There is no real fitness requirement. The course at Frimley can be hard going on someone who struggles moving around and carrying a rifle as you take part in numerous battle lessons/exercises over the course of the week which most volunteers won’t be used to.
I completed on of the former RAFAC ones ran by CTT.
Not an athlete myself. Didn’t find it overly physical, but you need to be able to run after the group during an assault.
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They need bodies to play cadet but that’s not required to pass the course. You don’t need to run to hold the Qual. Best let me know what you can / can’t do when you apply.
My fitness is fine.
Can run with weapon etc.
Like I said, it was the varying reports.
Sounds straight forward.
Thanks.
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aaaaaaaaa it pains me that no pyro is banned, but fighting patrols/offensive tactics can’t be taught. makes no sense
Yet there is so much besides that to be taught to so many cadets who’ve done nothing yet.
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Absolutely agree.
We need a workable syllabus.
Backed up with the best teaching plans and materials we can provide.
Resourced appropriately.
Then after we have built that up.
Then we can worry about blank, smoke and all that jazz.
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*worry about more blank, more smoke and more jazz 
There’s already scope for using training ammunition within our current remit.
Duties of a sentry. Standing patrols. F&M. All sorts, really.
You don’t need an attack to use ammunition.
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I have to agree. It is hard to pull up accurate statistics on Fieldcraft but I would bet half (maybe more) in my area have done none, fewer than 1 in 4 an overnight deployed ex and maybe 1:10 with the CWS let alone blank.
I’m sure we can work with what is currently permitted to make it enjoyable and challenging.
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There was the fieldcraft survey conducted as part of the fieldcraft working group recently that showed most units don’t do fieldcraft, that’s corps wide. When really it should be very simple to deliver low risk things on a unit with minimal red tape so that most units can do it and mean more cadets then participate in higher level stuff.
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Thats simply due to lack of FCIs and it being realllllllly difficult (certainly more difficult than it has to be) to become one. The fix is a simple course with a structure wings cant muck around with
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The problem is that most units don’t offer FC because staff just aren’t interested. There is a bias among most blues staff who sneer at greens activities. It’s a shame, because they are denying cadets the full range of opportunities that should be available to all cadets.
Contrary to common belief, it is actually quite possible to teach fieldcraft indoors - and I don’t mean d.b.ppt. For example, with thought and planning any FC instructor should be capable of delivering almost all of the basic FC lessons, including duties of a sentry, harbour drills, basic field signals, range cards etc with a practical, hands on element, even if you have to build models of the harbour area with bits string and pieces from squadron stores. The instructor needs to plan his lesson thoroughly and perhaps begin the lesson by introducing it with an immersive scenario that draws the cadets into the exercise.
Boring training programmes lose cadets.
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My experience is not this.
It’s more that finding suitable site is the the issue and gaining EUF status… if you can!
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From my experience most Sqns would love to deliver FC its just too dificult to currently
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Like x10
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I could rant on forever about this😂
Haha no need. Message already received by the right people, and being actively worked on, even tonight.
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I think, for a number of staff, its not as simple as “not interested”; but a product of history and RAFAC being RAFAC.
In my experience, lots of people were interested. Then stuff got banned/hard when AC16 was introduced (eventually). Then people had to start jumping through hoops to get a ticket for something which they’d merrily been delivering for years. Some Wgs insisted on a BEL alongside an FC ticket - others didn’t. Then the goal posts changed, and you had to get a new ticket or revalidate you existing ticket. Then changed again.
Depending on what region - or wing - you were in you also had to contest with various levels of ban, additional paperwork around where you can do what, EUFs and TOPL clearances to play in a park, plus lots of additional gubbins and BS along the way. Some, whilst enjoying FC, don’t want to do it with L98s involved because of the extra layers of grief and agro it brings along for very limited gain. Others, of course, love it.
Some people left RAFAC altogether when their experiences got pooh-poohed (and nobody likes a pooh-poohing). Others got switched off FC at different stages along the line, going off and finding other interests within RAFAC (I did).
For many, something which was easy to do 10 years ago, got hard - for, arguably, very little gain in terms of safety assurance - but with a significantly higher level of administration.
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I agree with the majority of this post. Things have gotten harder and in many ways with insufficient forethought or gain.
However …
… I dispute. There are no intentions upstairs to mandate the rifle with fieldcraft but it has its place and benefit, and I think they are both significant, not limited.
Consider coming and seeing for yourself.