Stalwart Guardian 04

[Marauder]

As far as SG04 goes, well, let's say I was slightly underwhelmed for what was ostenibly an Area ex. It was sorta like a brigade ex with a few more toys but the same amount of endless clusterfucks and people blaming buddy up and down the chain for the shit that went wrong. I will say that this year's camping adventure in good 'ole Pet wasn't near the level of numpty fucked as last year's Stillborn Gaylord, and there was actually plenty of ammo (hey, I was dumbfounded too). Then again they were still handing out big bags of gay all around. This year I couldn't even bring myself to get pissed off at the endless dumb shit, just a roll of the eyes and "soldier on, soldier." Funniest incident: The Bn CO addressing the troops and saying that "this is NOT STAND TRAINING, it is a tactical exercise", followed minutes later by the Bn DCO reminding us "to keep safety at the forefront for each of the stands you will be training on". Simple humour yes, but priceless at the time. Second best was the 1RCR FIBUA/OBUA/MOUT (I don't know which is the acronym du jour this week) SME droning on about how "When I worked with Delta" and "The SAS showed me that..." in our AAR for our first attack that had us at 95 of 140 in the coy as casualties. But we got ours in the second attack, when we just about wiped them out to a man when they fucked up bad and overcommitted to rushing the nice little kill zone we had set up. :evil:

As far as rats went, well, gotta say the IMPs tasted better than the "fresh" (guffaw) hayboxes we had. And the smoker was about the only thing set up worse this year than last, but that may have just been my LIBs RQ, who knows. Two beers (enforced by some faceless corporal at the beer table) after a week of slogging, sleep dep, and general random supidity was a nice pat on the ass, regardless. The funny thing about the rats was the huge Day-Glo sticker on some that warned that the honey was not fit for human consumption (insert the obvious joke here).

So, overall, it was a weeks pay earned the dumb way.

 

[brin11]

I always look forward to the Smoker but there wasn't one at Arcon this year.  Nothing...at least where I was.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I was listening to a few birdies about the pet ex.
Lost c7, c7 with m203. 46 misplaced bolts. Griffin hitting a tree. Something about a griffin hitting an ML which hit a tree (or something along those lines). The list went on.  A buddy of mine who stayed behind for rear party said he found enough kit to make santa's elves bow their heads in reverence.
Some blatent favoritisim between some platoons.
All in all though i really wish i was able to make it. I always get a kick out of the smoker. I give it a few years before we see armed military police standing guard at the beer table and a 'beer CSM' making sure troops get ONLY TWO BEER.

 

[portcullisguy]

I knew about the lost C7, which apparently fell into Chalk Bay, out of the hands of a G&SF soldier.  I wasn't aware of the other issues ... lost M203, lost bolts, etc.

During cleaning on the say of the smoker, someone from my unit nearly lost a spring from the feed tray cover of the C6 we were cleaning.  Luckily it was found in the grass near our cleaning table, and we saved ourselves some paperwork.  Especially since that's only supposed to be stripped by a weapons tech (us infantry troopies are too often losing those little bits, I guess).

I'm glad I wasn't in the Griffon that hit a tree.  I don't have a great load of faith in our rotary wing equipment to begin with, and that would've made me REAL nervous about getting in one again.

I "acquired" some kit of my own, but then again, I wasn't really looking.  I located a C9 cleaning tool for the gas plug, which are always in short supply.  I nearly had myself a tent, all packed up in a kit bag and ready to go, except I had a guilty conscience - and didn't want to carry the extra kit anyway - and returned it to the Royals, who had left it behind after packing up their CQ.

I also left about 2 pints of blood in the thousands of mosquitos that assaulted me constantly for 9 days in Pet.  Now there's tons of A RH NEG little flying bastards around there.  Hope they choke on it. 

 

[chrisf]

Reference the beer, my prediction is that in the near future, you will sign for your two beer, thus eliminating the need for anyone to check and ensure you've only had two beer... unfortunately, if you don't return your empties to the QM, the $0.20 deposit will become attached to your social insurance number, and will haunt you for the rest of your life if you're applying for a federal government job.

 

[Spanky]

Too bad you guys did not like the ex.  It certainly was stand type training, despite the protestations to the contrary, but at least the stands were good.  The blocking positions saw us with a poop load of ammo.  It was certainly "staged", but fun nontheless.  The raid tasking we (recce) had great.  The use of the boats and the type of task itself was new to us so we found it challenging but interesting and motivating as well.  The recce by chopper conducted by the patrol commanders was a bonus.  Our Sqn never did get to do the convoy escort.
There was a bit of slow time between "stands" but that allowed us to perform good battle procedure.
The Sunday with the swim test, wpn zeroing was a waste of time.  The ARR started by having difficulty finding Ilitis (initially 13 for three Sqns), they came through and found well over 40 almost overnight. 
Our guys enjoyed the smoker especially after the official festivities ended. :blotto:
A good ex all in all. ;D

 

[Redeye]

The C7/M203 that was lost was evidently left on the bus by a sleepf***ed troop.   The bus driver (according to semi-reliable intel) went home oblivious, until the MPs showed up at his place asking to get on the bus and recover the lost weapon.   Imagine what might have happened if the bus driver was aware of its presence?

How did a rifle fall into Chalk Bay?   Did the troop neglect to lash it to the boat or something?

(edit - corrected an un-PC orthographic matter)

 

[PuckChaser]

Imagine the bus driver picking up kids for school, and some 8 year old finding it in the backseat.  ;D

 

[Redeye]

Too bad you guys did not like the ex.   It certainly was stand type training, despite the protestations to the contrary, but at least the stands were good.   The blocking positions saw us with a poop load of ammo.   It was certainly "staged", but fun nontheless.   The raid tasking we (recce) had great.   The use of the boats and the type of task itself was new to us so we found it challenging but interesting and motivating as well.   The recce by chopper conducted by the patrol commanders was a bonus.   Our Sqn never did get to do the convoy escort.
There was a bit of slow time between "stands" but that allowed us to perform good battle procedure.
The Sunday with the swim test, wpn zeroing was a waste of time.   The ARR started by having difficulty finding Ilitis (initially 13 for three Sqns), they came through and found well over 40 almost overnight.  
Our guys enjoyed the smoker especially after the official festivities ended. :blotto:
A good ex all in all. ;D

Was the recce you were involved in for the raid only for your brigade group's formation?  The recce we had for our raid was nearly useless, their route was a track, which was not on for infantry, and their choice of ORV was great for a Cougar harbour, but not especially ideal for light infantry - the company commander I was with ended up firing them and using his own assets for recce.

 

[George Wallace]

Was the recce you were involved in for the raid only for your brigade group's formation? The recce we had for our raid was nearly useless, their route was a track, which was not on for infantry, and their choice of ORV was great for a Cougar harbour, but not especially ideal for light infantry - the company commander I was with ended up firing them and using his own assets for recce.

This seems like an odd statement to me....Could you elaborate a little more for me?

I can't figure out why light infantry wouldn't be able to move up a track, nor why a Coy wouldn't fit into a Cougar harbour?   Were they mounted or dismounted?   Not being there, nor seeing the ground, I am wondering where and how your statement would be made about a position in Pet?

GW

 

[Spanky]

I believe the Inf we recced for was our own Bde group. We conducted our recces on the Tuesday, and met the boats early Wednesday morning.  I heard about some of the other Sqns having some "difficulty".  Very little in the way of track to the ORV we recced.
George, they were dismounted.

 

[Sh0rtbUs]

IMP's are ok, but our Sgt.'s went at the IMP's first, and cleaned em out of anything good for themselves before we could get in on them, so I had my fare share of Ham Steak and Salisbury Steak...

All in All, I was surprised. The Rangers had hayboxes here and there throughout the EX, and a couple times they had a nice BBQ going by SHQ with hotdogs, burgers. Smoker was 2 beer limit, but I believe we were able to buy more on our own after the 2 were down.

We also did a Recce for the Inf. off the beach. We set up the route, had our OP established and then 2 of us went back to RV with the Infantry. they declined to use our route and took the beach.

 

[48Highlander]

well, the QYRANGS attached to us spent about 5 minutes arguing with the company commander about which way was north, then proceeded to lead us on a patrol which was 95% on blacktracks and covered roughly 7-8km instead of the original 3 that it was supposed to.  At one point the company SM at the rear of the patroll could see the OC off to his left, which leads me to beleive that the extra 5km was mainly due to WALKING IN CIRCLES!  Not only that, but along the way our wonderfull recce element decided to use white light to check their maps, and managed to lose half of the patroll the first time we went OFF a track because they forgot to slow down.

and THEN....as we're about to assault our objective.....after some 7 hours of stumbling around in the dark, promising the gods to kill the next armoured recce puke we saw.....one of you comes on the radio and informs us that they have eyes on our objective.  we're told to expect "anywhere between a section and a platoon" (great accuracy guys), but that there are no enemy positions south of the road.  20 minutes later when we do our assault, where do we find the majority of the enemy?  you guessed it.  south of the road.

and lastly, as we're getting ready to pull off the position, two QYRANGS come strolling by and ask us if we know where Foxtrot Company is.
    "uhh, yeah, about 3 kilometers THAT way"
    "oh, really?  ok, thanks!". 


So yeah, our AAR consisted mostly of "next time, do our own damn recce"



Oh and the rifle that went missing....they were doing a "rope bridge" river crossing....except the engineer rigged up only one rope which happened to be partially submerged.  So the poor bastards (not my company) had to drag themselves through the water, and one of them managed to lose his rifle in the process.  Had to send divers to look for it.

 

[ackland]

Fine do your own recce's Armoured recce is a brigade asset anyways and should be looking for armoured colums not a few grunts in the weeds.

 

[48Highlander]

touchy 

armoured recce should also have armoured vehicles, but I didn't see you any in those 

 

[Matt_Fisher]

Fine do your own recce's Armoured recce is a brigade asset anyways and should be looking for armoured colums not a few grunts in the weeds.

:

Sounds like this thing is degenerating into "He Said...She Said..." with the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.  While I wasn't there, I can't say whether the recce. or the infantry was at fault, but when you make a comment like what I quoted, you make a donkey out of yourself.

The last time I looked Recce's primary tasks are reconnaissance and surveillance.

According to the definition found in THE RECONNAISANCE SQUADRON IN BATTLE,  NDID number: B-GL-305-002/FT-001

"Reconnaissance is a mission undertaken to obtain, by visual observation or other
detection methods, information about the activities and resources of an enemy or
potential enemy, or to secure data concerning the meteorological, hydrographic, or
geographic characteristics of a particular area.

Surveillance is the continuous, systematic watch over the battle area by visual,
aural, electronic, photographic or other means to provide information for combat
intelligence."

I don't see anywhere that reconnaissance and surveillance only involves looking for "amoured colums not a few grunts in the weeds."

If you've been given a job, do it and do it properly.  If things f*ck up, admit your mistakes and learn from them.  Don't get into a "I'm too good for that...I'm a black hatter" bs spiel.  

 

[Jarnhamar]

Fine do your own recce's Armoured recce is a brigade asset anyways and should be looking for armoured colums not a few grunts in the weeds.

Gotta becareful of the grunts in the fields. They are  the ones that make armored vehicles go pop

(just razzin ya mate)

 

[ackland]

Got a little hot headed there. What I meant was to say just because you had a bad expeience with a few bad QY Rangs don't slag all armd recce troops. We hav our bad just like you have your bad.

 

[48Highlander]

Got a little hot headed there. What I meant was to say just because you had a bad expeience with a few bad QY Rangs don't slag all armd recce troops. We hav our bad just like you have your bad.

Agreed.  I actually spent most of my summer around QYRANGS.  Got quite a few friends in that regiment.  I like poking fun at them though, and I`m deffinitely not going to let them forget about this little disaster.

 

[Matt_Fisher]

TR,

Not a problem.  Glad to see we can conduct ourselves as professionals around here.  

Cheers!

Matt