Bloxham’s CCF cadets recently attended a training camp at Longmoor, Hampshire, where they took part in a range of activities and developed all-important skills
This year’s CCF Summer Camp took place at Longmoor Camp, Hampshire, and each of the Bloxham School cadets threw themselves into all of the activities on offer over the course of their stay. Many thanks to Nigel Evans, our Contingent Commander, for the photos and report below:
On Saturday 27th June, thirty one cadets and four staff members left for Longmoor Camp in Hampshire for the annual CCF summer camp. This year’s camp promised to be an exciting and varied week of adventurous and military activities, which would stretch and challenge everyone.
On arrival the cadets were shown to their accommodation – it was basic but comfortable. Once beds were made and kit was sorted there was a briefing about the week’s activities followed by the first meal in the army cookhouse. The rest of the evening was spent socialising and relaxing.
The cadets were up at 6.15am on the Sunday morning and breakfast was served from 7.00am to kick start the ‘personal development day’. The cadets formed up on the parade square and were then marched up to the first activities, which were archery and mountain biking. After being shown how to use a bow and arrow there were various competitions to see who could get the best scores. The mountain biking consisted of a tough eight mile ride across mixed terrain and interesting challenges, such as the see saw. There were a number of casualties and a few grazed knees and elbows but nothing too serious. After lunch the cadets were bus-ed out to a nearby lake, where there were a number of kayaks and a climbing wall nearby. The group were split in two with one group learning some good kayaking skills and generally getting wet while the other group did climbing and an orienteering course. Thankfully there was a caf’ at the lake so the cadets could buy ice creams to cool down in the heat.
Monday was field craft, including a paintballing activity with targets as a method for learning pairs fire and manoeuvre. Following that, the cadets moved on to the TIBUA (training in built up areas) village which used to be the married quarters for the camp. Here the cadets were shown how to clear a building room by room; they had to work together blank firing the A2 rifles as they went through the houses looking for enemy. In the afternoon they did blank firing section attacks with a member of staff being enemy in an old building. The objective was to assault his position and clear the area of enemy. The cadets enjoyed seeing Sgt Green pretend to die.
Tuesday was survival skills. The cadets learned about shelter building, making fire, trapping animals and planning how to survive after a plane crash by prioritising what they had recovered and formulating a plan. In the afternoon they did advanced lessons, which included fire lighting by friction and skinning and butchering a rabbit. They didn’t get to eat the rabbit and had to make do with an evening meal at the camp, followed by lots of pizza and drinks later on in the evening.
Wednesday was the hottest day of the week (around 31oC) and also range day. The cadets tried their hand at clay pigeon shooting with 12-bore shotguns and an electronic target range with the A2 rifles with the targets between 100m and 300m away. The rifles had SUSAT telescopic sights fitted. In the afternoon they did the DCCT (dismounted close combat trainer), which is like a giant PlayStation or Xbox but with real A2 rifles that shoot lasers. Finally, the 25m barrack range saw the cadets firing the A2 rifles again and trying to get as small a grouping as possible. Each cadet saw their shooting improve significantly over the course of the day.
Thursday was competition day. The morning was quite relaxed with the first team doing a march and shoot, the second team taking part in a fun drill competition and the third team completing a series of challenges called ‘The Cube’. There was then a presentations parade and Bloxham were delighted to be crowned winners of The Cube challenge. That afternoon, the contingent marched out to the training area to start their 24 hour exercise. The cadets carried their bergans to the harbour area where they set up their bashas and cooked food from 24 hour ration packs. They were then briefed by Major Urquhart and began their evening activity – to conduct recce patrols moving tactically towards an area where the enemy were thought to be, trying to gain information about their position and equipment etc. ‘
After a night sleeping under their bashas the cadets were woken at 6.00am by the section commanders and told to stand to. The day itself was split into two activities, section attacks (where the cadets patrolled across the fields waiting to be fired on by Sergeant Green and then assaulted his position) and a stalk activity (where the cadets had to camouflage themselves with grass and bracken and try to creep up a hill through the undergrowth to where the staff were looking out for them without being seen.) Following a couple of hours of weapon cleaning the contingent headed back to camp and had a BBQ and socialised before packing bags ready for the morning. They were up early one last time and, once the rooms were declared clean, they boarded the minibuses tired but having had an amazing time.
To view an album full of photos, please click here.