Tim Cooper – 2nd July 2025 at 8:35am
Teams from across all three services and even abroad recently came together to compete in one of the Royal Navy’s proudest and most enduring traditions – the Field Gun Competition.
There’s honour at stake and it’s taken extremely seriously.
But have you ever wondered what it’s all about, how it started and why it still goes ahead today?
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In order to find out I took a look behind the scenes and met some of those taking part.
My visit to HMS Collingwood began a day before the annual Field Gun Competition, which is officially called the Brickwood Trophy, took place.
Each element of the contest was gone through again and again – and the same happened in an area called the Field Gun Village.
Here, each team have their own space – a bit like a quaint version of an F1 paddock – and it’s usually kept very private, so it was a real treat for me to be allowed backstage, as it were.
I saw how all the field guns are lined up when the teams aren’t practising, and met the team from Joint Force Command (JFC) Naples, the Nato base.
Almost a dozen nationalities were represented in this team, including Master Sergeant Lisa Owens from Samoa, who serves in the US Army.
She said: “I like the physical aspect of it. When we came here in ’22, we had never seen the gun before, so we had to learn all the drills within 48 hours.
“I fell in love with it – since day one.”
I saw how Lisa had really embraced it, motivating the team, keeping them all focused and ensuring that Naples has a team going into the future even after she returns home to Fort Knox.
MSgt Owens added: “Me and a few other girls that have left JFC, we’ve been pushing everyone at JFC.
“I mean, we even advertise it to our commander. He loves it because we do public runs on JFC.
“It’s helped give a realistic or holistic view of everyone and how we perform the drills on the gun.”
For those who don’t know, the competition is based on an action where sailors had to haul their naval guns from their ships to help relieve the British Army in the besieged town of Ladysmith during the Boer War in 1900.
Ever since, the competition has taken place in varying forms and styles.
Taking the gun apart and reassembling it is symbolic of what the sailors would have had to do to get their guns across the treacherous terrain of South Africa.
Lieutenant Commander Gary Nicholson explained: “This is a competition that we’ve been running since 1907.
“Two men or two women can lift this barrel off the ground and rip the wheels off.
“We then come back to the breech here, and the breech opens, and there is a blank shell, 5.56, that’s placed in here.
“It’s put up the spout, and there are six firings throughout the competition. The breech comes over, sets off the charge, and that’s one round that’s been shot.”
Lt Cdr Nicholson showed me the limber box. “This is where the gun shells are stored,” he explained.
“And on the completion of the run, all six are in here with the extractor, which is the tool that’s used to extract them from the gun barrel.
“The box is on the ground and it’s built up, and the wheels are placed on with the shackles, and the pin is inserted into the axle.”
There’s loads of respect here between the teams. Every time one goes to practise, warm applause ripples around the encampment.
The downtime, though, is also a time for healing.
Practice and competition see a heavy gun move about very quickly – and injuries are sadly a part of it.
Regular maintenance is needed for the competitors. So, given this, why do people want to do it?
Able Rate Connor Merrin is a new member of the HMS Seahawk team who have made good recently, winning three years in a row.
He said: “It’s my grandad. He was Navy, and he told me about it, and so I thought I’d do it for him as well. He loved the idea of me doing it.”
On the big day itself, tight units were built and comradeship forged.
And while it may be tradition, fun and exciting, Field Gun is of massive use for the modern military.
“We’re really testing our sailors and all the things that we need to see for them and when they’re operating at sea,” said Captain Tim Davey, Commanding Officer of HMS Collingwood.
“So the teamwork, the camaraderie, leadership, spirit, grit and discipline are all the things that we need to see.”
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