The aim of the assessment is to test & assess an 8 man section in field tactics such as Section Battle drills, Field Admin, Camp craft, Building biviy’s/Shelters, Fielding cooking and personnel administration.

Our team consisted of the following:
Charlie Team
C1 Section Commander: L/cpl Parkinsion
C2 Rct McCabe
C3 MC2 Lobb
C4 Rct Hayes

Delta Team:
D1 Section 2I/C L/Cpl Townley
D2 MC2 Rowbottom
D3 MC1 Sanderson
D4 MC2 Hindle
Reserve: Rct Barnes

After arriving on Friday evening at around 18:45 the first job was to erect a bivy site. The staff received a briefing which finished around 21:30 from which we learnt that Tameside were once again selected to go 1st through the Section Attack assessment on Saturday morning at 08:30.
Fortunately we were able to jack up weapons training for the section that evening. This was most important as detachments will be marked down for poor weapon handling skills and even more embarrassing the section attack could be stopped if the training team deem individual skills so poor as to be dangerous. This wasn’t an idle threat, there were teams on the first assessment weekend that were stopped half way through the attack.
For me as a member of staff this was a worry because unfortunately, even getting hold of the DP L98 for training purposes is Nye on impossible, so for the cadets who have passed there weapon handling tests it is difficult after a long period of time picking the weapon up again and remembering the correct drills. Just to remind you, for the three recruits who were part of the team, this was the first time any of them had handled a weapon.

After weapon training it was back to the biviy site, a quick brief about safety, the program and running order for the next day. By this time it was approximately 23:30, so time to turn in as reveille was 05:00 the next day. Why so early?
In the morning the section had to be scranned up, (breakfast in Marine speak) the section commander & his 2I/C (L/Cpl Parkinson, L/Cpl Townley) given orders. They then have to extract the relevant parts from Troop Orders to write his Section orders. It didn’t help that a completely new battle scenario was given out as well during the briefing on Friday evening. I suspect this was done so no top tips from any detachments who attended the first weekend could be passed on (They aren’t half sneaky these commandos you know), Build a model for the section briefing while the rest of the section begin the “Battle Preparation” which means getting cammed out and readying themselves for the attack.

L/Cpl Parkinson giving Orders for the Attack

After the attack there was a quick de-brief by Captain Reynolds, a period of rest for the cadets and another de-brief by myself.
On reflection immediately after the attack I think most of the cadets thought they could of done a better job and probably were itching to go and have another go straight away after taking on board the points out of the de-brief. But as I pointed out to them, the next opportunity to do that and impress the SRMO will be next years assessment, that’s why maximum effort has to go into the attack when they do it.
Having said all that, all the basic elements that the SRMO was looking for were included in the attack. The one point I was personally really pleased and have to give our guys a massive chuck up for was there weapon handling skills. WELL DONE GUYS!

The rest of the days training by way of field lectures was conducted by the detachment staff. The Section commander & 2I/C were also tasked with taking there Fire teams away and teaching Hand Signals.
Other topics covered were:
Types & Aims of Patrols.
Revision of Section Battle Drills.
Navigation: Grid references & taking bearings.
Badges of Rank.

Also during the day the bivy site was inspected by the training team and marked, they would be looking for a clean tidy site, no kit left loafing around, Bergens packed under shelters. Cammed out bivy’s, and no ground sign (Rubbish).

Later on Saturday evening (10:30) the 2nd Exercise organised by myself and TI Traynor was to begin.
This was conducting a Recce patrol and CTR (Close Target Recce) of a prison compound (Complete with watch towers). This type of operation involves a high degree of skill and personnel discipline, its all about getting close up and personal with the enemy without being seen. The 2nd phase of the exercise was to retrieve the poor unfortunate prisoner (from Sefton unit who had been captured during there attempted section attack earlier in the day). He was being held captive 3 enemy and TI Traynor.
Our cadets completed the operation very successfully, we managed to Recce the objective, get the whole section into the compound undetected, then on a signal duly dispatched the enemy, retrieved the prisoner, yomp back to the bivy site for tea and medals. End Ex was at 01:30.
As I mentioned before this type of operation requires a high degree of skill and self discipline. All the guys did extremely well and hopefully it gave them an insight into what Commando tactics are all about.

On Saturday evening after all the detachments had gone through the Section attacks the SRMO had all the detachments fell in and announced the results.
Classification of results is:
Unsatisfactory
Satisfactory
Good
Very Good

We were assessed Good.
The team should be extremely proud of themselves, they have worked hard in training in the build up to the assessment and it paid off.
The cadets behaviour over the weekend was exemplary, and have done themselves and there unit proud! They deserve a huge pat on the back!

The section minus Parkinson & Townly



Moving out to the LOD (Line of Departure)



The Re-Org

Report & Pictures courtesy of Sgt J Lobb 03rd May 2007