Issue 87 - NWRFCA - Northwest Reserve Forces & Cadets Association

Manchester and salford
university
otc
Summer climbing
in Scotland
by JUO David Hurden
The AT phase was for some a refreshing
change from camp-based military life.
After a bus ride through the beautiful
Scottish countryside, we arrived in Dunkeld, a
small town 30 miles from Dundee, surrounded
by mountainous terrain. We were greeted
by the AQMS, our unit guru for all things
adventurous, and were delighted to hear how
many AT activities we would be involved in.
Each platoon had a different configuration of
activities over the four days we spent in the
town, but my platoon had climbing to look
forward to first.
The rock face was quite varied, and catered
for all skill levels. It appeared as well that the
rock face taught manners: a very shaky Josh
Roughton, our supposedly fearless Pl Sgt, was
extremely polite when requesting a retreat
from a particularly difficult portion of the rock
face. For those of us who enjoyed heights, a
chance to abseil down the rock made a good
end to an exciting day.
The mountain biking gave our platoon the
chance to stay firmly on the ground, but was
considerably more physically engaging. Before
we set off up the mountain, the instructors
made us play a few games, practicing balance
and keeping our speed down, and then took
us over a few obstacles to show us how to
handle then. We were all looking forward to
the downhill part, where we could throw out
some cheeky tricks to impress the others in
the group, but first we had to make our way
MSUOTC head
over the border
by ocdt james radford
Ex TARTAN LION II was the MSUOTC annual
camp involving all unit personnel, which
took place in Scotland where we were based
at the Barry Buddon training centre and also
at Dunkeld, Perthshire.
This year’s camp proved to be an excellent
Clearly he has not yet been told
that he is about to start off on the March & Shoot
up the mountain. Even though the scenery
was incredible, and the weather was just cool
enough, the slog up the mountain grated.
But before long, we had reached the summit,
and the time came for us to shoot down the
mountain to the ‘trick park’. After a fairly
worrying incident when we found out OCdt
Ghoorun has no balance or any idea how bike
brakes work, we got to the obstacles area and
made up for the 2 hour uphill struggle. As
another reward, we somehow got lost on the
way back and ended up in a pub… funny that.
and challenging two weeks, which was
broadly broken down into; adventurous
training and a live firing package in the first
week, and a 4 day field training exercise
(FTX), competitions and social activities
in the second week. The OCdts all had the
opportunity to take part in a variety of
challenging AT activities, which included;
whitewater rafting, rock climbing, canyoning,
hill walking and mountain biking.
The focus for the FTX phase was on the
Contemporary Operating Environment ,
whereby the Ocdts were broken down into
4 multiples and following a short “OPTAG”
phase, they deployed to take occupation of
FOB Cowbyres. The multiples then adapted to
the routine of Patrols, QRF, Admin and guard,
with the tempo of activity increasing during
the course of the exercise. The insurgent force
The next day would turn out to be a break
for us physically, but mentally would push
us very far. The canyoning and white water
rafting day began with the ceremonial
donning of wetsuits. After a quick, trafficdodging
commute through the town to
the canyoning area we met our first jump,
a one metre drop into a water-filled hole
surrounded by hard-looking rocks (images of
horrific injuries flashed through our minds).
Next onto a slightly higher drop, around
4-5 metres, into a large pool, but thankfully
56 the volunteer www.nwrfca.org.uk