Gun oil, not suntan oil

Flying Officer Tony Newton reports on 7644’s pre-deployment training at RAF Akrotiri

Service personnel reading this will know all about Individual Pre-Deployment Training (IPDT), but for those new to the wonderful world of military acronyms, IPDT is the course that every member of the RAF has to take before going ‘Out of Area’ (OAA) on Operation HERRICK (Afghanistan).

IPDT is managed by the RAF Regiment, which runs courses at a variety of locations in the UK and abroad. The idea is that every individual should be up to date with current threats, competent in managing their own personal safety and able to assist others with first aid. 


More specifically, that means understanding (among other things) how to extract yourself from a minefield, how to fight your way out of a vehicle or patrol ambush and what to look for when on ‘point of entry’ duty at an operating base.

IPDT has to be kept ‘in date’, because, like any skillset, it’s a case of ‘use it or lose it’- whether that’s remembering how to put a sling on a rifle correctly or rehearsing the drills for exiting an ambushed Landrover in something better than Keystone Kops order.

With 7644 personnel so much in demand for deployment- and sometimes to be ready to move at very short notice- it’s important to ensure that it has enough people ‘in date’ for IPDT to meet all likely operational requirements. And so it was that four members of the squadron, plus another two acting as a Mobile News Team (MNT), left an autumnal Brize Norton for a sunny Cyprus.

The training environment in Cyprus is much like the areas we’re likely to be deploying to- dust, rocks and lots of running around in the heat in body armour, helmet and webbing. The combination of classroom lectures, practical sessions and outdoor ‘scenario’ based training made this a very busy week- and it seems to me that every time we do IPDT, more has been crammed into the syllabus.

As a reservist one does have to become accustomed to ‘military speak’-  that peculiar combination of very simple and highly convoluted phraseology used by  the British Armed Forces. To have a smoke canister described authoritatively as being ‘eau de nil’ colour had all four of us educated types perplexed- last time I looked from a Cairo hotel window, ‘eau de nil’ was a nasty brownish colour. And unless new recruits at Halton are now receiving interior design lessons as part of basic training, they’re not going to be much wiser that ‘eau de nil’ is in fact a sort of light green...so why not say so, especially as other smoke canisters are described as being ‘deep bronze green’, which even I can recognise.

Out on the range, testosterone was flowing as we competed for the annual 7644 shooting trophy. I let the pressure get to me, and the trophy slipped out of my hands by three points and into those of Flt Lt Wasley, to whom warm congratulations (through gritted teeth).

But while the four of us were kept busy trying to decide whether to lob ‘eau de nil’ or ‘deep bronze green’ canisters at our attackers, the MNT was busy running down numerous stories, most of which seemed to involve the use of a Griffin helicopter as the personal transport and camera platform for Fg Off  Lesley Woods.  With Ops ELLAMY and HERRICK both making extensive use of the base’s people and resources, the MNT’s ‘Day in the Life of RAF Akrotiri’ video should be well worth watching.

Whether in a real firefight, where lives are at stake, or in the training environment, keeping one’s personal weapon clean is imperative if it’s to operate efficiently. Dust, lead and carbon deposits can lead to jamming, and if the weapons aren’t lightly oiled after use, the working parts could rust in the armoury, even in Cyprus. As chance would have it, the Regiment corporal overseeing our weapon cleaning was the same person who took me through basic training at Halton, and his eye for detail (and for carbon deposits in hard to reach areas) is something I remember well and others discovered to their discomfiture. But he led from the front, and spent as much time cleaning his own weapon as we did ours.

Intense concentration on weapon cleaning.

Photo credit: Cpl Mark ‘Dudley’ Walker

With the final day of the course at an end and our various pieces of paper stamped and signed to confirm that we are all now ‘in date’ for IPDT, we finally get to indulge in a squadron Mezze in a local restaurant and even manage a Saturday on the beach. But who could deny us that?

If any of the Akrotiri RAF Regiment team should read this, a hearty ‘thank you’ from 7644 for a well run, enjoyable and enthusiastically delivered course. See you next year!