Preparing military drivers for Helmand's varied terrain

One of the keys to the British Army's success in Afghanistan has been its ability to replicate the realities of Helmand province in its training grounds around the world.

From mock forward operating bases in Kenya to Afghan villages in rural Norfolk, the Service has become a dab hand at making even the most unlikely place bear the sights, sounds and smells of Op HERRICK.

The overhaul even extends to perhaps the most difficult aspect of Afghanistan to recreate - the country's terrain.

From undulating sandy hills to the verdant Green Zone and beyond, Helmand has provided a true test to the soldiers responsible for getting vehicles from A to B.

That the troops have met the challenge is in no small part thanks to the constantly revised training on offer at the Defence School of Transport (DST) in Leconfield.

The 800-acre (3.2 square kilometres) expanse of land north of Hull has taken on a decidedly Afghan flavour in recent months.

Alongside the existing 16 kilometres of road circuits and 18 kilometres of cross-country tracks at the site, new areas have been built to allow the Army's ever-expanding vehicle fleet to sample some of Helmand's testing landscape without leaving Britain.

DST Commandant, Colonel Paul Brook, explained:

"The school has changed fundamentally to respond to the needs of operations, first in Iraq and then southern Afghanistan.

"We've introduced all these new vehicle types and thousands of new course places for people to operate them in."

Among the additions to Leconfield's facilities is an Afghan village complex constructed out of ISO containers.

The structures are arranged to form a claustrophobic patchwork of tight alleys and passages, accurately recreating the built-up areas in Helmand's population centres and providing a stern test of concentration for drivers and commanders.

Even the ground beneath the vehicles' tyres has been adapted. Extra sand has been placed over certain sections of the area to replicate the soft desert often experienced in theatre and an undulating wadi network has been installed.

The need for deploying drivers to be able to tackle river crossings has also been addressed, with the DST now boasting two waterways and a lake.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Darren 'Huggy' Hugill, Mastiff team leader at DST, said:

"We've built different types of training areas, some of which are just complete sand, to simulate the driving in the sand tracks of Afghanistan.

"There are also areas which are purely of stone and rocks to simulate the mountain areas that you find in Afghanistan."

If DST's task in making the training area's terrain more like Afghanistan is a tall order, the sheer number and variety of vehicles it has to familiarise drivers with is even taller.

From motorcycles to articulated lorries, the centre's expert tutors are responsible for training all Armed Forces drivers.

Their work has increased in recent times thanks to the Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) process which has required students to master new vehicles, such as the Mastiff, and to gain the skills required to drive them in all conditions.

But although they are busier than ever before, DST's staff have welcomed the challenge of moving onto an operational footing to meet the demands of providing enough qualified drivers and commanders for deploying brigades:

"The change has been massive," DST Vehicle Division Training Officer Captain Paul Eaton, Royal Logistic Corps, said. "Where steady-state was the focus, now everything is UOR.

"Throughput has been quadrupled in the five-year time frame that we've been developing UORs."

The number of drivers needed to be brought up to speed for operations in Afghanistan has inevitably meant that individual battalions require more of their personnel to train at Leconfield.

Although Colonel Brook is happy to help develop the Army's vehicular capabilities, he remains acutely aware of the value of soldiers learning with their units.

The officer explained that his staff train instructors from different brigades who are then able to pass on the knowledge to their own personnel:

"It is still good practice for battalions to train their own personnel, but when you have a limited number of vehicles and special training areas for them specifically focused on Afghanistan, bringing everyone together is the way to do it," Colonel Brook said.

"So currently we are training 4 Brigade's instructors and they are then training 4 Brigade's personnel at DST - it's a good combination of the two."

Ensuring that Service drivers are capable of tackling everything that southern Afghanistan's difficult terrain throws at them is no mean feat, but DST's ability to adapt and refine its facilities and training is helping the Armed Forces to meet the challenge.

Every one of the 5.5 million miles (8.8 million kilometres) clocked up across the Leconfield training area in any of the 1,300 vehicles in the school's fleet is a distance well-travelled to help soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan get from start to finish in relative safety.

This article is taken from the February 2010 edition of SOLDIER - Magazine of the British Army.

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