Prince Harry in 'realistic' mock Iraq battles

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Prince Harry in training: Master of disguise

 

Prince Harry is taking part in Army exercises on Salisbury Plain this week as he prepares for his deployment to Iraq.

Around 3,500 soldiers from 1 Mechanised Brigade will spend this week carrying out mock-up operations to simulate everything from routine patrols to arresting dangerous insurgents.

Harry will become the first royal in 25 years to be sent to a war zone when he heads to Basra, southern Iraq, with the Blues and Royals in the coming weeks for a six-month tour of duty.

Soldiers taking part in the exercises in Wiltshire had to suspend disbelief at times. The 'insurgents' who fired mortars at Army camps and launched roadside bombs at armoured vehicles were likely to be paratroopers recently returned from Afghanistan.

And snow flurries and bitterly cold winds today brought blizzard-like conditions to Salisbury Plain that are unlikely to be encountered in the baking heat of an Iraqi summer.

But the exercises have been designed to be as realistic as possible in order to prepare the soldiers for what they will face in Iraq.

The troops wear high-tech training equipment that minutely tracks their movements on computer screens and records whether they have been shot and how bad their wounds are.

Last night, soldiers from 4 Rifles Battle Group launched a mock-up strike operation to capture suspected insurgents from the purpose-built village of Copehill Down.

They arrested seven people and brought them back to their camp, which was standing in for Basra Palace, the base where they will be stationed in Iraq.

There were a few minor hitches - one armoured vehicle broke down after the arrests had been made and had to be towed back to camp - but senior officers declared themselves pleased with the exercise.

Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Sanders, commanding officer of 4 Rifles, said: "I would almost rather we made mistakes because you tend to learn more from mistakes than you do from success.

"I do not want to set an atmosphere where anyone is complacent for those first few weeks in theatre."

It will be the first time that many members of 4 Rifles, a new battalion only created on February 1, have been to Iraq.

Lt Col Sanders said: "The boys are by and large really excited and stimulated by the challenge, and want to get out there.

"They are apprehensive - who wouldn't be? It's a dangerous theatre - but they want to get out and do the job."

Lt Col Sanders has unusually strong links to Iraq, having grown up in Baghdad when his father was a defence attache to the British Embassy.