44
Our job is
to raise
everybody’s
game
replaced by soldiers over the next three years,
while 28 Engineer Regiment has been made
responsible for counter-CBRN operations – taking
over from 20 Wing, Royal Air Force Regiment
(Soldier, April).
“The needs of the other Services will still
be met but this is an acknowledgment that
the greatest CBRN threats are in the land
environment,” continues Lt Col Normile.
“Also, the resurgence of Russia and what’s
happened in Syria recently means a lot of people
are now thinking that dealing with a CBRN attack
is not as unlikely as it once was.
“Our job is to raise everybody’s game.”
Much of that effort will go into putting more
personnel through the centre’s four “enhanced
generalist” courses.
The first, an instructor package, gives junior
NCOs extended knowledge of CBRN, allowing
them to go back to their units and pass on the
sort of skills that are not available through the
Army’s standard annual training.
“That is vital because we can then feed
information back and demonstrate to others how
to operate the equipment we would be using on
ops,” says Sgt Mark Webb (REME), who is in the
middle of the three-week programme.
“One highlight for me was going into depth
about radiation and its potential effects, what it’s
like to work in a radiated area, the protection you
need and how we work in a zone like that as a
military unit.when it’s not easy to breathe themselves.
“Their peripheral vision is affected,
they’ve lost their sense of smell and their hearing
and touch is impaired.
“Thankfully, they remembered not to take
the stretchers into the hot zone so they haven’t
been contaminated, which means they can move
a short distance, strip the patient there and
evacuate him quickly.”
This small exercise is just one of the many
highly specialised skills and drills being
practised on the day Soldier visits the tri-Service
facility near Winterbourne Gunner in Wiltshire.
Just a few hundred yards away some Royal
Engineers and personnel from Specialist Training
Flight, Royal Air Force Regiment are testing the
interiors of a replica newsagent, garage and post
office for signs of anthrax.
Nearby, another group are searching for traces
of chemical agents in the remains of a wrecked
aircraft and train carriage.
They are dressed in integrated respiratory
system suits – bulky, billowing outfits with
their own sealed air supply that are incredibly
awkward to move in, so every minute of practice
time is invaluable.
These troops are just a handful of around 1,000
Servicemen and women who pass through the
centre’s doors every year.
And that figure is set to increase to around
1,300 in the next 12 months now the Army has
taken over command of the facility from the RAF.
“There is a new focus on CBRN after being
a relatively low priority during the Herrick and
Telic years,” Lt Col Mark Normile (RE, pictured
right), commandant of the Defence CBRN
Centre, tells Soldier.
The reinvigoration of this particular
capability will see many of the RAF
Regiment instructors at the facility42-46-sol-aug CBRN.indd 3 25/07/2019 17:08