1 YORKS Support Weapons Cadres Members of Support Company 1 YORKS have had a busy time of late, reforming and retraining for their primary role in preparation for future deployment to Afghanistan.

The 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment recovered from Iraq as part of 20 Armoured Brigade in May 2009.Whilst deployed their role was to mentor the Iraqi Army. 1 YORKS would deploy alongside their Iraqi counterparts in their Mastiff vehicles to incidents within the city in order to offer advice and experience to the Iraqi soldiers and officers at all levels. 1 YORKS took great pride in leading by example and setting a high standard for the local security forces to adhere to.

For this role 1 YORKS did not require any support weapon capability and as such Support Company, ran the Divisional Training Centre at Shiabah on the outskirts of Basra. Here they conducted military courses for the Iraqi Army. Now that the Battalion has returned to Germany it is seen by the Commanding Officer, Lt. Col. Jonny Price as one of his main priorities to reconstitute the support weapon capability.

“Looking at where the battalion is going (Afghanistan in 2011) this training and the regeneration of the battalion’s organic support weapons is fundamental to ensuring the battalion can enter the training cycle in 2010 with all the correct building blocks in place. Given the nature of Op TELIC 13 it was necessary to let these core infantry skills wither on the vine and thus starting with a clean sheet, these Cadres are critical in regenerating these core capabilities and skills which are fundamental to war fighting battle group operations and dismounted close combat.”

The support weapons platoons have been reorganised and contain both veterans and those new to their particular weapons system, as a consequence the Cadres, which are being run over a four week period, serve to level the playing field by refreshing those of old and training up the new.
 
Support Company is made up of five platoons: Mortar, Javelin, Support Fire (machine guns), Recce and Sniper. The theory part of the Cadres is conducted in Oxford Barracks, Munster. The part that the soldiers really enjoy, the practical phase, is conducted in the field culminating in live firing the weapon systems. As a light role battalion all the weapon systems have to be broken down in order to be man-portable, adding significant weight to an infantryman’s already considerable load. CSgt Shirt, second-in-command of the mortar platoon said “each round weighs about 4.5kg, one Rifleman carries 2 mortars, 1 javelin round and 200 x 7.62 machine gun rounds on top of his normal kit.” The light role infantry take great pride in their fitness and the ability to be able to fulfil their role with very little vehicle support.

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to join the mortar and machine gun Cadres on the ranges and experience the weapons firing live rounds. CSgt Shirt explained “mortars are the only guaranteed indirect fire support, indirect meaning you don’t have to be able to see the enemy. The observer, called the Mortar Fire Controller, gives information on the target location, we have a maximum range of 5675m and each round has a 40m square lethal area, under operational conditions we can get about 20 rounds off per minute.” Mortar Platoon fired over 400 rounds during their exercise in Sennelager.

In contrast, CSgt Forster, second in command of Javelin Platoon explained that they will not be firing any of their anti tank missiles during their training due to the fact each round costs approximately £75,000! Each round weighs 16kg, the CLU (command launch unit) weighs 8kg and the tripod a further 4kg. These anti tank missiles can be launched from the shoulder unit at up to 2 rounds per minute.

The General Purpose Machine Guns on the other hand were unleashing volley after volley of rounds down the range shredding the targets one after the other until there was smoke coming from the hot barrels. LCpl Littlefair explained “we can use map predictive fire, you don’t have to see the target, you can turn your weapons into compasses and using elevation charts you can hit the unseen target a maximum of 2500m away.” LCpl Oliver said “watching the rounds go down the range when you have the tracers on is awesome.”

Recce and Sniper platoon have been training in Senny Bridge in Wales where much focus is on their field craft and map reading skills. Snipers require excellent marksmanship skills whilst soldiers in both platoons need to be adept at camouflage and concealment, hiding and stalking and judging distances. LCpl Spayne of sniper platoon explained that the qualities required to be an effective sniper were “enduring patience, you may be in position for hours, if not days.” Pte Adams also added that snipers were an “observational asset” to a battle group situation. Recce platoon’s job is to covertly locate the enemy and is said to consist of the most highly skilled soldiers.