Spearhead (TV series)

UK TV series

Spearhead is a British television drama series. Produced by Southern Television and broadcast on the ITV network, it ran for a total of three series and 19 episodes from 18 July 1978 to 3 September 1981. It featured the daily lives of a group of soldiers in 'B' Company, 1st Battalion Royal Wessex Rangers, a fictional British Army infantry regiment.

The programme shows how, in the late 1970s, the British Army had the task of trying to keep the peace in Northern Ireland and also maintained garrisons in Germany and Hong Kong. It also dramatizes the inflexible class divisions in the army of the time. The 'glass ceiling' for even the most able soldiers of working class origin, like Colour Sergeant Jackson, is shown to be a barrier to achieving advancement from non commissioned to commissioned officer. Early episodes of the series show the army in an unfavourable light; two episodes deal with a petty thief who has a gambling habit, and another deals with an enlisted man going AWOL, with Jackson trying to get him back. Particularly controversial is an episode set in Northern Ireland, where some soldiers are portrayed as advocating a less aggressive campaign against all hostile civilians (including women and children). Through the run of the series, the Royal Wessex Rangers were posted to a number of locations, including Northern Ireland, West Germany with British Army of the Rhine, and as the resident battalion in Hong Kong.

The Royal Wessex Rangers is a fictional British infantry regiment portrayed in the series. It is portrayed as a standard infantry battalion in the British Army during the late 1970s. During the three year run of the show, the regiment is shown in different roles on different postings; to begin with, the battalion is on an operational tour of Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles as light infantry, during which one of the sergeants of the battalion's 'B' Company, Colour Sergeant 'Jacko' Jackson (played by Michael Billington) is chosen to become a temporary platoon commander, even though he is only an NCO. Subsequently, the battalion is posted first as a mechanised infantry battalion to West Germany as part of BAOR, then as a resident light infantry battalion to Hong Kong. The regiment is titled as a regiment of rangers; this distinguishes it from the majority of real infantry regiments in the British Army at the time (the only regiment of rangers at the time was the Royal Irish Rangers). As the regiment has the geographical name Wessex in its name and Gibraltar keep on its cap badge, it may be assumed that it is from the west of England, and its forebears were at the Great Siege of Gibraltar. It may also be assumed that the regiment is part of the Prince of Wales' Division, even thought the Wessex Rangers cap badge is a copy of the Northamptonshire Regiment cap badge,with the Gibraltar and Talavera scrolls changed and a crown added.

The series was screened on British movie channel Talking Pictures TV in 2016, with a further screening which commenced in December 2018.