N Battery (The Eagle Troop) Royal Horse Artillery is a Tactical Group Battery of

3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery is a regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery in the British Army. They are currently based at Albemarle Barracks, Northumberland, England. The regiment was constituted in 1939 out of existing batteries. Two of ...

. They are currently based in Albemarle Barracks in Northumberland and equipped with the

105 mm Light Gun The L118 light gun is a 105 mm towed howitzer. It was originally designed and produced in England for the British Army in the 1970s. It has since been widely exported. The L119 and the United States Army's M119 are variants that use a different ...

.3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery
/ref> The battery is commonly known as a Tactical Group Battery and provides the artillery support to a light role Brigade Formation Reconnaissance Regiment.

Current role

N Battery (The Eagle Troop) are currently serving as the fifth Tactical Group within 3 RHA and supports 4th Infantry Brigade. They recently deployed as part of J (Sidi Rezegh) Battery, alongside 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery to Afghanistan.

Battery structure

N Battery are known as a Tactical Group Battery and they consist of approximately 40 personnel: * Battery Commanders Tac Group * FST Party 1 * FST Party 2 *FST Party 3 *Joint Fires Cell

History

Formation

1st Troop Bombay Horse Artillery was formed in Seroor, on 11 November 1811.

19th century

In 1842 Sir Charles Napier was sent to Hyderabad with a treaty that was never to be accepted by the Amirs of

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

. The Amirs attacked the British Residency, and Napier decided this was cause for war, and attacked a force of 22,000 Baluchis with just 2,800 British Soldiers. This resulted in: * 1843 – The Battle for Miani. The British line held, and 6 guns from the Troop supported a charge. Hyderabad was occupied in February 1843. The battery was awarded its honour title following Sir Charles Napier's march to the

Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

. The troop were supporting the Cheshire Regiment, with the enemy in an entrenched position. The way artillery was deployed, forced the enemy to its left flank, which allowed the Cheshire Regiment to advance and distract the enemy. A surrender followed quickly and the Governor-General of India, the Lord Ellenborough, declared that the battery should, 'bear the eagle'. In 1858, the East India Company dissolved, and the battery became part of the British Army. The battery was renamed five times between 1862, until it was finally named N Battery Royal Horse Artillery in 1889.

World War One

* 1914 – The battery deployed to France on the outbreak of War. * 1915 – The battery fired its guns in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. The failure of this battle was later credited to the lack of artillery shells in

Shell Crisis of 1915 The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines in the First World War that led to a political crisis in the United Kingdom. Previous military experience led to an over-reliance on shrapnel to attack infantry in th ...

. * 1916 – The battery fought in the

Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

* 1917 – N Battery RHA claimed the highest number of shells fired in one month by a single battery. The six guns fired 115,360 rounds in August 1917 in support of the Canadian Corps. The battery also fought in the Battle of Cambrai (1917) and at Hailles. * 1918 – The battery continued to fight until the Armistice in November 1918. * 1920 – The battery bore the coffin of the Unknown Soldier to Westminster Abbey.

World War Two

* 1938 – The battery was merged with L (Nery) Battery and was known as L/N (Nery) Battery within

2nd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery 2nd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery was a regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery that served in the Second World War. It saw action in France, Greece, North Africa and Italy. It was redesignated as 2nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1958. T ...

. * 1939 – The battery formed part of the British Expeditionary Force, and fought in France until the

Dunkirk evacuation The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the ...

in 1940 The battery served in Greece and the Western Desert, and in 1942 regained its identity and joined 6th Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery.

Cold War

In 1951, The battery was part of 4 RHA within 7 Armoured Division based at Hohne Germany until 1958 * 1958 – The battery deployed to

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

during the

Malayan Emergency The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces o ...

* 1961 – The battery moved to Colchester, as part of the Strategic Reserve. During this time it was deployed to Cyprus to prevent further fighting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots * 1965 – The battery moved to Münster.

Recent and Current Conflicts

Northern Ireland

* 1968 – The battery moved to Barnard Castle in Yorkshire. * 1971 – The battery moved to Deilinghofen in West Germany. During this time the battery completed three tours of Northern Ireland, including a posting to Andersonstown, West Belfast in 1972, HM Prison Maze,

Lisburn Lisburn (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with ...

in September 1973 and the Bogside in

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

in 1975. * 1977 – The battery moved to

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

, immediately followed by a further posting to

Craigavon Craigavon may refer to: * Craigavon, County Armagh, a planned town in Northern Ireland ** Craigavon Borough Council, 1972–2015 local government area centred on the planned town * Viscount Craigavon, title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom ** ...

, Northern Ireland in 1977. * 1980 – The battery moved to Larkhill * 1982 – The battery returned to Münster. * 1993 – 2nd Field Regiment RA disbanded and N Battery joined 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery in Topcliffe, Yorkshire.

Balkan wars

The battery served in the Balkans.

Operation TELIC Operation Telic (Op TELIC) was the codename under which all of the United Kingdom's military operations in Iraq were conducted between the start of the invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003 and the withdrawal of the last remaining British forces on ...
in Iraq

*2004 – L / N Battery served in Iraq on Op TELIC 4, as 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 ...

Operation HERRICK in Afghanistan

* 2006 - OP HERRICK 8 * 2010 – OP HERRICK 13 * 2013 – OP HERRICK 19

References

Bibliography

External links

* * * {{Royal Horse Artillery Royal Horse Artillery batteries Royal Artillery batteries 1811 establishments in British India Military units and formations established in 1811