Training culminated in a mass fires exercise, say the British Army here.
The Support Company of the Coldstream Guards consists of all the specialist elements that gives an infantry battalion its war winning abilities. These include their snipers, mortars, machine guns, recce and anti-tank personnel.
“These soldiers are often the more senior members of a battalion and will use their experience and skillset to ensure their unique assets are best placed. Whilst each Guardsman is a very well trained individual, all the elements of a Support Company work best as a team and this range allows each element of the Company to practice working together as a cohesive unit to ensure they’re ready to deploy if needed.
Alongside ceremonial duties and operational training, the Coldstream Guards have also recently deployed to Manchester to facilitate COVID-19 testing in the City. The Coldstream Guards pride themselves on their many operational skillsets and outputs and todays ranges is just another example of that mentality.”
Major Dan Cuccio, Officer Commanding 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards Support Company was quoted as saying:
“This is the culmination of two months hard training for Support Company, during which every man has earned his place. Now we are coming together to demonstrate the true firepower of a well-drilled Company.”
This may be a stupid question but how often in modern combat do you have nice lines and set emplacements? I would imagine any enemy would do all they can to avoid a line of soldiers dug in and ready for action.
never, its a range safety thing I would suspect
Range safety is paramount, those SF Gimpy’s can throw a lot of lead down range so there’s a guy behind each one to observe and control. Good photo of the soft launch on a Javelin.
Never. I think it’s just for practice. Using the range for some trigger time instead of a moving battle.
Range safety, and at night they would also be lit up with cylumes on the back of their helmets.
I remember doing a GPMG SF demo on Dartmoor back in the day with a Brigade’s worth of guns! We set up the lamps & pre-set the targets during the day, then went back at night & let rip with tracer..very impressive!
Remember an SF concentration in Brecon with about 30 odd SF kits firing 4bit at Night- like a Star wars Movie
Don’t think it’s a Javelin, more likely an NLAW
Now experienced is are the officer cadre in the Guards SF companys? Are they DEs or normal entrants, because, I would have thought siting any essential asset like a Jav or General would need a very experienced eyeball.
Bugger.
HOW experienced
All DE officers mate, all the LEs are doing the desk work, logistics and ticking the boxes. Support Coy nowadays is more about providing overwatch and reinforcing rifle companies with some kinetics they lack. I’m the biggest supporter of Support Coy and they need to get bigger and badder! But your right, Support Coy and Recce platoon generally have the more “experienced” (better) Officers lol.
I commanded a Support Coy in 2015/16. To cut a long story short, the Pl Comds of Mors, Atk and Recce tend to be junior Captains. However, 2ICs of Atk and Recce are CSjts and Mors is a WO2. My OC Snipers was a CSjt and OC Assault Pioneers was a CSjt. Also the Section Commanders in Support Pl tend to be Serjeants.
So it’s very NCO heavy. But don’t forget, the junior officers all have A-Quals along with the Brecon trained Serjeants and above. Sp Pl Comds also attend a 12 week course on their weapon system which adds a range qualification as well. SO in terms of timed served they are quite junior, their skillset and level of training tends to be very high. Also the range procedures mean that even when the Pl Comd is the RCO, everything is double checked by someone else as a matter of course and the range wardens tend to ensure that targets are sighted correctly in their arcs (ie you won’t be firing out of the danger area)
I wonder if the Brits will be ordering the new improved CLU for the Javelin that gives the missile double the range?
The CLU has been found to be more useful than realised, an excellent ISTAR assist.