldiers’ to be 9/12L Tprs carrying around stuffed farm animals? For our boys as well it offered a fascinating and possibly cathartic opportunity to observe hordes of novice officers in the throes of a challenging exercise. Rarely in the field of human conflict have so many eye- brows been raised at so many undone webbing-pouches. As the sun rose on the Officer Cadets’ final attack (which had featured Sgts Morrison and Stephens as extremely fetching Burkha-clad informants), we were able to congratulate the al- most-there OCdt Harnett as he proudly wore his 9/ 12L beret for the very first time. We were also able to scavenge the leftovers of his Champagne Breakfast. All in all, Ex DYNAMIC VICTORY was a very positive experience all round — we showed the Regi- ment in a good light to RMAS, we all enjoyed ourselves, and some of us even learned how to properly throw an American Football. H OF The nectrc pace of lrfe |
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