# Navy Field Gun Competition



## John A Silkstone (May 6, 2009)

The Navy's Field Gun Competition is being resurrected after 10 years and it's not for the faint-hearted 

David Leafe sprints to the front of the limber and picks up one end of a thick rope or 'drag'. Here's a little tip. In the unlikely event that you ever find yourself about to take part in the Field Gun Competition, once a highlight of the much-missed Royal Tournament and soon to be resurrected after an absence of 10 years, it's probably best to avoid chatting beforehand to Chief Petty Officer Jason Steele. 

As a child watching the tournament before penny-pinching forced its demise in 1999, I always thought the race looked rather fun: all those super-fit sailors lugging huge guns over five-foot high walls and racing them up the arena at Earls Court before letting off a triumphant volley of shots. What I didn't appreciate was just how dangerous it was for competitors like CPO Steele, six foot two of beefy Northern Irish manhood. At the age of 18, he became the youngest sailor to take part in the race and next month he will be a proud participant once again when it is brought back into the public eye at the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo. That's if he survives the training. "I nearly lost the tip of that finger when a wheel fell on it one year," he tells me cheerfully as we chat in his office at the HMS Nelson naval establishment in Portsmouth. "I've also fractured my thumb and another time I broke my foot.'' 

I gulp for I will shortly be changing out of the comfort of my suit and into a pair of blue combat trousers and heavy black boots to take part in the race. I have never been a big fan of being injured and my nerves are hardly calmed as CPO Steele begins a litany of lost limbs. "I have seen men lose fingers, carry on with the race and pick them up at the end because that's how much winning meant to them," he says. "One year a guy lost his foot and another one ended up clinically dead on the course. Luckily they managed to resurrect him in hospital.'' 

As I join Steele and his team-mates on the narrow stretch of Tarmac which serves as a practice course, what marks me out, apart from a look of fear, is that I don't have a nickname like Speedy, Nobby or Gunga-Din. There is also a Shirley – David Temple, a weapons engineering officer on HMS Nottingham – but, as I will later discover, there is nothing girly about him. 

My nickname should probably be Scaredy, but I daren't admit that because these men are part of a brave tradition that began in the Boer War when British sailors manhandled field guns across inhospitable terrain to relieve the siege of Ladysmith. The gun they race with is similar to that used then, weighing 1250lb, with additional weight coming from the accompanying ammunition carriage and four wheels – each of which weigh 120lb. 

The total amount lifted during one part of the race is just under a ton, about the weight of an average family car – and, as I wait on the start line, my sympathy lies with the Royal Marines team which, according to naval lore, was once disqualified from the Royal Tournament for hollowing out its gun barrel to make it lighter. 

But hold on. Where are the walls, the ramps, the 28-foot wide chasms which made the event so exciting? Much to my relief, and the disgruntlement of the men taking part, the race is run these days over a flat 85-yard course – thanks to funding cuts and concerns about health and safety. Hurrah for red-tape, that's all I can say. 

Bureaucracy apart, this version of the competition follows a tradition dating back to 1907, when a Portsmouth-based brewery began sponsoring a field gun competition for naval teams within the town. Involving much impressively high-speed dismantling and reassembly of the gun, the Brickwood Trophy has been fiercely contested at naval open days ever since and I am disturbed to learn that it can be every bit as dangerous as its more famous counterpart. 

The guns are the same as those used in the Royal Tournament and their combined weight and speed over flat ground gives them tremendous momentum. Even with 16 of the 18 men in a team pulling them to a halt, they have a braking distance of some 25 yards, so anyone who falls underneath their wheels is in serious trouble. 

''One guy was run over by the gun a couple of years ago and ended up in intensive care," says Jason Steele (I really must stop talking to him). "He's alright now, and he wanted to compete in Brickwoods again, but his missus wouldn't let him.' 

Following Steele's roll-call of the field gun fallen, I pray that I will be given one of the less demanding jobs: perhaps carrying the pin which secures the wheels and looks nice and light. Instead chief trainer Glen Young puts me at the front of the ammunition carriage, or "limber" as it's known to naval types. 

The training is based on "bit drill" – rehearsing tiny segments of the course again and again until they become second nature. Today we are practising the first five seconds of the start when the team divides into two – five running from the start to the gun on the 40-yard line and the rest to the dismantled ammunition carriage, or "limber", which is at 10 yards. 

My job is to sprint to the front of the limber and pick up one end of a thick rope or "drag", while the others lift the ammunition box and slide on its wheels. How hard can it be? Very, apparently. 

The course is only 10 yards wide and, amidst the blur of pumping arms and legs that ensues as soon as Glen Young bellows "Go", I step outside the white line at the edge – incurring us a time penalty of three seconds. 

''Get down and give me five," Young bellows. Come again? "Get down and give me five press-ups," he insists. I want to squeak that I'm only a journalist but down I go in the hot midday sun – nose to Tarmac. 

My punishment over, I am determined not to mess up the next section, which involves dragging the limber towards the gun, stopping as soon as I hear the signal "check'. Again, this sounds simple enough but if I come to a halt too soon, all my team-mates and the heavy limber will come crashing into the back of me. 

Miraculously, I seem to get this right – or so I think until I notice Shirley glowering at me. In my efforts to stop in the right place, I had let my rope go slack and nearly tripped him over, a potentially fatal error in the real competition. 

Shirley lets me off with a hard stare and so we continue for what seems like forever but is in fact only an hour. By the end of the training session, we have covered only a few seconds of the course, much of it at half speed, but that is enough for me. 

I am exhausted, but strangely I have enjoyed my fleeting experience of the teamwork that endears field gun racing to so many sailors. Years ago, they prepared for the competition for many months beforehand and were paid for doing so, but the cost-cutting that ended the Royal Tournament in 1999 means that today's Brickwood Trophy competitors must give up their free time to take part. 

This seems wrong to those who believe that such competitions are an ideal way to instil the very "core values" the Royal Navy claims to be looking for in its recruits – including courage, commitment, and respect for others. 

In a politically correct age, when new recruits can no longer be bawled at, or forced to do physical exercise if they misbehave, they say that the years since the Royal Tournament have seen a decline in discipline within the service. It has all become a bit "pink and fluffy," according to one officer. 

If so then, as this reluctant sailor can testify, there's no better remedy than the gun run. 


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Silky

Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo from May 13-16. As media partner to the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo, we have 2,500 free tickets on offer for active servicemen and women. Call the box office on 0871 230 5570 or visit www.windsortattoo.com with your name, rank, number and unit; quote ''TRISERVICE’’ to get two free tickets for either Wednesday 13 or Thursday 14 May. *Tickets are subject to availability.


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