An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 13 The majority of the Defence Forces will know of the IWW or Infantry Weapons Wing as it is officially known. You may have found yourself down in the 'Com- bat College' in the DFTC, Curragh, wondering if you have bitten off more than you can chew. Standards are high, and they don't drop under any circumstances, no matter the course or the student, you'll 'earn' your pass if you get it from the IWW. The Chief Instructor in the IWW, Comdt Kenneth O'Rourke said, "A recce commander is invaluable to an infantry, cavalry or ISTAR unit commander. It is often said that the recce detachments are the eyes and ears of the commander but in reality they are much more; they are an integrated part of the unit's decision making process and intelligence cycle. The light recce detachment's skill set is a building block of the Defence Forces ISTAR capability and is increas- ingly relevant to our current and potential future deployments over- seas. We work closely with the other wings of the Infantry School as well as the Cavalry School to ensure that the DF's recce commanders are trained to the highest standards. Recce training is an expansion of basic infantry soldier- ing skills. The Recce soldier is expected to be fitter, more robust and to have a higher standard of weapons handling and tactical skills than your average sol- dier. They raise standards and show an example to the rest of the unit and can be used by the battalion commander to conduct training and plan exercises". The 8 weeks course started on the 18th April and finished on the 9th June. The platoon officer Capt Jim Mur- ray and platoon sergeant Cpl James McHugh welcomed the initial 20 students into the IWW for the course. The students came from all over the country, namely, 3 Inf Bn, 12 Inf Bn, 28 Inf Bn, 27 Inf Bn, DFTC, 1 Cav Sqn and 2 Cav Sqn. Although this is an instruc- tors course it's worth mentioning that students of all ranks of officer or NCOs can apply including Ptes' who completed a potential NCOs course. Week 1 begins with a pass or fail PT test, an 8 mile battle run, 2 stu- dents initially failed the test but fortunately they passed the retest. Then onto an important aspect of reconnaissance, which is navigation, day 2 is the first day nav, a good intro into the level of navigation which is expected on the course, as within the first 3 weeks students have to pass 2 of the 3 night navigation tests to continue on to get that all important PASS. As well as signals training and a practice night nav exercise, week one finished off with a nice dip in Blessington Lakes doing jumps off the bridge and river crossing drills bring up the level of water confidence. Week 2 starts off and the pressure started to increase with the first night nav test. Moving on through the week sees the students take on stalking and contact drills and midweek another night nav test. Students then carried out a successful river crossing exercise in Blessing- ton before the May bank holiday. Week 3 brings the students into a 'raid exercise' down Will's Lane in the Glen of Imaal, a brain engaging exercise designed to take the students even further from the parade ground and into the recce commander's frame of mind. The next the day is the last night nav, a test that proved too much for 3 of the students who failed 2 of the night navs and were RTU'd (Re- turned To Unit). Moving forward with the course students then carried out Live Fire Tactical Training (LFTT) over two days, firstly practicing in pairs then as detachments, as they would do as a 4 man recce detachment. Week 4 and the course pushed on into a weeklong exercise, aptly named 'Hard Graft', this being the first 72hr exercise, carried out in the Kilbride area, it pushed the students to the lim- its. The exercise started off with a tu- torial insertion on foot (approx. 12km), at night into a patrol harbour, then moved onto tutorial demonstrations of Close Target Recce (CTR) and Ob- servation Post (OP), with the students being sent off in detachments to then practice what they had been shown. They used the Harris HF radio's to send and receive live data, back to higher HQ, all while in command roles of detachment commander and detach- ment 2i/c. Pln Sgt, Cpl James McHugh said, "The week is a perfect opportunity for the students to put into action what they had learned from the previous weeks, as well as taking on more in- formation on construction of OPs and carrying out CTRs, with an eye towards the testing process the following week." Week 5, test week, 72hr ex 'Black Hole'. Students were given another day

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