by Ray Dick

Soldiers fire a TOW anti-armour missile during Exercise Royal Fist at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick.

The pioneers who first lifted up the axe on the thick trees that once covered a 600-square-mile area in New Brunswick that is now Canadian Forces Base Gagetown would not have believed their eyes if they could have been there in early December.

Swarming over the fields and pleasant pastures near the present town of Oromocto were more than a thousand troops from the 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) in a battle group-sized nighttime live-fire exercise. The action lit up the sky and shattered the stillness for miles around in an explosion of ammunition that ranged from artillery, guided missiles and Leopard tanks to machine-guns, cannons and assault rifles.

It was a show of firepower, approximately $5 million worth, that would have left the pioneers awestruck as the force of modern weapons in a matter of hours replaced the axe and the plough in uprooting trees and turning the earth in an effort that would have taken the pioneers decades to complete.

In the cold light of a December dawn, the pioneers would have seen their hills and valleys crisscrossed by the deep ruts of armoured vehicles. The stone fences that once marked the old farm boundaries have sunk into the soil and present only a bump to the tanks and other vehicles. Barely a trace remains of the 20 communities, the buildings and schools of the 750 families whose land and property were expropriated in the early 1950s to make way for one of the largest training areas in the Commonwealth. About the only sites the pioneers would recognize are the small protected cemeteries sprinkled throughout the area, lined with white picket fences and tended by the military.

Welcome to Exercise Royal Fist, one of the first of its kind in the Canadian military in which a battalion of troops, along with roughly 300 personnel brought in from other military bases, trained under nighttime live-fire conditions using the latest battlefield technology. In addition to the Canadian presence, there were three Chinook helicopters and crews from the United States National Guard. The exercise concentrated on preparing 2 RCR for battle and putting the mechanized battalion in a high state of readiness for front-line action anywhere it is needed, including the Persian Gulf region.

“It was an unqualified success,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Vance, 38, the young but experienced commanding officer in Gagetown who leads his troops from the front and insists that his field commanders do the same. “The troops performed admirably.” It was a test at battle group level and the main objective was to train the troops in mechanized offensive and defensive operations at night, including attacks, deep battles, house-to-house fighting, raids and reconnaissance missions. “If you can’t do it live at night, you’re not practising at the high end of your capability,” said Vance, a veteran of the missions in the former Yugoslavia where he was awarded a Mentioned-in-Dispatches for his actions while commanding a task force.

“We are breaking new ground,” said Vance in reference to the exercise that involves new light armoured vehicles, leopard tanks and artillery under a simulation that is characteristic of modern warfare. “It won’t be the last.” Although he acknowledged that the Canadian Forces are suffering from a lack of funds, a manpower shortage and equipment problems, “we’re still turning out remarkably capable units. We’re not a big army, but we are the best army considering the dollars being spent.”

Some members of the battalion have complained they are constantly being robbed of personnel–robbing Peter to pay Paul–and it was a vicious downward spiral. The budget woes had left the Canadian Forces in dire straits with the army continuing to shave the ice cube and eating itself to maintain its barest capability.

Similar sentiments were expressed by two high-ranking officers, army commander Lieutenant-General Mike Jeffrey and Ontario Land Forces commander Brigadier-General Andrew Leslie, who attended as observers on the final and spectacular night attack of Royal Fist. Both agree, as do analysts inside and outside the military, that the military needs an extra $1 billion a year over the next five years on top of its $12 billion annual budget just to keep its head above water. “It’s been a remarkably challenging journey to get the battalion to this state of readiness in spite of the overall fiscal situation,” said Vance. He stressed that morale among his troops was high, “but localized” when considering the general state of the Forces.

Low morale was an obvious non-starter with the troops involved as the week progressed with the live-fire activities. Even with minor injuries, such as sprained ankles and bruised ribs from slipping on the icy ground, “nobody wanted to leave the field” during the week-long exercise, said Chief Warrant Officer Eric Christensen, the regimental sergeant major. It seemed that the trials and tribulations of an under-manned, under-funded and under-equipped Canadian military evaporated as rookie troops, and especially some uninitiated civilian observers, absorbed the sight and feel of live military action that no amount of simulation could duplicate.

It was cold and dark, made worse by a biting wind, as we arrived at a blacked-out base zero hidden deep in the woods on the sprawling army base. As the wind tore at flapping canvas, orders were read to the assembled officers outlining a night attack on a prefabricated village that would involve several companies in house-to-house fighting and backed by fire from Leopard tanks and artillery. One company would attack the first house in the village, piling out of their LAV IIIs–light armoured personnel carriers­to concentrate fire on a narrow objective. When that was secured, a second company would attack through them onto the next objective and so on until the village was secured.

Our transportation to the scene was in the back of the LAV III. Manufactured by General Motors in London, Ont., it is being snapped up by armies in several countries. Although the heavy winter army coat, the thermal underwear and the mandatory helmet were appreciated in the sub-zero cold of a New Brunswick night, inside the LAV it was a different story. With hatches closed under the blackout conditions and with the LAV’s heater blowing out torrents of desert-like air, it was a sweltering trip across roads and trails and then across country to an observation post on a hill overlooking the target village.

The LAV is a fast state-of-the-art, well-armed and well-protected infantry troop carrier that can be used in all weather conditions, in normal battlefield smoke, at night and on most types of terrain. Carrying seven soldiers into battle along with a driver, vehicle commander and gunner, it is armed with a 25-mm stabilized cannon with thermal imaging sites able to detect vehicles, buildings and people. It also has two machine-guns and a grenade and smoke launcher. The LAV that sits perched on a hill overlooking the target village, is being used tonight as a tactical command post. It is the one I’m in.

Huddled inside, at a small pull-down desk and with a navigation system linked up to the latest global positioning equipment, Major Ron MacEachern, a battery commander from the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Petawawa, Ont., organizes his 113-man unit in four LAVs and six M109 tracked howitzers for the night attack. “I’m ecstatic to see us training like this again,” said MacEachern. “We’re learning a lot of lessons.”

MacEachern, an army brat who was born in West Germany when his father was in the service, sees a lack of recruitment and holding on to the troops already in the service as some of the major problems facing the military. “We need recruits bad. Exercises like this will go a long way towards retention of troops” and boosting morale in the ranks. As for the lack of funds, the military was making do with what it gets, using its resources in the best way.

The conversation in the back of the blacked out LAV was interrupted by the loud report from a 105-mm gun on a nearby Leopard tank. The blast signalled the start of the attack on the plywood and sandbag constructed village. The earth shakes from the concussion and the tremors are felt inside the LAV by the all-Petawawa crew, the driver, Bombardier Dan Gillespie, the gunner Master Bombardier Moe McGarrigle and crew commander Sergeant Mike Easterbrooks. In the back with Major MacEachern is Bombardier Steve Savage who on this trip is calling himself the “back man.”

In the turret of the LAV, gunner McGarrigle rotates the turret from side to side and up and down, observing the battle on the ground through his heat-sensing sights and watching as the attacking troops pour out of the LAVs and attack the houses with rockets, machine-guns and assault rifles. “This cannon can fire in bursts of 200 rounds, 100 rounds or in single shots,” he explains. Beside him within easy reach is a 7.62-mm machine-gun that can add to the carnage wrought by the fighting LAV.

Outside, the attack is going well. Objectives are taken as planned by the troops on the ground, and with earphones crackling in both ears–one tuned for inter-LAV communications and the other to the officers conducting the battle–MacEachern directs make-believe artillery fire to keep the make-believe reserve enemy forces from interfering with the battle.

The battle winds down. It is the wee hours of the morning as MacEachern and his crew head back to their “hide” deep in the woods of the sprawling army base for a few hours of shut-eye before the next day’s activities. It’s a life that MacEachern is familiar with, after tours in Croatia and Bosnia. “My mom wanted me to be a lawyer, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would have a military career.”

The next day was the only short day of the exercise as the troops prepared for an air mobile daylight operation that would involve helicopters, artillery, both TOW and ERYX wire-guided anti-armour missiles, machine-guns, rockets and the Carl Gustav anti-tank recoilless rifle. As officers were briefed by the aviation mission commander, troops involved in the next-day attack were practising the safe way of entering and leaving the helicopters, heavily laden with missiles, assault rifles and ammunition. A slip on the icy ground, especially by those carrying the heavy and bulky missiles, would leave the unfortunates pawing the air like a turtle on its back.

There was a bit more tension in the air the next morning as Griffon helicopters from 403 Sqdn. in Gagetown warmed up their engines before the sun had risen, then proceeded to a pickup point to rendezvous with three large Chinook helicopters from the Pennsylvania National Guard. The soldiers of the 2 RCR sit quietly inside the cavernous bellies of the Chinooks as they skim the treetops while the Griffon helicopters, one carrying Vance, follow to the landing zone. The helicopters touch down amid swirling snow and dust at an icy clearing in the woods, and for the next 50 minutes the troops attack an imaginary enemy as plywood targets, old tank chassis and sandy bunkers are peppered with mortar bombs, shoulder-fired rockets, anti-tank missiles, machine-gun fire and assault rifles. As the artillery lays down a smokescreen over the battlefield, the assault forces withdraw minus their heavy loads of missiles and ammunition. The choppers make their fast getaway through a swirl of dust, snow and smoke.

The next day dawns cool and sunny as I (India) Company under command of Major Bill Cummings awakes in its “hide” called Manor Bivouac to a day of practice and preparation for the big show, a full-scale battalion attack that would light up the skies and shake the earth for miles around. Hidden in the trees are 16 LAVs, plus other vehicles, including a few tracked M113s, forerunner to the LAV, belonging to a Gagetown engineering section. All would take part in a dry run in practice for the night attack, skimming over the country trails and bouncing through the deep ruts on cross-country forays.

From the open back doors of one LAV comes the tempting smell of bacon and eggs as Corporal Steve Wellwood prepares his breakfast under the covetous eyes of the gunner, Cpl. Marc Royal. At another LAV, Lieutenant Catherine MacDonald of 4 Engineer Support Regt. in Gagetown briefs her section on the coming action. Loaded down with full kit and raring to follow the troops into action to aid them in recovering stuck or broken vehicles, bridging ditches and blowing up bunkers, the young lieutenant from Antigonish, N.S., is enjoying the exercise. With this mission under her belt, she feels she will be ready for a mission overseas.

“It has been a great exercise so far,” she says, adding that as the only woman in her section she has had no special problems because of her gender. “I’m treated the same as any group commander.” She joined the forces in 1997 because she wanted “to do something different and exciting. I liked the outdoors and working with explosives.” After completing her education at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., she trained at the school of military engineering in Gagetown. “It has been a great go, and I’m loving it now.”

Back at Major Cummings’ LAV, Master Corporal Mike Hawthorn of the small Northern Ontario community of Foleyet is defending himself from the good-natured ribbing of his fellow troopers. Posted in the back of the LAV is a newspaper clipping showing the then-corporal in Eritrea and a story about how platoon medic Corporal Daphne Goyetche and himself were given the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff Commendation for saving the lives of two Eritrean civilians suffering from gunshot wounds. “They call me the African war hero,” he says. The two victims, a father and son, had each been shot three times with an AK-47 rifle and were carried to the Canadian post by friends. Using his previous training as a paramedic, Hawthorn assisted in the initial treatment and stabilization of the wounded. “Both survived,” he said.

After a quick tour of Manor Bivouac, the order was given to mount up. Soon the 16 LAVs and other vehicles emerged from their hidden nest in the trees for a full-scale rehearsal of the upcoming night battle.

It was nearing midnight when the grand finale of the week-long exercise got under way with loud concussions from the opening artillery and the sharp cracks and fireballs from the shells of Leopard tanks. Inside a darkened concrete block observation post, the windows rattled from the concussion of the nearby battle. The sky lit up like the fireworks on Canada Day when the chain-guns of the LAVs opened up and the battlefield erupted in explosions and tracer fire. The noise and fireworks drew everyone in the crowded observation post to the windows.

One observer, brigade commander Colonel Peter Devlin of Petawawa, said: “Exercise Royal Fist has proved to be one of the best training experiences I’ve been involved with.” But Lt.-Gen. Jeffrey was looking at the bigger picture, saying the cash-strapped army has been living beyond its means for the last several years and needs a substantial injection of operating funds or it will risk losing its war-fighting skills.

Brig.-Gen. Leslie was even more blunt. “If we don’t get more money in the next federal budget, I’d say we’re screwed.”

To most of the men in the ranks, however, Royal Fist was a highlight of their army careers. “It was a great exercise on a scale not often seen in the Canadian army,” said Regimental Sergeant Major Christensen, a 23-year veteran of the Canadian military who has served in Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia and in Israel. He is the father of three boys and a girl, and two of the boys are in 1 RCR in Petawawa. Morale was high because these soldiers went into the exercise well clothed in their new computer-designed camouflage uniforms, well fed and well paid compared to other armies.

But what would the sturdy pioneers have thought had they been able to view the nighttime carnage at their old communities and homesteads? A family history written about life in the early settlements and published in 1909 includes a quote from those looking back: “Surely these heroic people deserve the admiration and gratitude of their descendants whose lines have fallen in pleasant places, and who possess the goodly heritage won by the toil and the thrift of the sturdy pioneers who first lifted up the axe upon the thick trees.”

The army is determined to find out what the former residents and descendants feel about their heritage. The Base Gagetown Community History Association has invited all former residents, their descendants, relatives and friends for a 50th anniversary reunion Aug. 1-4 this year.