UK — Royal Marines practise urban combat skills

Roy­al Marines from 45 Com­man­do have used a spe­cial­ist train­ing camp near Clyde Naval Base to prac­tise the demand­ing art of urban com­bat.

Roy­al Marines of X‑Ray Com­pa­ny, 45 Com­man­do, prac­tise their urban com­bat skills [Pic­ture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2012] Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

The Roy­al Marines, from X‑Ray Com­pa­ny, 45 Com­man­do, are prepar­ing to take over as Britain’s ‘lead com­man­do group’ — a high-readi­ness con­tin­gency force which is ready to deploy any­where in the world at any time. 

Fol­low­ing on from their expe­ri­ences of com­pound clear­ance work in Afghanistan, the 45 men are now train­ing to oper­ate in more com­plex and indus­tri­al urban environments. 

Work­ing in groups of between eight and 24, the exer­cise at Strone Camp allowed X‑Ray Com­pa­ny to prac­tise their skills ahead of ‘Scot­tish Lion’, a larg­er train­ing exer­cise in ear­ly May. 

The build­ings at Strone Camp, just out­side Faslane, have been spe­cial­ly adapt­ed for house-to-house fighting. 

The camp itself was once home to the Admi­ral­ty Hydro Bal­lis­tic Research Estab­lish­ment, but since the 1980s the dis­used build­ings have been used for mod­ern urban com­bat training. 

The one-time tank build­ing — used to test the hydro-bal­lis­tic prop­er­ties of tor­pe­does and mis­siles — has now been con­vert­ed into a train­ing cen­tre for FIBUA (fight­ing in a built-up area, known more com­mon­ly by troops as FISH­ing — fight­ing in someone’s house). 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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