THE Wire December 2012
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THE wire December 2012 www.royalsignals.mod.uk The Magazine of The Royal Corps of Signals A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE MASTER OF SIGNALS Lieutenant General Robert Baxter CBE DSc FBCS CITP FIET The year has flown by with the drumbeat of operations, including the 2012 Olympics, overlaid with a mass of staff work supporting Army 2020. Although Army 2020 should not have had much impact on units just yet, I must thank all of you out there in the serving Corps for your professionalism and success, especially on Operation HERRICK. Thanks to that achievement, the senior leadership of the Army has got the ‘information thing’ and the Corps has done relatively well in arguing its case – a 9% reduction compared to and overall cut in the Regular Army of 25%. You also managed to find time to succeed in a wide variety of sport from sailing to boxing and undertook some very challenging adventure training – not content with just getting to the South Pole you raced there! You have proved yourselves to be effective and courageous soldiers doing your duty in Afghanistan as well as innovative and determined engineers and technicians, one of you winning the prestigious Churchill Medal for Engineering. I could not ask for more than you continue to prove yourselves both as soldiers and tradesmen. The year ahead looks every bit as challenging as 2012. Whilst we might know the outline shape and size of the future Corps there remains an enormous amount of detailed work to produce the plan and then to implement it. At the same time transition and drawdown in Afghanistan will continue with some very particular challenges for we communicators. And we also need to get our heads around what it means to be ready for contingent operations with their very special (as well as stimulating and exciting) demands on our robustness, innovation and adaptability. Sadly redundancy will remain a worry for some in the Corps and I look to us all to do our bit in supporting those selected. However, at the end of this particular episode of change the Corps will continue to offer unrivalled variety and reward to those with drive and initiative. As always, I remain deeply proud of you all as you go about your complex, sometimes dangerous and usually un-trumpeted tasks. It is an honour and privilege to be your Master. All very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year from Gwynedd and myself to you, your families and loved ones. Sure and Swift A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE CORPS COLONEL Colonel GR Norton I suspect, that when we look back, 2012 will go down as the year that marked the start of a period of significant change and restructuring. Indeed, the very fact that this end of year note is written for the first time by a Corps Colonel as the appointment of SOinC(A) ended with the creation of Capability Directors on 1 April, is a mark of the extent of the changes. We have also seen the disbandment of 7th Signal Regiment and by the end of the year Headquarters 2 Signal Brigade will close, with 19 Bde HQ & Sig Sqn set to follow suit early next year. These measures, although not directly part of Army 2020 restructuring are the sort of the drumbeat of change that I anticipate will continue over the next few years as the Corps transforms to meet its future liabilities. Overall I judge that the Corps had a positive outcome from Army 2020, and remain confident that we can move into the era of the Reactive and Adaptive force with absolute confidence that the importance of what we do is genuinely recognised by senior commanders. While structural change will inevitably dominate much of our thinking in 2013, Afghanistan rightly remains our main effort, and in particular, as we approach Christmas I would encourage you to spare a thought for hundreds of signallers who are away from their families. As ever I am humbled to hear of the many great deeds of our men and women on operations; they are routinely proving themselves as technically able, robust and highly professional soldiers and we should rightly be proud of their achievements. Equally I am delighted to report that the next generation, be they young soldiers here in Blandford or young officers at Sandhurst are of the same high quality. The Corps is well recruited and in many cases we have waiting list for those wanting to join. Beyond operations our soldiers performed exceptionally during the Olympics. As one would expect, the communications support was first class, but many members of the Corps were in the public eye as they helped delivery the security for both the main and parallel games. As ever they did so in style with professionalism and good humour. The achievements of our soldier have continued to be recognised more widely, not just within the Corps but also nationally. In particular the numbers of our people being rewarded for their efforts by professional institutions beyond the MOD, is extremely encouraging and rightly marks the high regard with which the Corps and its people are held. It has been a fantastic year for Corps sport, and barely a week goes by without further success at Army and inter Corps level. While I hesitate to highlight specific performances, the spectacle of 2 Corps units winning the the Army Cup in football back to back on one wet afternoon in Aldershot will live long in the memory. In a similar vein our people continue to find challenging opportunities for adventurous training, and for me the highlight was the outstanding performance of Team Mercury in the Antarctic. So, a busy year, and 2013 looks set to continue in the same vein, but as I visit the Corps I never fail to be impressed by the outstanding quality of all our people, and their continuing enthusiasm for all that they do. Our people remain some of the very best around; we are fortunate to have them, and as long as we do, we won’t go far wrong! I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and my best wishes for 2013. Certa Cito DECEMBER 2012 Vol. 66 No: 6 The Magazine of the Royal Corps of Signals Established in 1920 Find us on The Wire Published bi-monthly Annual subscription £12.00 plus postage Editor: Mr Keith Pritchard Editor Deputy Editor: Mrs A Petersen Mr Keith Pritchard Tel: 01258 482817 All correspondence and material for publication in The Wire should be addressed to: The Wire, RHQ Royal Signals, Blandford Camp, Blandford Forum, Dorset, DT11 8RH Email: [email protected] Contributors Deadline for The Wire : 15th February for publication in the April. 15th April for publication in the June. 15th June for publication in the August. 15th August for publication in the October. 15th October for publication in the December. Accounts / Subscriptions 10th December for publication in the February. Mrs Jess Lawson To see The Wire on line or to refer to Guidelines for Contributors, go to: Tel: 01258 482087 http://www.army.mod.uk/signals/heritage/1311.aspx Subscribers All enquiries regarding subscriptions and changes of address of The Wire should be made to: 01258 482087 or 94371 2087 (mil) or [email protected]. Remittances should be made payable to Royal Signals Benevolent Fund CONTENTS Page Other notable articles Page News from Operations 2 Master's Christmas Message IFC News from Blandford 15 Corps Colonel's Christmas Message IFC News from Training 17 Corps Forecast of Events 2013 56-57 News from Formations 24 News from Regiments 27 BBC Marconi Experiment 112 News from Squadrons 80 Other Units 98 Sport 99 Royal Signals Association 103 Last Post 109 Obituaries 109 FRONT COVER BACK COVER The new stain glass window in Caythorpe 216 (Para) Sig Sqn boarding the village church C130 on the Squadron jump into Everleigh Authors alone are responsible for the content of their articles. The opinions expressed in the articles of this publication are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy and views, official or otherwise, of the Royal Corps of Signals or the Ministry of Defence. All articles and submissions are published at the discretion of the Editor. This publication may contain official information. It should be treated with discretion by the recipient. Printed by Holbrook Printers Ltd, Norway Road, Hilsea, Portsmouth © Crown Copyright NEWS FROM OPERATIONS 16th SIGNAL REGIMENT JFCIS(A) ongoing. The first was designed to remove and tidy all legacy cabling that was covering the inside and outside of Building Comd Col P Drew One like a giant spider’s web, along with the labelling up of all DComd Lt Col R D W Rumsey live cabling in order to make incident rectification that little bit easier. Taking the lead on this was LCpl Johnson with Sig KABUL SUPPORT UNIT McGuire and Sig Gibson helping out as and when required. This was by no means a simple task and was due to take at OC Maj A Lawson least a month, however the results were already noticeable one week in. KABUL ICS TROOP Secondly, Project Promina is being OC Lt D Prady run predominantly Tp SSgt SSgt Greenlee by LCpl McLaughlin and LCpl Taylor THE FINAL COUNTDOWN AT KAIA - by LCpl Turner and is designed to ensure that, prior Seven weeks. Everyone is clearly counting down the days to to replacement our end of tour date, myself included. The workload is still Promina equipment just as busy as it has been the entire tour. I have committed being sent out to myself to working in the AMNOC (Afghan Mission Network locations within Operating Centre) for 6 hours a day, the remainder of the day Kabul, it is tested is split into conducting daily maintenance and getting ready on a working test for the next planned outage.