The Royal Irish Rangers Annual Camp 2003, USA and England.
RANGERS, commanded by Lt Col A C J McCord MBE R IRISH, attended Annual Camp, Exercise MULBERRY TREE, at Camp Smith, Peekskill, New York, USA and at Knook Camp, Salisbury Plain Training Camp, Wiltshire from 1 - 15 June 2003.
Ex MULBERRY TREE (USA) was a sub-unit exchange exercise between the Territorial Army UK and the United States National Guard. The company group (titled RANGER Company) deployment to the USA was based on B Company RANGERS with one platoon from A Company RANGERS and personnel from other units, including C Company 2 R IRISH, the Bugles, Pipes and Drums 4 R IRISH, the A, B (North Irish Horse), D and Y Squadrons of The Queen's Own Yeomanry, the 211, 220 and 580 Squadrons of 152 Ambulance Regiment Royal Logistic Corps and Queen's University Officer Training Corps. The host unit for RANGER Company was 1st Bn 105th (1/105) Inf, 27th Inf Bde from the New York US ARNG commanded by Lt Col Robert Marchi. Ranger Company was located at Camp Smith training area on the Hudson River, 30 miles north of New York city and 10 miles south of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The company sections were organised as US squads and equipped with US weapons including M16A2, M203, M249 Minimi, and M240B. During tactics field training the squads wore multiple-integrated laser engagement system (MILES) to record 'hits' on their body. Air assault training was in Blackhawk helicopters and a 2 R IRISH squad was filmed for a TV documentary while they were conducting a live firing ambush exercise. Live firing of 60mm mortars, .50 Browning MG, M19 auto grenade launchers and TOW and Dragon missiles was demonstrated at Fort Dix with RANGER Company personnel invited to fire certain weapons.
Ex MULBERRY TREE (UK) reciprocal training took place at Knook Camp, Heytesbury (near Warminster) for 105 Guardsman from 1/105 Bn. They were trained on British Army weapons including the SA80 rifle and highly praised the SA80's versatile rifle sling (Lt Col M A Toomey R IRISH was involved in its early development at the Infanry Trials and Development Unit Warminster). Tactics training culminated in an overnight exercise on Cope Hill Down's large village complex where they conducted a testing Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA) exercise.
