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Agile, adaptive future Light Infantry force at the heart of developing, testing and challenging Infantry warfighting concepts and capabilities. The Army’s Next Generation Combat Team, equipped with the latest generation of autonomous platforms and information and night vision systems, working with industry, partners and allies to win on today’s and tomorrow’s battlefields.
Out-Think. Out Fight.
Drawing breath to compile these notes is always a useful exercise. Each time I arrive back at the same trilogy – people, place, purpose. Our people are brave, decisive, relentless, and kind. We are in a great place in Chester and have an exciting purpose. I continue to be impressed by the fantastic work by all ranks of the 2nd Battalion, consistently displaying ingenuity, physical robustness, and honesty. We are demonstrating daily why we are the Army’s Experimentational Force with a mindset that is designed to challenge and push multi-million-pound projects to make the Army of tomorrow better than today. Whether it be arduous exercises, displays of sporting excellence or challenging ourselves to create better tactics, the determination of the Yorkshire Soldier to compete and win, is strong.
The Battalion continue to show themselves to be excellent when given high profile and challenging tasks. Members of the Recce Strike Group (Quebec) deployed to America on PANTAX – an international navigation exercise to test how the UK and our allies can best operate in a GPS denied environment and how we would overcome Electronic Warfare. The experience in Cyprus navigating on arduous terrain and then time spent back in the UK honing our skills on eDSA allowed the team to perform outstandingly, putting them at the leading edge of the international exercise.
On Project VERTUO (Defence Command Paper Refresh) in Lulworth, Combat Team 2 (Burma) took part in a Tri-Service capability exercise demonstrating to Ministers and senior Defence leaders the capabilities and tactics required by the Army to fight and win tomorrow. Using new weapon sights, UAS and armed UGVs the Combat Team demonstrated its manoeuvrability, survivability, and lethality. Supporting the exercise were AJAX ground reconnaissance vehicles, Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks, Wolfram, Boxer, Apache helicopters and F35 fighter jets. This presented the soldiers of the Burma Group with the opportunity to better understand the systems which will support them in the future as the Army continues to mobilise and modernise.
Current, competent, capable, and credible, 2 R YORKS is developing and rapidly incorporating more and more hi-tech systems into our soldiering. The men and women rise to the occasion cognitively and physically every time. We have trialled new MESH radios, and electronic battlefield tracking and data messaging on every soldier. We are developing the integration of Uncrewed Arial Systems (UAS), armed and un-armed Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs), Loitering Munitions and exciting new vehicles like the MRZR (light weight, hybrid, mobility vehicle) and WOLFRAM (PM vehicle with BRIMSTONE missile), to enhance manoeuvrability, survivability, and lethality. This has seen a massive increase in the systems to manage by the soldier, but our people prove time and time again that they are masters of managing complexity with agility, which is fantastic to see. They are every part the sensor, decider and effector, speeding up the Kill Chain for the wider Army.
At the time of writing, the Battalion is participating in LIVEX. A Battlegroup deployment to the South West of England, operating in civilian areas and Salisbury Plain. The scale of this experimental urban exercise has not been seen in the UK since the EMF in the late 1920s. It will be an exciting and extremely different exercise, with soldiers operating in urban industrial estates, functioning breweries, shopping centres and busy highstreets. The soldier of the Next Generation Combat Team (NGCT) must be able to fight and win in demanding multi-dimensional environments similar to those in Eastern Europe.
Beyond LIVEX the horizon for the Battalion is equally exciting; RAS for 16 Brigade on FOX, Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE), Army Expeditionary Warfighting Experiment (AEWE) in Georgia, USA, Project CONVERGENCE in California, USA all before Spring 2024. These are all fantastically resourced exercises to test new kit and to continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. The Battalion has continued to work hard, against uncertainty, strengthening the outstanding reputation that The Royal Yorkshire Regiment has, across Defence. We have promoted, farewelled, and helloed many, too many for these notes, but covered off in the sub-unit updates. We have optimised the opportunities to gain advantage and gain alliances, with allies and industry. Change is essential and uncertainty must be managed, but 2 RYORKS remain committed to our task and delivering the capabilities we deserve for the future.
Get a flavour of what being in 2 R YORKS means