E
arly October saw the 26th
Sir Stuart Pringle Trophy held at
the Commando Training Centre
Royal Marines, where 18
schools from around the country
battled it out for the prestigious
award. A solid month of hard, dedicated
training consisting of early morning runs, drill
sessions and field work, had given us a great
deal of confidence for the event. We had never
won the trophy before, but we knew that if we
were to do it, then this would be the year.
An early start at 5.00am on the first morning
saw us packed, prepared and early into
breakfast. Our order of stances had been given
to us, and also a Young Officer in training to
help us out for the day. As always, heavy
rainfall was forecast, which was a nice thought,
with the endurance course the following day.
At 0800 hours we underwent our first stance,
the Battle Exercise. The theme for the
weekend was mine clearance and CAZEVAC.
After a hundred metres of patrolling through
thick, boggy grass, our point man was hit with
a contact mine, and simultaneously we came
under enemy contact from the front. With
well-practised drills, we suppressed the enemy,
got a medic on the casualty, and formed a
defensive line ready to prod our way out of the
danger ground to our ERV.
Next, we moved on to the Observation Stance.
After going through the theory of 'Why things
are seen', we had ten minutes to survey an
area of ground, picking out the well-hidden and
camouflaged objects within it. Then we moved
on to Map Reading, testing individually our
knowledge of taking bearings and using mills.
After that came the Weapons Handling test,
with the usual drills to be carried out under
close inspection. A lot of training had gone
into this stance as it is something you can do
well in if you practise. Fire Control Orders
next: the Section Cmdr and 2i/c were to give
an appropriate fire control order onto a
dedicated position given by the Royal Marine
running the stance. The rest of the section was
to indicate where they thought fire should be
directed. With only one mistake made, we
were happy with the way that it went.
For the First Aid Stance, we were told that
there was a downed pilot in a minefield. After
stemming the bleeding and reassuring the pilot,
making sure that all our arcs were covered, we
moved out, performing the standard obstacle
crossing drills, and took him back to the ERV.
With a lot of pressure on the medic to do
everything correctly and not to miss out on
anything critical, once again you never know
how well you have done.
Beginning to feel the strain, we progressed onto
the Camouflage and Concealment Stance, a
stalk over a wide piece of ground with different
foliages in different areas. The aim was to get
within the scoring zones without being detected
by the observation post. We had put a lot of
Aluredian
24
The Pringle
Trophy team in
training …