Pointless courses / training

[Fiona_TG]

We took the majority of rehab platoon from ATR to Amport house for a few days of God squad. There was plenty of exercises and workshops about communication, perception and so on.

It was interesting to see who coped with one exercise based on resource management as we changed the rules part way through.

Another one had a Lego model digger. One team member is shown the model, the others have a pile of Lego pieces. First team member has to explain how to build it but is now blindfold and can't say exactly what it is

Ah yes, Amport House. I went there a couple of times for Young People's Mental Health First Aider training, this was after my time in. A bit off the beaten track. An interesting maze like place and I had a good time there. I recall seeing some dead fish floating around in the big pond out back.

There were plenty of serving God botherers there on other courses, all quite friendly and chatty on many things other than religion during coffee breaks and in passing.

 

[chrisg46]

Not a pointless course but a pointless part of it - teaching BATCO on the Basic Radio Users cadre. Did a BRU a few years ago, couple of days learning this stuff. I asked are we still using this then? Answer, No not really but its on the course. I have seen it being used once in 20 years or so...

 

[WolvoExPunk]

Any cadre course at 3 Div Signal Regiment in the 90s. Nobody ever got promoted off them. Not even the top students. They became such an embarrassment that they stopped doing them around 1995.

 

[rehab44]

What courses/ training did you do that seemed pointless at the time? Here's mine to start the thread off:

In Basic during boy service we were trained and examined on the LMG. When I passed out and was posted to Germany, all the wagons had GPMG's, which I didn't know from one end to the other having never seen one before ( never saw a LMG again either )

Did my B3 Signallers course whilst there and had to learn Morse Code ( can't remember how many words per minute we had to pass in order to qualify). Never, ever used Morse Code again and pretty soon forgot it . Over to you:

12 WPM

 

[strima]

BOWMAN staff users course, what a mind numbingly shit course for kit I never touched afterwards.

 

[PapaGolf]

Not a pointless course but a pointless part of it - teaching BATCO on the Basic Radio Users cadre. Did a BRU a few years ago, couple of days learning this stuff. I asked are we still using this then? Answer, No not really but its on the course. I have seen it being used once in 20 years or so...

Me in Iraq after being led down into a basements basement “what the fu ck is all that?”
“Batco, in case EMP fu cks everyone’s Bowman“
“For who?! The entire fuc king Division!!??”
“Yep, three years worth”
“Shit the bed! Do I have to account for it?”
“God no, just ignore it and hope the rats eat it all, like I’ve done”
“Works for me”

 

[kelvin_273]

My Education for Promotion course in about 1975. Needed it to further my career apparently.
My O Levels were harder but it was two weeks in a nice warm classroom with a cracking girly Captain from the RAEC.

 

[longtimeout]

I along with most of the other JNCOs from my unit were once sent on a 2 week Small Arms Instructors Course. Great course, all practical teaching on the range, aimed at coaching shooters from first time onwards.

Come next Range Practice - all of the attendees on the aforementioned course were dicked to be Range Sentries, as "We have a load of Officer Cadets who need to tick the Range Coaching box on their training card".

I came back and signed off.

 

[Fang_Farrier]

Not a pointless course but a pointless part of it - teaching BATCO on the Basic Radio Users cadre. Did a BRU a few years ago, couple of days learning this stuff. I asked are we still using this then? Answer, No not really but its on the course. I have seen it being used once in 20 years or so...

The BATCO element of the PQO course was never utilised in any shape or form at any point in my career..

 

[endure]

12 WPM

The plateau

 

[bob_the_bomb]

Pah.

The British Army is like a well-oiled Swiss watch in comparison to the UN.

In UNPROFOR it was decided in about 1993 that the mission needed a specialist snow clearing unit to keep the main routes open in Bosnia.

Germany offered to supply kit but wouldn’t provide troops.

The only country that would provide troops was Indonesia.

Indonesia.

For snow clearing duties.

They had to be sent to Germany to be trained on the kit. Which meant waiting for winter so they could see snow for the first time.

By the time winter was over there had been a troop rotation.

By now you can see where this is going...

There are now hundreds of trained snow clearers sat in places like Jakarta.

They never cleared a cubic metre of snow in Bosnia.

You couldn’t make this up

 

[rehab44]

The plateau

At 10s for me

 

[Sexton Blake]

What courses/ training did you do that seemed pointless at the time? Here's mine to start the thread off:

In Basic during boy service we were trained and examined on the LMG. When I passed out and was posted to Germany, all the wagons had GPMG's, which I didn't know from one end to the other having never seen one before ( never saw a LMG again either )

Did my B3 Signallers course whilst there and had to learn Morse Code ( can't remember how many words per minute we had to pass in order to qualify). Never, ever used Morse Code again and pretty soon forgot it . Over to you:

May I offer up the Unit Projectionist Course (UPC).

Three days at Beconsfield (I think, it was over 30 years ago) so that I could be qualified to fire up 'Ye Olde 35 mm Projector' to fascinate bored soldiers with various films on wet windy days or even (as excitedly put to me by the civvie instructor) run the actual cinema in Akrotiri!

As I was the only bloke who rocked up, all 3 days of the course were rammed into 1 and I get 2 days away from my Unit drinking heavily and actually successfully getting laid in the process!

Never once did I come anywhere near the 3 different types of projector I was trained on. As for the fact that video recorders were everywhere, meh.

Such little victories, when you were a full screw, as these made life so much sweeter.