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The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
(Carabiniers and Greys)Camp Souter
Kabul
British Forces Post Office 758
19th November 2013
Special Order – to all ranks, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys) Tuesday 19th November 2013
On the Occasion of the withdrawal from Wessex Barracks, Bad Fallingbostel, Germany of the last Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks held by the Regiment
Today, Tuesday 19th November 2013, marks a memorable milestone in our Regiment’s 335 year history. For today, the last of our Challenger 2 tanks will leave Wessex Barracks, Bad Fallingbostel, and we will de facto cease to be an Armoured Regiment. A line has been drawn under 75 years of armoured soldiering.
It was in 1938 that the 3rd Carabiniers in India exchanged their horses for tanks and three years later, in Palestine, The Royal Scots Greys marked the end of the Army’s mechanisation, as the last of Britain’s cavalry regiments to lose its horses. From that moment, through the deserts of North Africa, the vineyards and valleys of Sicily and Italy, the jungles and plateaus of Burma and the heights of Nunshigum, the hedgerows of Normandy and the heathland of northern Germany, our predecessors fought in tanks throughout the Second World War. During the Cold War, the 3rd Carabiniers, The Royal Scots Greys and from 1971 our own Regiment trained tirelessly in Centurions, Chieftains and Challengers to defend western Europe from massed Soviet armies. Ironically, it was in the time of a so called new world order, after the collapse of communism, that our tanks once again engaged in conflict, first in 1991 in Kuwait, then in 2003 in Iraq. Since our last deployment on Challenger 2 in 2008, the Regiment has continued to conduct armoured training but has frequently re-roled for counter-insurgency and training operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So, today, 75 years from when our predecessors first took to tank soldiering, 15 years after we introduced Challenger 2 into service, and a decade from its trial by fire in the deserts of Iraq, we will hand over our tanks and focus entirely on our future as Britain’s leading Light Cavalry Regiment.
As Light Cavalry, we will return to our roots as Dragoons, as skilful on our feet as when mounted, an excellence borne out at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 when our forebears’ actions as dismounted cavalrymen were decisive in bringing victory. More recently, we have proven adept on wheels as well as serving in the infantry role in the dust and heat of central Helmand. What lies ahead, therefore, is but a shift in emphasis when seen from the perspective of three centuries of loyal service to the Crown. Indeed, the opportunities presented to us as Light Cavalry far outweigh those of remaining with tanks, passionate as we rightly must be of what we achieved on armour. For we shall be far more employable as Light Cavalry, more agile and more easily trained in our core role, able to operate across the spectrum of conflict, from warfighting at reach, as the French demonstrated in Mali, to developing foreign armies in the Middle East and beyond. We will integrate fully with the new Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry and shall together, as Scotland’s Cavalry, work both overseas and at home, strengthening the resilience of the United Kingdom. The challenges ahead may be new, but we have the strongest of foundations from which to tackle them.
As we were on armour, so as Light Cavalry we shall be Second to None.