Out Of Sandhurst... Into Urban Warfare

The Royal Engineer’s Troop Commanders Course takes young officers, directly out of Sandhurst and trains them for 7 months.

They come out with a range of engineering skills, coupled with improved leadership.

The Copehill Down site is primarily designed for urban training - from mounting attacks to building defences.

The job of the young Royal Engineer officers is to make the site as defendable as possible against enemy attack using materials such as barbed wire and sandbags.

Captain Matt Merchant, who helps to run the course, spoke about what it teaches the young officers.

“The course is being conducted through the whole spectrum of mobility, counter mobility-and survivability; this is really it's culmination". 

“This exercise is loosely based around counter-mobility, but there are other aspects involved as well”.

The engineers use the exercise to practice building defences, as well as posting sentries.

“Everybody who comes through this course is a much better officer for it- what we want is good engineers, but even better officers, and I feel like this course really delivers that”.

After the course is complete, the officers’ seven months of training comes to an end, and they will receive orders to go to their new units.