Overseas Exercise
Exercise Caribbean Rehab 2021
OC: Maj John Tucker
Scribes: Lt Morris and Cfn Williams
On the 2nd July 2021 Soldiers from 101 and 5 Battalion REME deployed from their respective company headquarters and mustered at Heathrow Airport to conduct Exercise Caribbean Rehab 21 (Ex CR 21) in Belize.
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re-deployment involved the usual medical check-ups, vaccinations, and ensuring all MATTs and relevant documentation were up to date. COVID 19 added an extra hurdle prior to deployment with every soldier requiring a negative COVID test 3 days prior to departure. The outward journey included a layover in Newark, New Jersey before the final flight into Belize City. British Army Training Support Unit Belize (BATSUB) camp is located less than 10 minutes from the airport, so we arrived before we knew it. Upon arrival all pax received a COVID lateral flow test. Unfortunately, one of the deploying troops tested positive and in line with the rigorous COVID policies that BATSUB adhere to, resulted in the majority of the Command Team isolating along with some of the VMs. This threw up a whole new set of challenges to overcome, but in the usual REME fashion of improvise, adapt, and overcome the Comd Team put over a year of virtual training into
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practice and conducted briefings, PP&C meetings, and one-to-one conversations between the junior ranks and the OC via Microsoft Teams. Despite initially having reduced manning on the shopfloor, the workload remained the same, which required extra effort by the Regular and Reserve craftsmen under the command of Reserve junior and senior NCOs. Despite not having met each other until the check-in queues at Heathrow, there was a high sense of camaraderie and a desire to push on to get the job done by working together to hit the daily production targets. Land Rover and MAN SV are the workhorses of the BATSUB fleet and a combination of high humidity and muddy jungle roads can really take its toll on suspension components; which resulted in more than 30 Land Rovers requiring rear A frame ball joint replacements and a similar amount of Panhard rod replacements. The output requirement naturally led to the implementation of LEAN working techniques to ensure an efficient and effective throughput of work. On top of the suspension repairs, several vehicles required 2 yearly servicing, and other emergent repairs, including one transfer box replacement using very limited number of resources. The MAN SVs required 2 yearly servicing and other emergent repairs. There were several class 3 VMs deployed, some straight from Phase 2 training, and Ex CR 21 was an ideal opportunity to get hands on with vehicles to really hone their trade. For some this was their first overseas
