Supply and
“DO NOT underestimate how
powerful this amphibious
MORE than 2,000 sailors and Royal Marines
force is,” says 3 Commando
mustered in the Solent for one of the biggest
Brigade’s straight-talking
amphibious exercises in UK waters in recent
Commanding Officer, Brig
years. Grey Heron was intended to test the
David Capewell.
Senior Service’s ability to push men and
“I’ve been in this game 27 years and
matériel ashore – and sustain their operations
we’re seeing something of an amphibious as they thrust inland.
renaissance.”
Renaissance is an apt adjective for Grey
Heron; it’s about learning – or in many
cases re-learning the art of amphibious
● A truck carrying crates of equipment rolls off an LCU and on to a metallic
warfare.
road laid by the green berets at Browndown
3 Cdo Bde has spent probably more
time on land than at sea these past half-
dozen years; the same certainly goes for
its combat support arm, the Commando
Logistic Regiment.
And all that time ashore means
the expertise of striking from the sea
can fade; amphibious warfare is most
defi nitely not like riding a bike.
“It’s a very complicated jigsaw,” says
Capt Tim Lowe, CO of HMS Albion
from where Grey Heron is being run.
“I’ve done a lot of amphibious
operations – Albion alone has been
involved in eight exercises in the past year.
But it is something you need to practise,
you need to keep doing it because it’s a
skill which is perishable.”
So here we are, then, in the Solent on
a blustery September day.
The pebble beach at Browndown
camp, an old army establishment on
the seafront between Gosport and Lee-
on-the-Solent which reeks of the era of
National Service, is marked with fl ags.
A short metal road has been laid over Call in the Navy seals
the pebbles to help vehicles ashore, and if
any get stuck there’s the BEAST – Beach-
IN GOOD Blue Peter tradition… don’t try this at home.
Equipped Armoured Support (Tracked)
Even with the landing craft with the shallowest draught in the business and
– recovery vehicle to assist.
the finest coxswain in the world, getting a vehicle from ship to shore is almost
Mexefl ote rafts chug through the
certainly going to mean driving through the sea.
choppy waters of Stokes Bay, stacked with
There’s a simple formula to bear in mind.
ammunition crates, while waves crash
Sea + engine-working parts = disaster.
over the bows of landing craft bearing
Fortunately, the Royals don’t drive ordinary vehicles – theirs are specially-
men and materiel (and sometimes wet
adapted waterproof versions. Send a bog-standard Army 4x4 into the oggin
journalists…).
and you’ll wreck it.
It’s all done at a fairly gentle pace
Then again, send a waterproof RM Land Rover into the oggin and you’ll wreck
because, as Brig Capewell puts it: “This
it. It’s got to be watertight, not simply waterproof.
is a dangerous business if you don’t get
It takes (by the book) three men 90 minutes to prep a vehicle for a dip in
it right. You have to learn to walk before
the ocean, checking seals, plugging holes, making sure that everything which
you can run.”
should be watertight is watertight.
● Grey wolves... RFA Largs Bay, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Albion poised to strike in the
It’s a good few years since Browndown
Solent and (above) a Landing Craft Utility ferries a truck and kit towards Browndown
The drivers don wet suits – the cab itself is not watertight; the sea should
was used on this scale by the RN and
camp
come up to the driver’s neck – and no higher. If it’s any deeper, you simply swim
RM; amphibious exercises in UK waters
Pictures: PO(Phot) Andy White, HMS Ark Royal, and LA(Phot) Dan Hooper, HMS Albion
out of the unzipped canvas roof.
typically take place off the north Devon
You don’t drive fl at out when you’re in the water. Pick a low gear and crawl
coast or in the lochs of north-west
along gently – the water should be no more than a steady ripple over the bonnet,
Scotland.
otherwise the waves will crash over the windscreen and into the cab.
“For us, there’s a positive spin-off
For the sake of the engine, once ready for wading ashore, a vehicle shouldn’t
because the public get to see us doing our
be run for more than 15 minutes; it should spend no more than six immersed,
business,” says Lt Cdr Rupert Irons, on
and again no more than 15 minutes out of the sea before being taken to the
the staff of the Commander Amphibious
DVP (‘drowned vehicle park’) to have all the various plugs and waterproof seals
Task Group.
removed. Even then it can’t go more than about 25 miles before it needs a
Mention ‘landing craft’ and
thorough check of its axles to ensure everything’s in order.
‘amphibious warfare’ to Joe Public and
immediately they picture Saving Private
Ryan and Omaha Beach. What does need fi ne tuning, however, advent of the four new Bay-class ships,
We don’t do ‘opposed landings’ any is the art of support from the sea, not that Britain has the vessels to effectively
more; it’s much better (and less bloody) least because it’s not something we’ve carry the bulk of the regiment.
to put troops ashore where the enemy is done on a large scale for a few years The CLR doesn’t feature in these
absent. now. pages very often. In fact, it doesn’t feature
That’s not the only concept of Support from the sea falls upon the in many pages very often. Journalists like
amphibious warfare which has changed shoulders of the Commando Logistic reporting war. Bombs. Machine-guns.
in the past six decades. Regiment, men who “have no boats,” Bayonets fi xed. Grenades. All make great
No longer do we secure a beachhead, their Commanding Offi cer Col Will pictures and great articles.
build up our supplies and then Taylor says, but who do have “the faint Logistics, on the other hand, as Col
breakout. whiff of diesel about them” (not especially Taylor readily admits, is “not sexy. It
No, these days we go ashore and look faint on Largs Bay, admittedly...). involves people with dirty fi ngernails
to thrust inland as quickly as possible. This is the fi rst time the regiment has who smell of diesel.”
That means only what is needed to worked at sea in this strength for perhaps Ignore logistics at your peril. Rommel
sustain the troops should be ferried a decade – and it’s a year since any of the did, and look where it got him.
ashore; not too much, not too little. You regiment has left dry land behind.
might say the ethos of support is ‘just The regiment comprises 670 men and
enough, just in time’. 350 vehicles from Land Rover size up
And that’s the crux of Grey Heron. to 15-ton trucks. It’s only now, with the
Fighting is something Royal is (a) good
at and (b) rather accustomed to.
... YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING... Co
mmander Amphibious Task Grou
p and staff... 3 Cdo Bde... HMS Al
bion... HMS Ark Royal... RFA Ar
gus... RFA Mounts Bay... RFA Lar
gs Bay... RFA Fort Rosalie... Comma
ndo Logistic
NNEW 016-017_NN_Nov.indd 1EW 016-017_NN_Nov.indd 1 119/10/07 12:34:489/10/07 12:34:48
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