ARMY Reserves from Old Sarum based B Squadron The Royal Wessex Yeomanry (RWxY) have been fixing their sights and demonstrating their growing capability to deliver support to the UK’s Rapid Reaction Force, by taking part in a Live Firing Exercise on the Lulworth Ranges in Dorset.

During a firing weekend at Lulworth Camp, they invited cadets and potential recruits to see just what they had to offer as the Army’s only reserve regiment that supplies reinforcement crews to the regular Challenger 2 tank regiments based at Tidworth.

Integrated with Regular subject matter experts, the Challenger 2 (CR2) main battle tanks taking part have been manned entirely by Reserve crews and they took part in a live firing package designed to train, educate and inspire them.

To the soldiers, who have been training using gunnery simulators either at Bovington or in Donnington in the Midlands, this is the culmination of months of hard work.

Commanding Officer Lt Col Chris McGregor said: ‘We can train in simulated environments but there is nothing better for a soldier than getting in the equipment that they are going to have to use in conflict potentially.”

“It really gives people an incentive to do all of the long and arduous training that is required to reach the standards needed to fire a vehicle like this. ‘This is a demonstration of what the Reserves can do and are already doing.”

“It has been a busy training year in which soldiers from the Yeomanry have supported Regular units, The King’s Royal Hussars and The Royal Tank Regiment, during their Live Firing Exercises in Canada.”

Major Justin Crump explained about recent changes to the training now being undertaken: “In the past we trained turret crewmen as individual replacements but of course the Army fights as a team and we created good individuals but they didn’t train as crews and the essence of a tank is the crew.”

During the year the regiment was also presented with a new unifying cap badge bearing the Wessex Wyvern. They will also now wear the famous red and black triangle insignia of the 3rd Division on their left sleeves.

Lance Corporal Richard Carson, 29, from B Squadron at Old Sarum, has been in the Reserve for ten years. Until recently, he was employed as an accommodation manager at the Wiltshire College in Salisbury but gave up his day job to go on attachment to The King’s Royal Hussars for six months.

He is now attached to the Yeomanry’s Head Quarters at Bovington. He has recently returned from an exercise in Canada where was working alongside his Regular counterparts.

He said: “We spent four months doing build up training and then went out to Canada for a month and half where a substantial portion of time was out on the prairie doing a full battle group exercise”

“The Regulars were really accommodating; in fact they didn’t treat us any differently.

“We were expected to do exactly the same, so we had to pull it out and do it to the same standard as the rest of the squadron and I think we did.”

“When friends ask what I am doing in the Reserve, I never tell them the same thing twice, we are always doing something different.

“It’s either Live Firing on the ranges, or I’ve been away on adventurous training, there are so many opportunities and some don’t realise it but you also get paid to do it.”

While the Army Reserves have only increased by an overall figure of 20 in the past year, recruiting for the regiment has been buoyant, although they are always on the lookout for potential recruits who have the drive and initiative to become a crew member of a 62 tonne Challenger 2.