Wil Wright

Supervising Armourer & Military Advisor/Historian. From my early teens I had a strong interest in military history and also collected WW1 & 2 deactivated weaponry. My Father and Grandfather were both ex-infantrymen/combat veterans and steered me into enlisting in the British Army as an Apprentice Armourer in 1991 at the age of 16. I completed my weapons training in 1994 and was posted to the Royal Armoured Corps in Germany, where I maintained and instructed on a host of small arms and machine guns within two tank regiments. In 1999 I opted to follow in my fathers footsteps and post physical selection & subsequent parachute training I joined the Airborne Forces (16 Air Assault Brigade), where I continued to operate as a Senior/Class 1 Armourer for a number of years. Within this time I took part in various operational deployments, from the 2000 Op Palliser (Sierra Leone civil war intervention) to 2003 Op Telic (initial Iraq Invasion), where I supported war fighting Infantry Battalions. This included working not only on all in service weaponry, but also making safe captured weapons. Upon leaving the British Army in 2005 I immediately joined Bapty Ltd, who were a weapons supplier for the UK film & television industry. Here I not only helped maintain their vast collection of period and modern weaponry, but also trained as an on set Armourer. This involved the supply, actor training and subsequent safety control during filming. I was on set almost daily over the 3 year period I worked for Bapty. I had always wanted to emigrate since leaving the Army and in late 2008 the New Zealand Defence Force offered me a placement. I re-enlisted into the Army (albeit a different one) as an Armourer and spent the next 3 years Instructing on weapons as a Platoon Sergeant.