Royal Navy Command Field Gun Competition

This video combines snippets from many Command Field Gun Competition videos and displays them in a sequence it is hoped will help anyone unfamiliar with the competition to understand the competition's history, the arduous training endured by crews and the unsurpassed excitement of the competition runs at the Royal Tournament, held in Earls Court, London.

The section on training might be thought a little long, but is intended to show how difficult crew members find it to lift the great weights of the gun and its component parts in the early days and how easily they handle them after many weeks of intense practise. It also shows something of the injuries that were sustained as a matter of course and endured without complaint.

What isn't clear in the video is that each of the three competing Commands - Devonport, Fleet Air Arm and Portsmouth - trained two teams, an 'A' and a 'B', and competed with one another at both the 'A' and 'B' levels. At the Royal Tournament, the 'B' teams served as pools of potential replacements should any of the 'A' teams become sick or seriously injured.

The competitions at the Royal Tournament were held from 1907 to 1999, except during World Wars I and II. From 1937 onwards the Royal Tournament was held in Earls Court, which could seat 12,500 spectators. Sadly, the Admiralty discontinued its support for the competition after the last Royal Tournament in 1999, and Earls Court was demolished in 2014 to make way for a multi-storey residential development.

Видео Royal Navy Command Field Gun Competition канала Morvran1