T
he 2010 Sir Steuart Pringle
Trophy was held at the
Commando Training Centre
Royal Marines, Lympstone,
where 18 detachments from
across the country compete for
the prestigious national title. A packed 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
- having won the competition last year, the
section carried huge pressure now having to
defend the title against determined opposition.
Saturday morning saw an early start at 4.30am
- we were the first team up giving us time to
pack our kit, prepare for the day ahead, and
get into breakfast early on the dot of 0600.
We moved by minibus up onto Woodbury
Common. Our order of stances had been given
to us the previous night, and also a Young
Officer in training had been detailed to us for
the day. As last year, heavy rainfall had been
forecast, but we were confident that our
training would stand us in good stead in the
poor conditions.
At 0830 Observation was the first stance of the
competition. Following the brief we patrolled
along a track observing the ground, spotting
planted items to be remembered for a Kim's
Game. After this we were given ground to
observe - the section quickly got to work on
spotting and identifying all of the objects.
We moved onto the Leadership stance. The
task involved retrieving a wheel from a
minefield, replacing the wheel onto a trailer
and then attaching the trailer to the back of a
Land Rover. We worked with caution and
perhaps adhered to the safety aspect of the
brief rather than allowing our natural sense of
urgency to prevail - in hindsight perhaps we
felt we could have been much speedier at
completing the challenge.
The Camouflage and Concealment is either
static or a stalk - this year it was an uphill
stalk. We began and only had three men
pinged due to telegraphing small trees and
consequently giving away our positions. Now
we completed the longer run across the
common to reach the Battle Exercise. It was
going to be a casualty extraction of a downed
pilot in a hostile area, through a densely
wooded area with one track in and out. On
reaching the casualty, clearance patrols were
sent out, and an all-round defence set up whilst
the medic prepared the casualty to be moved.
Suddenly contact was made and we reacted
strongly! After a short firefight we broke contact
and extracted quickly. We felt we had done
well and our spirits were now high.
Fire Control Orders was given a twist this year
with pop-up targets being used and each
member of the section being 'allocated' an
individual weapon system. Every member of
the section would deliver at least one FCO each.
This was something we had practised but in a
less pressured environment. Unfortunately the
confusion of reference points did affect a few of
us and so we felt that we could have achieved
higher marks at this stance.
After the disappointment of FCOs we picked
ourselves up and moved to Weapon Handling.
We had won Weapon Handling last year and so
the pressure was on. Despite this, we managed
to complete the test with no faults whatsoever
under close inspection. Morale was now high!
The Map Reading stance was an individual
exam-type test which demanded knowledge of
bearings and calculating distances as well as
being contour literate. No communication was
allowed during the test and so we had no idea
how we had done collectively, but we put it past
us to concentrate on the next stance, First Aid.
It was established that a CASEVAC would need
to take place. The stance would put strain on
Aluredian
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