Prince William to join Harry's regiment

[Batgirl]

Prince William is following his brother, Prince Harry, into the Household Cavalry's Blues and Royals, Clarence House has announced.

The 24-year-old, who will one day be head of the Armed Forces, will train to be a troop leader in an armoured reconnaissance unit, like Harry.

He will begin a six-month training course, which his younger sibling is due to finish soon, at Bovington Camp in Dorset after passing out from Sandhurst in December.

Clarence House also outlined plans for crafting second-in-line to the throne William into a future King.

After about a year in the Army, the Prince will spend time with both the RAF and the Royal Navy on "familiarisation attachments".

There, he will carry out public engagements in parallel to his military career and they will become more frequent as he approaches the end of his service.

After his first year in the military, William will also start to get to grips with constitutional affairs in preparation for when he one day accedes the throne.

A Clarence House spokesman said: "The Prince will also aim to address the wider issues of preparing himself for his future roles - learning more about constitutional matters, charitable work and the organisation and estate management.

"Finally, Prince William will be further developing his ideas for his medium-term role following Army service, both in supporting the Queen and the Prince of Wales and in furthering his own charitable interests."

As a troop leader, William will take charge of around a dozen soldiers and four Scimitar reconnaissance vehicles, which are used to scout out the enemy.

It is not yet known whether he will get to serve abroad in a conflict zone.

Clarence House said William would command his troop both in the barracks and in the field.

A spokesman for the Prince said: "Any decision on deployments would be taken on a case-by-case basis."

Soldiers from the Household Cavalry Regiment are in Afghanistan at the moment, but also could be sent to Iraq next year - although this could come too late for William, who may not have finished training.

Royal aides are unlikely to want an heir to the throne seeing action on the front line.

But William, like Harry, has insisted he wants to fight for his country.

"The last thing I want to do is be mollycoddled or wrapped up in cotton wool because if I was to join the Army I'd want to go where my men went and I'd want to do what they did," he once said.

Telegraph