A Battery (The Chestnut Troop) Royal Horse Artillery is the senior Battery in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

and is part of

1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery is a regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery in the British Army. It currently serves in the armoured field artillery role, and is equipped with the AS90 self-propelled gun. The regiment is currently based at La ...

. The Chestnut Troop is currently based in

Assaye Assaye is a small village in the Jalna district of the state of Maharashtra in western India. The village was the location of the Battle of Assaye in 1803, fought between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company The East Indi ...

Barracks in

Tidworth Camp Tidworth Camp is a military installation at Tidworth in Wiltshire, England. It forms part of the Tidworth, Netheravon and Bulford (TidNBul) Garrison. History The Camp was established when the War Office acquired a 19th-century mansion – Tedw ...

. The unit is currently equipped as a Close Support Artillery Battery, with the

AS-90 The AS-90 ("Artillery System for the 1990s"), known officially as Gun Equipment 155 mm L131, is an armoured self-propelled artillery weapon used by the British Army. It can fire standard charges up to using 39 calibre long barrel (comp ...

Self-propelled gun Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...

History

Formation and early years

A Troop, Royal Horse Artillery was raised as The Chestnut Troop at Woolwich on 1 February 1793. In 1798 the troop saw action in the Irish Rebellion and in 1799 it fought in the Netherlands. In 1806,

Hew Dalrymple Ross Field Marshal Sir Hew Dalrymple Ross, (5 July 177910 December 1868) was a British Army officer. After seeing active service during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, he fought as a troop commander in many of the battles of the Peninsular War and the H ...

assumed command of the unit which he led during campaigns in Spain, Portugal, France and at Waterloo. Ross was later knighted and promoted to

field marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

. After 1809, it fought in the

Peninsula War The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, ...

. Between 1855 and 1856 it fought in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

World War I

The outbreak of the First World War saw the unit, now enlarged to a battery, deployed to France in 1914. It served during all four years, firing its last round at Orrs on 4 November 1918.

Between the two World Wars

In 1919 the battery was deployed in North West Persia as part of the

Norperforce North Persia Force (Norper force) was a British military force that operated in Northern Persia from 1918–1919. Composition The force was a large brigade which consisted of: * 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers * 1st Battalion, 42nd Deoli Reg ...

. and, in 1921, it was deployed to

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...

. In 1938, the battery became part of 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery.

World War II

The battery was deployed to France, serving with the British Expeditionery Force until the evacuation from Dunkirk. Later in 1940, the battery was sent to Egypt as part of the Desert Rats. In 1941, it fought as part of the

Siege of Tobruk The siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against Allied forces in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. ...

. The battery served continuously in the Western Desert especially in El Alamein in 1942. After El Alamein, elements of the battery were seconded to the newly formed "Long Range Desert Group" because of their intimate knowledge of the desert and survival skills. Afterwards, it was then re-equipped with 105mm SP guns before fighting in Italy for the rest of the World War.

Post war

In the post-war period the battery served in Egypt, the United Kingdom and Germany. Most significantly, between 1965 and 1967 it was deployed to Aden. In the 1970s, the battery completed tours in Northern Ireland, and in 1990, the battery provided soldiers for a combined A/B/E Battery which fought in the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

. In 1996, the battery served in

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

as a part of

IFOR The Implementation Force (IFOR) was a NATO-led multinational peace enforcement force in Bosnia and Herzegovina under a one-year mandate from 20 December 1995 to 20 December 1996 under the codename ''Operation Joint Endeavour''. Background NATO ...

. In April 2004, the unit deployed to Basra as part of the 1 Cheshire Battlegroup, and was tasked with developing the

Iraqi Police The Iraqi Police (IP) is the uniformed police force responsible for the enforcement of civil law in Iraq. Its organisation, structure and recruitment were guided by the Coalition Provisional Authority after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and it is ...

within the City, as part of Operation Telic 4. Later in 2007 the battery deployed to

on Operation Telic 10. In 2009 A Battery served in Sangin as part of 3 Rifles Battlegroup on Operation Herrick 11.

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{Royal Horse Artillery Royal Horse Artillery batteries Royal Artillery batteries 1793 establishments in Great Britain Military units and formations established in 1793