An Cosantóir

reserve defence forces | 27 open doors and pull them off their hinges. Secondly we moved onto how to assault ascending a staircase and how to clear hallways before finally we moved onto how to attack and clear buildings hallway by hallway, room by room. This was probably the most enjoyable part of the training day as it incorporated all that we had learnt throughout the day, such as entering buildings, breaking windows and doors if needs be, attacking and taking rooms and buildings. It also incorporated some of our usual Greenfield Tactics. The actual exercise for FIBUA commenced on the weekend of 18-19 June 2011 at two locations. On the Saturday we used the FIBUA MTF in the Curragh Camp to get a refresher of our train- ing from the previous months and finally on Sunday "Opera- tion Urban Warrior" commenced, the actual exercise, with no more dry runs took place in Gormanston Camp. On the Saturday morning in Gormanston Camp we were divided into sections and platoons before making our way to the Curragh Camp. We were the first RDF unit to use the FIBUA MTF from within the 2 E Bde area. The FIBUA Facility provided every scenario we could come up against in a FIBUA environ- ment such as the usual assaulting room by room, attacking upstairs, rooms clearance and scenarios new to us in FIBUA such as passing supplies through an enemy held building and subterranean operations which involved close quarter fighting in a tunnel. In the evening time we returned to Gormanston Camp where we retired to our billets before receiving our orders for the following day. It was very straight forward sce- nario, the "enemy" had taken Gormanston Camp and we were to provide a platoon-company strength assault on the camp to take it back. At 0830 hours the two platoons advanced, section by sec- tion, down Gormanston beach in battle column formation and this was to continue until we reached Irishtown house when were hit up from our right flank side. The moment we had waited for since we started our training had ar- rived. Number one section was to assault first, number two section was to provide reinforcements while number three section was to be held in reserve. We assaulted the building through a downstairs window under covering fire towards the upstairs windows where the enemy was situated. Number one Platoon became bogged down in the first floor of Irishtown house as the enemy occupied all the upstairs rooms armed with GPMG's and had what is called a "killing field". Eventually though Irishtown house was overrun and we moved onto our next objective. From Irishtown house we advanced in a file column in the long grass and held our position until second platoon had cleared their objective. When we got the all clear and we advanced once again this time to the old Air Corp buildings. We moved in two to three man squads under covering fire until we reached the buildings. We found the entrance point boarded up so we used a break-in tool called a knock-knock to break in the door then threw in a flash bang and fired off some rounds to clear the hallway. Once again we used two man squads to clear each room and left one man from each squad to hold that room. The Air Corp buildings were taken by number one platoon and were initially meant to be taken just by two sections but we ran into trouble halfway through as we took "casualties" from enemy fire. From here number one platoon advanced in leaps and bounds until we reached the hedgerows surrounding the water tower. Number one platoon took the water tower with each section taking a floor each and another section taking the courtyard. After clearing the water tower we advanced in leaps and bounds with covering fire to an old abandoned enemy held house near the camp canteen. Each room like before was taken with small two man squads with one man tossing in a thunder flash to neutralise the enemy then the two men going in to clear the room with the front man taking an about turn to the near corner and the second man going to the far corner. In the last room we encountered an iron door with a small trap- door which the GPMG was firing out of. We tossed in a thunder flash, fired off some rounds and cleared the room. For the final objective two sections were to make the assault and one section was to act as reserve. I was part of this reserve section and we held our position and provided covering fire as required. By 1300 hours the camp was cleared of all "enemy" and the mission accomplished. How the months of voluntary training culminating in the ex- ercise benefited the battalion. FIBUA can mean that there are high casualty rates, this highlighted the importance of individ- ual soldiers being familiar with the platoon drills at all levels to that they are able to work on their own initiative when leaders become casualties. The exercise helped to foster a great esprit de corps and camaraderie among the personnel making the exercise overall a great success. THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE

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