Tigers earn thier stripes

11:15am Wednesday 25th June 2008

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THEY are facing the threat of mortars, rocket attacks and gun fire from "the enemy" and insurgents are moving in, prepared to detonate roadside bombs.

On the ground the men of 1PWRR - the Armoured Tigers - are fighting their way forward, doing all they can to defeat their fierce opposition.

They are under the close eye of their brigade chiefs who are tracking what is happening from a specially-equipped operations room while handing down orders of how they should proceed with their attack.

As always, lives are at risk and a single, momentary lapse could turn this battle to return the state of Suffieldia from the people of West Candania to those in the East into a bloody conflict with potentially numerous casualties and loss of life.

Fortunately, this time, the 400 soldiers of 1PWRR are not really under threat.

Instead they find themselves in the most lifelike "fake" wartime operation they will ever encounter during their rigorous training, here on the Canadian prairies.

Using weapons fitted to fire a laser beam instead of live ammunition, it is about as near as they can get to what could happen during their next tour on the frontline later this year.

As revealed yesterday, the Tigers will be deployed to the Middle East in just a matter of months - only two years since they returned from a seven month stint in Iraq.

Before they contemplate that, they have one hurdle to overcome - passing a gruelling test of their skills and drills during a month-long training exercise that will ensure they are fit for action.

In Exercise Control - a small base around half an hour's drive along the dusty Rattlesnake Road that joins the prairies with BATUS (British Army Training Unit Suffield) - more than 25 senior officers and their staff are about to unleash their next set of orders to the Tigers that will see battle commence.

Beyond the distant horizon, so far that they can't be seen by the naked eye from where we are, the troops are getting their vehicles ready knowing that a plan is being hatched by their senior officers, but unaware of what that will involve.

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Major Mike Elviss, 20th Armoured Brigade's Chief of Staff, who has flown out from his Germany base which is also home to IPWRR to oversee the exercise, said: "This is the equivalent of the FA Cup final for the guys of 1PWRR.

"Hopefully at the end of this the Brigade Commander will say they have got to where they need to be to go out on operations. BATUS is unrivalled and is so vast that every time we come here we can run out for up to 200k and continue to learn our trade. I'm confident that they will do well."