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Southbound Trooper IX

hammond

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Just Canvasing the forum seeing how many members will be heading down this year. It's my first SBT but sounds like its one heck of a good show. Does anyone know some planned events for this year?
 
So the Regiment is heading to Halifax tomorrow, don't know when the flight out is, all that will be passed on tonight. Can't wait to see whats in store.
 
So back from SBT and Virginia, with an overall good experience. The whole exercise was based around TF skills. As Armoured Recce we spent our time concentrating on Convoy escort duties, 5s and 20s and IED contact drills.

Our first day was on a range firing the C6 mounted. This range day was great as it involved the gunner, driver and CC. Our Second day was spent shaking out our convoy drills and escorting supplies to A Coy, B Coy, and the gunners who were out in the field. On Tuesday we performed the "Longstreet" Convoy Live Fire Range. 1.8km of road with enemy popup positions. Tuesday was in preparation for Thursday's combined range with the CSS. On Wednesday the Tp separated into 2, one Tp received the WES gear and were attached to some infantry types, while the other again conducted a convoy road move to resupply the patrol bases. My Tp was conducting the convoy and during this trip our convoy hit an IED. The scenario included casualties, medavac, and the convoy becoming separated requiring a RV and Bypass route. Thursday 2 Recce Patrols and CSS conducted the live fire convoy range together bringing Dismounted and Mounted fire onto targets. The other 2 Patrols were escorting a convoy and were subject to their IED scenario.

Friday and End Ex. Our Task was to Recce a route to an Afghan village and provide security for a Shura that was to take place. This marked the first time we performed Recce skills on the exercise. This Route recce also combined a convoy escort as we RV with an American UAV team (who later detached onto another task). Prior to the Objective the Tp separated again to provided security from two directions and secure two LZs. The task was great with role players that had been overseas as villagers. I found the AAR the most informative and learned a lot from it. On they way back to the FOB we experienced another IED (this time the Engineers set up their spiffy IED kit) and some of the guys got to enjoy a chopper ride.

That's the break down of what Recce did for the week, there was a lot of hurry up and wait and then wait some more, but I learned a lot from the exercise. The exercise did have some hiccups, such as accommodations, we were in shacks for a couple nights until moved to the FOB where our tents had no heat or lights like the others, and we experienced hiccups with food. A couple times we missed out on meals as they weren't provided. But these are things that would also be experienced while on operations, although on a lesser scale and weren't show stoppers. I hope I don't come off as whiny.

Would love to hear from others how their week went. Heard the Infantry were busy with FIBUA and Chopper stuff. Looking forward to next year.
 
 
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