Hartlepool has welcomed a new battalion into its army reserve centre which has been “left dormant for years”.
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00:00 Eight Rifles is the Army Reserve's newest infantry battalion at five years old.
00:08 They were also part of the largest infantry regiment of the British Army, the Rifles.
00:14 This gives us influence, reach, and more importantly, the widest range of opportunities for our people.
00:21 A short segue into the rest of my speech, one of the great things about being here with our colleagues from the Engineers and the Royal Logistics Corps
00:33 is it gives the people of Hartlepool, prospective people that may wish to join the Reserves, the greatest range of opportunities within the Army Reserves.
00:42 Slightly exciting. As many of you know, Eight Rifles is the local Army Reserve infantry unit based out of Bishop Auckland, Durham and Sutherland,
00:54 but also out of the West Midlands and South Yorkshire as well.
00:59 As you can see hopefully on the screens behind me, our battalion has got four companies.
01:04 This is made up of three rifle companies designed to be just under 100 strong.
01:09 Each have a specialist weapon capability, as you can see some of the weapons going around the Army Reserve Centre.
01:17 D Company in Durham and Sutherland have mortars, E Company in Shrewsbury and Birmingham have machine guns,
01:26 Y Company in Doncaster and Cumberley have anti-tanks.
01:30 So the fourth company, Support Company, is based out of Bishop Auckland, but also now here out of Hartlepool.
01:38 Support Company is a little bit different. It supports the rifle companies with additional specialist capabilities
01:45 like human resources, communications, transport, equipment, that sort of thing.
01:51 But in Eight Rifles, it also provides elements of reconnaissance, elements of electronic warfare and also assault pioneers.