Shooting Stars with the Cadets!

Cadets win team and individual Silver in cross-London shooting meet

Last Sunday, a team of four Army cadets participated in the Cadets Skill at Arms Meet (CADSAAM). The purpose of CADSAAM is to determine the best individual and team shots of CCF and ACF units from across London District.

Aiming to be the best, Cdts D. McMillan, J. McMillan, J. Tung, and I had a practice shoot two weeks earlier, in collaboration with Trinity CCF, to perfect our marksmanship. We were full of excited anticipation a fortnight later as we met at school at to commence our journey to the competition venue at Pirbright Army Training Centre.

The competition consisted of two types of shoots, both including brief exposures of pop-up targets. We started off with the Advance to Contact shoot which had us running 100m before adopting any position from prone to kneeling and then shooting at a distance ranging from 100m to 300m – quite an exhausting exercise. Fortunately, we had a break to refuel with not one but two lunches; one we packed ourselves and another provided by the facilities at Pirbright, so we were all fuelled up for our second shoot event: the Fire Control shoot.

This event had us set up in any number of positions which included being in a trench. Despite this being a technically easier shoot, we faced fierce competition despite one opponent imitating the posture of a prawn whilst flexing an awesome ability to fall asleep whilst live rounds were being fired a mere twenty metres away. Once we had recovered from this and completed the shoot, we were ready to hear our results.

At the final parade it was revealed that we had come first place out of all 12 teams in the Advance to Contact Shoot, that Cadet D. McMillan had achieved Second Best Shot from all 48 of London’s finest cadet marksmen. As a team, we achieved a terrific second place overall in the competition. As this was Corps’ first entry into CADSAAM, it was a cracking result, and the squad were thrilled to have achieved success against such tough competition. A thoroughly enjoyable and successful day’s shooting, and yet more silverware for Corps this year.

Cdt Smith
Fourth Year, Army Section