Op Ocean Fury, Cope Hill Down, Salisbury Plain
Posted by Jason Price on Thursday, May 2, 2013 Under: Game Day Reports
Well, the team has been back a month since Op 'Ocean Fury', and what a blast!
A weekend of high adrenalin, pyrotechnic madness, in freezing conditions.
We rocked up on the friday night, grabbing the downstairs rooms in the Forward Operating base (FOB).
Just to put you in the picture, sub zero temperatures, in a building with no heating, insulation and plastic windows, we were sleeping in a freezer. After the guys had got 'cozy', I chased the heads of the other Amisom units for a quick debrief.
During this debrief, combining guys from 'Bristol Recon' and the 'Celtic Warriors', Sam stuck his head around the door to shout out in a broad Irish Accent ' Ohhh, I think the Irish are here', to which Colin stated they are stood in front of you! You'd think that would have been Sam's cue to disappear quietly, but oh no, his reply was 'to be sure, to be sure, to be sure', skipping away merrily!
We were woken to the sound of the 'call to prayer', and the team got to the task of suiting and booting for chrono-ing the weapons, and the BRITAC safety brief. During this, I was introduced to Simon Jameson, aka, 'Tank'. Simon is confined to a wheelchair, with very little motor function in his body, yet became one of the most important members of Amisom over the following days. Simply put, he possessed at an armoured four wheel drive wheelchair with twin linked machineguns!
What I was to find out during the brief was we were already on the back foot, the enemy had been given a headstart to deploy in the village, we would have to fight our way to our new FOB.
I split the Amisom detachment into three platoons and had them fan out in defence, and then attack to take the FOB, which was found to be booby trapped with IED's.
After the explosives were neutralised, I moved into the FOB with a headquarters contingent, being protected on route by 'Tank'.
The first day was all about possession and control of key buildings, searching for enemy anti-aircraft missiles, ammo supplies and intel. It wasn't until it got dark, when we found the final missile, and got bogged down for an hour fighting to retrieve it.
The night didn't bring any respite either, it was now the job of the troops to hold onto the days gains, and tracer rounds were flying everywhere, and due to the lack of visibility, we were seeing casualties from friendly fire. However, as we hit midnight, we were in a healthy position for the mornings task.
The next morning, we had difficulty arousing very tired team members, who had broken bodies, and only 4 hours sleep, but by 'game on' we were operating at about 90%, with the stragglers back in the battle within the hour.
The days brief was to capture the port area from the enemy, and the fighting was fierce, building won, then lost, then won again. It wasn't to be though, the enemies regen point was too damn close, they were back in the battle minutes after dying, whereas we were a good 10 minutes turn around. As endex called, we had the port area surrounded, so close, yet so far...
A big thanks to the BRITAC team, especially Van and James, Bristol Recon, Celtic Warriors and Tashas SBS, it was a pleasure working with the lot of you!
A weekend of high adrenalin, pyrotechnic madness, in freezing conditions.
We rocked up on the friday night, grabbing the downstairs rooms in the Forward Operating base (FOB).
Just to put you in the picture, sub zero temperatures, in a building with no heating, insulation and plastic windows, we were sleeping in a freezer. After the guys had got 'cozy', I chased the heads of the other Amisom units for a quick debrief.
During this debrief, combining guys from 'Bristol Recon' and the 'Celtic Warriors', Sam stuck his head around the door to shout out in a broad Irish Accent ' Ohhh, I think the Irish are here', to which Colin stated they are stood in front of you! You'd think that would have been Sam's cue to disappear quietly, but oh no, his reply was 'to be sure, to be sure, to be sure', skipping away merrily!
We were woken to the sound of the 'call to prayer', and the team got to the task of suiting and booting for chrono-ing the weapons, and the BRITAC safety brief. During this, I was introduced to Simon Jameson, aka, 'Tank'. Simon is confined to a wheelchair, with very little motor function in his body, yet became one of the most important members of Amisom over the following days. Simply put, he possessed at an armoured four wheel drive wheelchair with twin linked machineguns!
What I was to find out during the brief was we were already on the back foot, the enemy had been given a headstart to deploy in the village, we would have to fight our way to our new FOB.
I split the Amisom detachment into three platoons and had them fan out in defence, and then attack to take the FOB, which was found to be booby trapped with IED's.
After the explosives were neutralised, I moved into the FOB with a headquarters contingent, being protected on route by 'Tank'.
The first day was all about possession and control of key buildings, searching for enemy anti-aircraft missiles, ammo supplies and intel. It wasn't until it got dark, when we found the final missile, and got bogged down for an hour fighting to retrieve it.
The night didn't bring any respite either, it was now the job of the troops to hold onto the days gains, and tracer rounds were flying everywhere, and due to the lack of visibility, we were seeing casualties from friendly fire. However, as we hit midnight, we were in a healthy position for the mornings task.
The next morning, we had difficulty arousing very tired team members, who had broken bodies, and only 4 hours sleep, but by 'game on' we were operating at about 90%, with the stragglers back in the battle within the hour.
The days brief was to capture the port area from the enemy, and the fighting was fierce, building won, then lost, then won again. It wasn't to be though, the enemies regen point was too damn close, they were back in the battle minutes after dying, whereas we were a good 10 minutes turn around. As endex called, we had the port area surrounded, so close, yet so far...
A big thanks to the BRITAC team, especially Van and James, Bristol Recon, Celtic Warriors and Tashas SBS, it was a pleasure working with the lot of you!
In : Game Day Reports
Tags: copehill shadow stalkers team mod brittac
