Army engineers train for future conflict by moving hundreds of vehicles across river
The British Army's specialist bridging engineers are proving their worth to the battlefield during Exercise Immediate Response in Poland.
Despite being short of work during operations conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the modern battlefield is proving to be a more welcoming place for these specialists.
The Commanding Officer of 23 Amphibious Engineer Squadron, Major Ryan Ingram, said: "We're a simple enabling action, but not a lot of people get to play with us very often.
"What we do is we come to the party, bring in the rigs and ensure that that capability can be projected across the bank."
Major Ingram said of his soldiers: "So, the troops are already triple traded as Royal Engineers.
"On top of that, we make them amphibious trade. It's not currently a trade, but that's something I'm fighting for because it's something extra that's really unique and niche."
Sapper Marshall Barrett said of the M3 floating bridges: "We're all trained pretty hard when it comes to piloting.
"When it comes to trusting your peers, other pilots, you know you're in good hands.
"They all know what to do, you all know the proceedings you've got to do it in, with the commander they can basically tell you what each one needs to do, or if you need to do it all together."
These engineers have helped keep troops on the move during the exercise, which brought together thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles.
The exercise also saw the deployment of a convoy of 16 M3 amphibious rigs, the largest gathering of its kind in the last decade.
During training, the convoy will help at least 80 vehicles cross various rivers and obstacles, before going on to help move 1,000 vehicles across in 24 hours during an exercise next week.
Because there are almost 2,000 rivers in Eastern Europe, these river-crossing exercises would be vital in the event of an armed conflict in the region.
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