{"id":35851,"date":"2013-11-25T11:31:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T11:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=bcb42898514c0df66d84694ebbe8e3c5"},"modified":"2013-11-25T11:31:34","modified_gmt":"2013-11-25T11:31:34","slug":"news-story-soldiers-battle-against-thinking-enemy-on-salisbury-plain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=35851","title":{"rendered":"News story: Soldiers battle against ‘thinking enemy’ on Salisbury Plain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Troops from the Fire Support Group (FSG<\/abbr>) Division, part of the Support Weapons School, took part in Exercise First Strike which tested students on the FSG<\/abbr> course on how to use support weapons as part of a battle group. <\/p>\n

The exercise pitted FSG<\/abbr> students against each other to ensure they were tested against a \u2018thinking enemy\u2019 with an armoured threat that has the freedom of action in the battlespace. <\/p>\n

Manoeuvres scrutinised students of all levels of command \u2013 including platoon commanders formulating plans from a battle group operation order and delivering orders to leaders further down the chain of command. <\/p>\n

Soldiers were tested in how they employ and control their weapon systems correctly at the lowest level. <\/p>\n

Exercise First Strike included different aspects of military operations, covering delay, defence, advance to contact, convoy protection, ambush and fire support to a company attack tasks. <\/p>\n

The exercise involved each FSG<\/abbr> platoon fighting against each other using the tactical engagement system either mounted in revised weapons mounted installation kit (RWMIK<\/abbr>) vehicles or dismounted. <\/p>\n

FSG<\/abbr> soldiers were accompanied by either Warrior or combat vehicle reconnaissance tracked vehicles provided by the Land Warfare Centre Battle Group \u2013 currently 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. <\/p>\n

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\"Troops<\/div>
Troops from the Fire Support Group Division on Exercise First Strike [Picture: Crown copyright]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Captain Robin White, second-in-command of the FSG<\/abbr> Division, said: <\/p>\n

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The exercise allows students to demonstrate what they have learnt and, through debriefing, develop for the final exercise and beyond.<\/p>\n

We can give evidence of points to be worked on, as well as good actions that all can learn from. Salisbury Plain Training Area is ideal for us.<\/p>\n

It suits our need to use armour to replicate a credible enemy threat, whilst the undulating ground tests students in manoeuvre, both mounted using RWMIK<\/abbr> and dismounted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Engagement with the \u2018enemy\u2019 is kept short and sharp, focusing the students\u2019 minds on the action on the ground and enabling them to learn from their actions. <\/p>\n

This week\u2019s final exercise provides student commanders with more battle preparation time and brings together what they have learnt throughout the course.<\/p>\n

Students finish the course at the end of November, at which point they will return to their units and be able to fulfil roles within the FSG<\/abbr>. The skills they acquire on the course will be further honed on exercises and in Kenya or Canada with their own units. <\/p>\n

Salisbury Plain Training Area is maintained by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO<\/abbr>), which delivers the training service, enabling defence training users to live, work, train and deploy at home and overseas. <\/p>\n

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hiskett, Principal Training Safety Officer, DIO<\/abbr> Operations Training South West, said:<\/p>\n

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DIO<\/abbr>\u2019s priority is to support our Armed Forces as they prepare for operations. Salisbury Plain is a large and diverse training area and is ideal for exercises such as this as the terrain is suitably arduous.<\/p>\n

We are pleased to be able to offer the environment and facilities that enable our military personnel to test their skillls against the enemy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At over 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres), Salisbury Plain is the UK\u2019s largest training area and offers first-class and diverse training facilities to enable the British Army to meet its training requirements to prepare for operations worldwide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soldiers have been pitting their wits against military colleagues as they battled a ‘thinking enemy’ whilst on exercise on Salisbury Plain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}