Down Safety - Fire!

I took this photo during the preparatory exercise for 132 Battery (The Bengal Rocket Troop) Royal Artillery's final technical exercise on Salisbury Plain before they deployed to Afghanistan on Operation HERRICK in 2009. I was escorting Mandy Shepherd so she could see the launchers in action before she commenced the work to produce a painting depicting the Regiment's (39th Regiment Royal Artillery) contribution to operations in Afghanistan - which I might add is quite superb!

The rocket being fired is what is known as the Reduced Range Practice Rocket or RRPR. It is the only munition that this vehicle can fire in a training environment - the real one was too expensive to use in training, so we had to make do with this.

I still remember with great fondness my own deployment a year earlier when I had led the second deployment of this vehicle to Afghanistan. It was a real honour... (I know some of you reading this might not agree with that, but each to their own, I say).