Breaking News: Prince William wears military uniform as he fires a gun in training exercise with snipers…..Read More

Prince William is visiting the 1st Batallion Welsh Guards at Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire on Tuesday morning.

Prince William swapped his usual tailored suit for military uniform this morning, as he visited the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards at Salisbury Plain on Tuesday morning.

During the visit, William tried his hand at firing a sniper’s rifle and machine gun – successfully hitting his target on each one – as well as drone reconnaissance and mortar firing.

The Prince, who is colonel of the regiment, 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.”

William – who has used guns in the armed forces before – was invited to sit down and shown his sight.

He fired a British-made Accuracy International L11583 .338 calibre sniper rifle and said afterwards: “I really enjoyed that. I see you guys have got a lot of great things coming up, that’s good.”

The Welsh Guards have led several historical ceremonial events over the past two years, including the funeral for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the King’s Coronation and Trooping the Colour.

The regiment has also been carrying out overseas operations in the Falkland Islands and Oman.

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.

Chatting to the six-strong sniper team, who were wearing camouflage gear and cannot be identified for security reasons, William said: “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!”

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.

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 rounds and hit. I heard the ping,” he said.

The prince was later invited to join a group firing 7.62m General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs), and said: “That sounds awesome”.

He was also offered the chance to fly one of the battalion’s new £7,500 drones which are ‘transforming’ warfare and participate in a mortar attack exercise.