2017 Worthington Challenge underway at CFB Gagetown

The 2017 Worthington Challenge is underway at CFB Gagetown. Armoured soldiers from around the world are putting their skills to the test, working together while trying to come out on top of the military exercise.

The sixth annual event kicked off Sunday in Oromocto, N.B. and brought together some of the world’s top soldiers.

The exercise is the Canadian Army’s premier mounted warfare challenge, and is hosted by the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps School.  It brings together teams from two Canadian divisions from Quebec, along with teams from the United States, Chile, Poland and Denmark.  Two Australian observers are also in attendance to determine if it’s an event they might want to participate in down the road.

U.S. 1st Class battalion master gunner Daniel Coelho said it’s a “great honour” to attend the international competition, and said it brings the “best of the best” together from allied nations.

“It’s being able to share tactics and techniques and little operating procedures that we have or that other nations may have that serve as our allies in NATO, and maybe we can cross-train and learn a little bit from each other and grow and better our force,” Coelho said.

Royal Canadian Armoured Corps School commanding officer of the A squadron Capt. Allan Dwyer said the goal is to have participants share lessons among themselves throughout the exercise to help others be even better at their jobs.

“The Worthington Challenge is the Canadian mounted warfare concentration, so essentially we’re taking crewmen from across different trades, putting them in here and testing them across their prerequisite skills to be able to fight an armoured fighting vehicle in a variety of situations,” Dwyer said.

The event has four stations consisting of a mounted direct gunfire range, a mounted navigation challenge, a technical skills station and a “March and Shoot” event.

At the direct-fire gunnery competition, crews go out to the range and are confronted with several tactical challenges, and aim at moving and still targets.

U.S. army gunner Sgt. Joshua Schuller went through the course in one of the M1A2 Abrams.

“It was just kind of something I always wanted to do was serve and I got honed into tanks basically off the rip and it was love at first sight really,” Schuller said.

READ MORE: International armoured soldiers compete in Worthington Cup at CFB Gagetown

Coehlo said a good gunner is somebody who can command the vehicle — whether a tank or a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and can see what’s on the battlefield and can make independent, wise decisions quickly.

He said the march and shoot station will entail a 13 km march with soldiers wearing full battle-ready combat gear.  Competitors will have to complete certain tasks under physical stress, such as changing a road wheel in the shortest amount of time possible.

Coelho, who is based at Ft. Riley in Kansas, said he and other members of the American team are ready to tackle all the challenges, and said the team spent the past six weeks training together.

Coelho said the Canadian teams have a bit of a home team advantage.

“We’re going to prove to them whether or not we’re in their home or our home we’re going to win either way,” Coelho said.

Crews will be competing for trophies in several categories, but Coelho said despite the friendly competition, everyone is there to learn from each other and have a good time.

“I would expect nothing less from our American brethren to say that they’ll come out and show us how it’s done, but I’m confident that the Canadian army will be shown in a positive light at the end of this,” Dwyer said.

The Worthington Challenge runs until September 29.