303DP Drill for guards of honour etc, etc - allowed or not?
officially no.
the only weapons drill permitted is with a L98A2/L103
weapons drill needs to be taught by a Drill Instructor with a “weapons drill” bolt on
all those taking part in the drill need to have current WHTs also.
for guards of honour (i presume at Remembrance Parades/Mayors Parade etc) would you not need some form of Civil (Police and Council) authorisation on top of Wing PiPE approval?
(in short its bloody hard work to do so with a lot of hoops to jump through)
just a thought…
i understand there are some Squadrons out there that have “dispensation” to hold their No4 303 DPs
these are the few and far between…
i can only assume these are used for drill although how and what they do i’m not sure
Which bone head came up with that one?
As for 303 drill if you can get away with it and get someone to teach it crack on I say, your cadets will love it. It was one of the worst days when someone with too much time on their hands stopped it. I remember being in the rfile drill squad was one of the things that many cadets in my day aspired to, the public never complained about youngsters with rifles (or whatever BS people put about now) and bloody good fun it was too. We used to do armed banner escort and sleeping sentry drill on Remembrance, Wings and various other parades, the latter required going to train using the SLR with the local TA for some parades. Those were the days. Another thing that makes the modern ATC an ever disappearing shadow of what it was.
I have been told by a serving SO2 that one of the things that tangentially emerged from DYER was weapons on remembrance parades. The conclusion and recommendation being No Weapons
So this might be the last time you will ever get to do it. Truth is in most conurbations now with a diverse mix, it would be seen as likely to provoke a protest response at least, never mind a weapon security threat.
Another case of the Pol -Corr stasi being offended on behalf of people they have not and probably never will consult about the matter anyway
Does that mean we can’t plan to use the (whenever to be defunct) No 8s for parade drill??
Nope as no-one has been trained to do drill with them you can’t do any official drill movements.
Plus as the L982A2 is section 5 (as technically the L103s are as they do not conform to deact standards), arms drill on non-service premises is also out.
Where in DYER? I’ve read it and I don’t remember that bit.
Nope as no-one has been trained to do drill with them you can’t do any official drill movements.
Plus as the L982A2 is section 5 (as technically the L103s are as they do not conform to deact standards), arms drill on non-service premises is also out.[/quote]
I imagine there are a number of us out here who were trained and remain able to teach it, but that wouldn’t sit right with those who like to think they know best.
I went to an event last year and they had some re-enactors with 303s and teaching people to do some arms drill. I couldn’t resist and they guessed I’d done it before. Even did a rest on reverse and back again. It took me back 30+ years. So I’m pretty certain I could teach it and still use elements of it when teaching cadets standard drill, because ironically in standard drill some of the old 303 movements as such are used. The initial flick to carry and movement to the order, as well as the position adopted when standing at ease and easy. Probably why we found moving to / from rifle / standard drill easy in the old days.
If I still had 303s I’d do it and like everything in life it is sometimes best to do it and take the rollicking afterwards, been a maxim of mine for years. I think during the 90s the Corps’ senior management lost their spine and got too prissy about cadets with weapons, which is when it became frowned upon, but we kept on doing it until the 303s were recalled. Now they’ve been gracious enough to allow us to do it, but only if you tick a load of anally stupid boxes to the point where it’s not viable.
I’ve watched modern arms drill and using the SA80 et al is IMO is not as impressive as a “full length” weapon, even an SLR. I think the QCS should be using 303s for continuity displays. I’ve watched US Army drill team using Springfields, the routine’s a bit slow perhaps, but does look seriously impressive, more so than anything the QCS do now, which is something I never thought I’d say.
I did some 303 drill when I was a cadet. Did enjoy it.
Not a fan of cadets in public drilling with weapons though.
Why?
Why?[/quote]
Because the armed forces carry weapons on parade because they are the armed forces; ie: it’s a visual reminder that their raison d’etre is to use lethal force in defence of those watching the parade.
That’s not the case with cadets (thank God).
I’m all for it as an interest thing, but not in public, because it either sends the wrong signal or just doesn’t make sense.
Why?[/quote]
Because the armed forces carry weapons on parade because they are the armed forces; ie: it’s a visual reminder that their raison d’etre is to use lethal force in defence of those watching the parade.
That’s not the case with cadets (thank God).
I’m all for it as an interest thing, but not in public, because it either sends the wrong signal or just doesn’t make sense.[/quote]
It’s one of those things we did for longer than we haven’t and I caan only speak for the nigh on 30 years I was either doing it as a cadet or around cadets doing it, no one said anything negative. It was a part of what did in the normal order of things. I think the “wrong message” was given out by people stopping it, as they just played into the hands of Guardian readers / tofu munching sandal wearers. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong or portraying the wrong image. The arbiters of whether or not we were doing the wrong thing would have been and still is parents. I never had or heard a parent say I don’t want little Jane/John doing that. Even when there have been publicised incidents of firearm misuse I’ve only known of one parent who said they didn’t want their child training on/firing firearms. The others (the majority) have accepted it’s part of what we do.
I don’t think I really disagree with you…
It’s just the parading with weapons I’m against, nothing else.
Like I said, it’s about the symbolism. And in light of that symbolism, there’s something pretty tasteless about a child/member of a youth organisation marching up the street with a rifle over their shoulder.
Fine during ‘play time’, for want of a better description, but not the real thing.
Although i completely understand where T-L is coming from, so much the argument is worthy enough to consider my own thoughts on weapons and Cadets on parade…
…where does the line stop?
yes the regulars are Armed as they are part of the Armed forces…but does the uniform not also imply that?
does the wearing of a military “originated” rank not indicate a degree of “military themed” organisation?
the ACO uniforms save for some odd bits here and there are identical to that of the RAF…indeed, other than WO perhaps, uniformed Staff in No1s are indistinguishably ACO or RAF at a distance given the “Identifier” indicating otherwise.
(on the assumption age and physical size/fitness is not at an extreme)
does the use of the word “Corps” or indeed the RAF (CCF) of the beret badge not offer further evidence of the military theme behind the uniform…and as such would it be accepted that this includes military hardware such as a rifle?
personally i am against the L92A2/L103s being carried by Cadets because of the reasons in T-L’s comments.
we train marksmanship skills to hit a target rather than training skills in how to kill…a factor i am always keen to express to Cadet’s parents and the L98A2 distorts that message given the similarities with its bigger brother.
however a No8 (No4) rifle is part of the Cadet experience as a “target rifle” which is closer aligned to what the Cadet experience surrounding shooting is rather than the “front line” rifle that the L98A2 looks remarkably like.
as mentioned in other comments there have not been negative comments about Cadets with weapons from the public and personally feel it is a good advert for the Corps to have young adults demonstrating responsibility and trained operation (drill) of what is is a “dangerous” item…much in the same manner 16 yr olds flying solo is a great advert for the Corps. we train and offer the responsibility of a very expensive piece of kit to a “child” (legally)
with our USPs against other youth groups slowly disappearing/becoming harder to achieve i think those that we are still able to conduct and do so well, we should be shouting about far louder, far more often than we have and how better than to publicly display a hint of those USPs than by a parade?
I don’t understand the deactivate statement regarding the 103’s they were made as a DP not a deact. Our armoury does not treat them as a weapon, the bore was never formed and a great chunk is carved out of the breach and the bolt welded up, as far as they are concerned it’s a weight you can hit someone with…
Oh and I take it you haven’t heard about the weapon drill camps that are planned ready for a full escort squadron with rifles for 2016…
[quote=“bg” post=21523]I don’t understand the deactivate statement regarding the 103’s they were made as a DP not a deact. Our armoury does not treat them as a weapon, the bore was never formed and a great chunk is carved out of the breach and the bolt welded up, as far as they are concerned it’s a weight you can hit someone with…[/quote]That’s the point - a DP IS a weapon, a deact isn’t.
DP 303s should technically be treated as a weapon and the RAF didn’t want to do so any more, leaving the choice of deact or bin.
You guys astound me sometimes. That is an amazingly stupid rule.
[quote=“talon” post=21551][quote=“steve679” post=21434]
all those taking part in the drill need to have current WHTs also.
[/quote]
You guys astound me sometimes. That is an amazingly stupid rule.[/quote]
Not when you remember we’re in the ATC where the SLT is a repository for myopic, knee jerkers with no idea of what the “real ATC” is and the problems their stupidity causes. I imagine the ACF has this as well, but the ATC does seem to have more than it’s fair share.
The funniest thing is if someone was able to actually train cadets to do this and say you had, like we did, a squad of 16, come the day of the display you could lose some of these as their WHT has run out. We trained for squads of 9 and 12 , so if we weren’t all available or the area we had to display wasn’t big enough, we could still do a rehearsed display at the fete or whatever, but, as what would effectively be a a Wing team with limited time to practice, you can’t do this.