Hundreds of troops and armoured vehicles have congregated on Salisbury Plain as the British Army tests its ability to deploy its heavy armour on operations.

The major divisional exercise, labelled ‘Exercise Tractable’, is designed to test the ability of 3rd (United Kingdom) Division’s Land Armoured Task Force to deploy from barracks via a centralised Mounting Centre, to rail, air and sea points of embarkation.

It sees the movement of around 1,650 personnel and up to 570 vehicles, including Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks and other heavy armoured vehicles.

The three-week event is the first in a new series of annual exercises intended to prove the readiness of the British Army’s ‘main intervention capability’ – 3rd (UK) Division – based on Salisbury Plain, with its headquarters at Bulford Camp.

Ludgershall forms the exercise’s centralised mounting centre and has seen personnel and equipment – principally from 12th Armoured Infantry Brigade – arriving from military bases across the country, including by rail from Catterick, North Yorkshire.

Brigadier Roland Walker of 12 Brigade said: “If you need tanks or armoured vehicles or large numbers of troops for an operation overseas then this is the force that you are going to see. 

“We are bringing together forces that are held at ‘high readiness’ and checking that we have the right vehicles, and the right people with the right equipment, and that we are ready to go.

"We’ve got a generation of soldiers who know what it is like to go on operations but not necessarily at short notice, and that’s what we’re practicing here. It’s an old skill that we’ve got to re-learn.”

Major Peter Perowne of The King’s Royal Hussars added: "It’s a change from what we’ve been doing for the past ten years and perhaps back to what we were once used to doing. 

“It is also allowing a period of time where the soldiers can concentrate on doing the servicing and vehicle maintenance that they sometimes get distracted from when in camp, and that focus will hopefully pay dividends by the end of the exercise.”

The vehicles are due to conduct a 50 kilometre circuit of Salisbury Plain in the next few days before breaking into smaller, separate groupings to rehearse loading on to aircraft at RAF Brize Norton or onto shipping departing from Marchwood Military Port near Southampton.

The exercise concludes with a Combined Arms Demonstration on Salisbury Plain, including a simulated defence and attack by troops from 12thArmoured Infantry Brigade on 17-19 March.