Prince William leaves royal fans hot under the collar with striking new look
Prince William looked every inch the military man as he stepped out for his latest royal engagement.
The Prince of Wales headed to Salisbury Plain today, where he joined soldiers from the 1st Battalion the Welsh Guards for live firing exercises. William is Colonel of the regiment, which is currently transitioning from ceremonial duties back to field army duties.
And during his visit today, the prince, who still has his rugged beard, took part in firing weapons, flying a drone and chatting with soldiers. But it seems that one detail of the outing proved distracting for some royal fans – the fact that he joined in the engagement in complete Army combat uniform and beret.
And taking to social media, many were delighted to see him in uniform, with one even remarking on how happy he looked. Another wrote on X: “Another day of Prince William looking good.” One said: “Well I didn’t realise how much I needed to see this today.” While another simply wrote: “Prince William looking dashing.”
But they are now transitioning back to Field duties and William’s visit was designed to see how the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards have been dealing with the change in pace, particularly regrowing the regiment’s specialist weapons capabilities to bolster their work abroad and in the UK.
The Prince of Wales was escorted to the range out at Westdown Camp on Salisbury Plain by Commanding Officer Lt Col Andrew Breach and Regimental Adjutant Col Guy Bartle-Jones.
He arrived by helicopter in his combats and beret but quickly changed into a protective vest and helmet – and was handed a pair of binoculars to view the action – but needed no second invitation to get stuck in. “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m just glad you have got nice weather for it given the weekend.”
The prince – who has used guns in the armed forces before – was invited to sit down and shown his sight. He spent a few minutes lining up his British-made Accuracy International L11583 .338 calibre sniper rifle before releasing the trigger, sending off a puff of smoke and air. Afterwards he said: “I really enjoyed that. I see you guys have got a lot of great things coming up, that’s good.”
Chatting to the six-strong sniper team, who were wearing camouflage gear and cannot be identified for security reasons, William said: “Good training? Good to be back in green? Did any of you goys go to Oman? How was that?”
“A lot of camels,” one of the men joked. William said: “Really decent training then? Is it good to be back out. It’s good to get out of ceremonial, isn’t it. You guys have done more than your fair share of that, I’m sorry. It’s been fairly busy this year.
“You’ve only got a few more days. It’s not long I’m going to make sure my father doesn’t squeeze in too many more moments! How long does it train to you to become a sniper? How many snipers can a regiment have in any one go?”
The platoon commander, who cannot be named for security reasons, said afterwards that the rifle William fired had a capability of a 400m metre head shot in the first round with 900 metre for a body shot, but can issue ‘harassing fire’ up up to 1,500 metres. The longest confirmed kill is over a mile and a half. The guns have seen operational service most recently in Afghanistan.
Snipers undertake an 11-week basic training course and then develop their skills on the ground constantly within their platoon. He said that William was aiming at a steel body target poking up out of a tank skeleton around 500 metres away and hit it. “He fired a few round and hit. I heard the ping,” he said.
