It’s the hottest day yet on exercise Sava Star in Croatia as temperatures soar to 34C.
Platoons of reservists and Croatian soldiers are sitting in the shade drinking water and talking through how they plan to execute their impending drills.
One group from Aberdeen, Dundee and Fife are preparing for a section attack, which Captain Alan McEwen, from Perth, has described as “the bread and butter of infantry skills”.
These reservists form part of the 100-strong Caberfeidh platoon of the 7 Scots battalion, who joined forces with their Nato allies for a training exercise at camp Red Earth, in the Dalmatian hinterland above a small town called Knin.
Today, they are about to walk out onto open ground before coming under enemy fire.
Captain McEwen, who was a regular for 27 years with the Black Watch, said that the success of the drill depended on how well the platoon commander was able to react to the situation and communicate with his or her comrades.
He added: “These infantry skills work because they have been tried and tested on known threats around the globe.
“Soldiers under attack have to stop and find the enemy and suppress them. If they are too strong they have to extract and if they get the nod they can go forward.”
When the platoon came under attack from enemy blank fire, the soldiers fell onto their fronts to reduce their target size.
The location of the enemy was soon established and a section of troops on the right was told to provide suppressed fire to keep the heads of the enemy down, allowing the section on the left to form a flank and get closer to an enemy gunman behind a stone wall.
Two soldiers on the left flank detached and moved forward to the wall, crawling closer to it before launching a grenade and making sure they finished the job following the explosion.
Earlier that morning, a platoon was also working on a close combat skills exercise at a purposebuilt dwelling known as a skills house.
Platoon commander Rory Hand, a 20-year-old St Andrews University student, narrated the exercise from a gangway above.
First, a line of Croatian troops launched a smoke grenade close to the dwelling entrance before quickly securing the area around the building, amid covering fire.
The reservists subsequently infiltrated the dwelling before successively clearing out enemies in each of the rooms, lining either side of the dwelling corridor.
Will Capon, 21, of Pittodrie in Aberdeen, was part of the platoon, and revealed he joined the 7 Scots as part of his preparations for officer training at Sandhurst.
Following the close combat exercise, he said: “I absolutely love close combat. I did it once before in Germany, but this has been a great refresher.
“It will set me up superbly because it lets me know how patrol works from the ground up and having experience will get me everything I need to know about the role of private soldiers for officer training.”
Working closely with him was Kemnay-based James Gilbert, 22, who has just graduated from Aberdeen University and decided to join the reserves for a challenge and the chance to travel.
He added: “The training has been absolutely brilliant. It teaches you how to cooperate as part of a team and how to work with new people.
“The Croatians are fantastic and it’s good to work with soldiers from different countries and see how they function.”
