An Cosantóir

12 | Keeping the Show on the Road by Wesley Bourke Photos Cpl Colum Lawlor The Battalion Support Group (BSG) is a small group that has a huge impact, consisting as it does of specialists without whom an overseas battalion simply wouldn���t function: engineers, transport, military police, ordnance, CIS and medics. Transport Platoon We tend to think in terms of personnel when speaking about our overseas battalions but as modern military forces they depend heavily on all sorts of vehicles. Our current battalion in Lebanon is equipped with a fleet of 105 vehicles, including 31 Mowag APCs and CRVs, four LTAVs, and several armoured Nissans. Transport Platoon, with 24 fitters and drivers divided between two sections, Motor Transport and Workshops, literally keeps the battalion on the road. ���Transport Platoon is responsible for all the battalion���s food and water resupply, heavy movement, and vehicle maintenance,��� explained Lt Kieran McKewon (2/ic Tpt Pl). ���In the workshops we do preventative maintenance, vehicle inspections, heavy-duty maintenance and unscheduled maintenance.��� During a single tour a battalion will go through, on average, 11,500,000 litres of water, so it is unsurprising that one of the most vital resupply missions is for water and is carried out on a daily basis. Water truck drivers, such as Pte Robbie Bannon, who affectionately call their big 8x8 water truck ���the donkey���, have to bring water into camp for the engineers to purify it before it is distributed to the battalion���s two OPs, and a local hospital and prison. To keep the fleet on the road Fitter Sgt Mark Greeny has a team An Cosant��ir April 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie of three corporals and ten privates, who are rotated around the workshops to build up their experience and skillset. Workshops comprise the heavy section, light section, and the tyre bay. ���By the time 106 Inf Bn were deployed the Mowags had been out here a year, which meant the maintenance requirements were going up,��� said Sgt Greeny. ���At one point we were operating out of two camps, both in terms of driving and maintenance.��� Everyone in Transport Platoon is a driver and when the move came from Camp 6-5 (Shamrock) to Camp 2-45 it was up to them to lift and shift everything, from the dining complex to the last nut and bolt. At the same time they also had to keep the battalion fully operational. ���We had to lift and move 250 containers and 60-plus accommodation units. The dining complex alone required 20 containers,��� Mark said. ���At one point we were working 24/7 and there was great pride in Transport Platoon after it was all done.��� A positive aspect of the move was that the fitters got to design and build their own workshops. For a maintenance crew this is the equivalent of someone designing and building their own home, and they treat it as such. In the transport stores there are over ���3 million worth of parts and CQMS Ben Connaughton and Cpl John Grant must account for everything. If anything, from an engine to a bolt, gets shipped from

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