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E-Sports Exercise Noctem Warrior Day In
from Landing Zone
This requires time, space and coordination with both the ship’s company and other marine traffic. It takes a lot of space to start and stop a 65,000-tonne vessel. SHOLs couldn’t always be achieved if other training was happening concurrently, such as live firing, or the distance wasn’t available in the designated sea ranges to attain and maintain a SHOL.
Whilst Jun 21 was hot, clear and sunny on the mainland the weather over the ‘ogin’ was sometimes atrocious. Approximately 30% of the planned sorties were lost to unsuitable weather, with days of persistent low cloud and sea fog. Despite the ship sometimes manoeuvring the length of the South West to find a suitable flying window, aviation was often elusive. All was not lost as no flying meant the ability to sample the fantastic hospitality of the ship’s company. “Saturday night at sea” is a tradition the Navy appeared very well versed in hosting. That said, the 0600 wake up whistle that piped every day, to every cabin, was never welcomed on a Sunday!
The Squadron never forgot the reason for embarkation was to fly. Augmented by the Army Aviation Standards and the 1AvnX (Attack) SFI, refreshers and maritime qualification training was flown at every available opportunity. Apache shared the flight deck with F35, Merlin, Dauphin and Wildcat. Multi type flight deck operations, at night, on a moving aircraft carrier undoubtably focusses the mind. Turns out it can be quite tricky to land on that...
Despite all the challenges, 656 Squadron achieved eight maritime refreshers, two day-only refreshers, one Deck Landing Qualification (DLQ), six DLQ day sorties for new aircrew and two combat ready checks. Maritime operations are incredibly challenging. This is compounded with Apache, that was not initially designed for maritime operations, on a warship still in its infancy. Ex CHINTHE RISE tested the pilots, signallers, ground crew and engineers to deliver Attack capability at sea. 656 Squadron is looking forward to refining these capabilities on the next maritime embarkation.
E-SPORTS
E-Sports (or electronic sports) is a term used to describe competitive video gaming. It differs from standard video gaming in that eSports are competitive (human-vs-human) and usually have an engaging spectator element to them, like traditional sports would.
Written By: SAC Jamie Griffith
This year has been an extremely exciting one for the development of eSports within the RAF, and for me as a representative. Last December I competed in the very first transatlantic “Call of Duty Endowment Bowl”; a tournament hosted by Activision and contested by all eight of the UK and US’s military forces. The RAF had great success, beating all the UK’s forces by a large margin, and narrowly being defeated in a tiebreaker final against the US Space Force.
Since then, competition has not slowed down. I have competed in both military and civilian competitions multiple times, every week, all year. As a result, I was invited as a Captain to the biggest Warzone tournament of the year, the “World Series of Warzone”. Competing against the very best players in the world, I managed to place in the top 20 players out of 150.
The RAF have recently received another invitation from Activision to compete in this year’s “CODE Bowl”. With COVID restrictions finally easing, we will fly out to New York on 10 Dec 21 to compete against all UK and US Forces once again. Attending this high-profile event in-person will be the first of its kind for the UK Armed Forces within eSports and I am sure it will not be the last.
It continues to be a pleasure to represent the RAF in such prestigious events and I believe it is a sign of what is to come for eSports within the service. With the development of eSports facilities on stations across the UK, the RAF is taking a lead role in continuing to combat isolation and provide access technology that many would not have thought to try previously. Here at RAF Benson, we are in the process of setting up our own facility and aim to have this open in the coming months. This will provide personnel with another place to spend their free time and to socialise with others, all while enjoying the games they love.
