Royal Engineers

[ever__hopeful]

Hi,
Can anyone tell me what the cance of being involved in combat is with the Engineers?
Thanks
EH

[Gazza85]

Theres a pretty decent chance, everyone in the Royal Engineers are trained to be a combat engineer.

http://www.army.mod.uk/royalengineers/careers/index.htm Click on the combat engineer bit and read up on it

[ever__hopeful]

Thats what I thought, but I was just on that ArmyNet thing on the Army Homepage. The CSgt I spoke to said the chance was tiny, "Your job is behing the lines"

Could it be because I want to be an officer?

Ta

EH

[Edwards159]

Thats what I thought, but I was just on that ArmyNet thing on the Army Homepage. The CSgt I spoke to said the chance was tiny, "Your job is behing the lines"

Could it be because I want to be an officer?

Ta

EH

Plt Commanders go where the soldiers in their platoon go. You main job in the engineers will be what your trade is. Where as the infantry their main job is to attack and destroy the enemy.

However in the royal engineers you could always do P-Coy or the commando course where your job will be likely to involve more combat.

[AdamR]

I've just come back from Belize where they've only just started running battlegroup scale exercises so we had all the attached arms, engineers, artillery etc (quite something to see it all come together especially as a lowly STAB infanteer). We had a section of sappers attached to our company and they were always at the forefront of the action, either doing their own thing (breaching obstacles, dealing with booby traps etc) or attached to one of the platoons as an extra section (did a bloody good job of it too). Also one thing that struck me was the level of responsibility that their section commander had (ie attending the Company O Groups with the platoon commanders and being consulted on all sorts of things) and indeed the individual sappers (sometimes they were split up with 2 or 3 attached to each platoon). Obviously it will all depend on the Regiment you get posted to and the role it has, in that view of things the chances are 'tiny', but if you end up with a field squadron your chances are pretty high. And if you look at the awards list for Operation Telic (the one before they had numbers) you'll see plenty of awards going to Engineers including 3 MCs.
http://news.mod.uk/news/press/news_pres ... em_id=2681

[dalo]

look at the recent war in iraq, The enemy waited for the armour and infantry to go past then ambushed the support elements. So therefore where is the frontline, the answer, In front of every serving soldiers footsteps. Thats why everyone is "trained as a soldier first" the enemy used common sense, why ambush a column of challenger 2's and Warriors with RPG's and not even score a mobility kill, and get killed in the process when you could be patient and attack supporting "soft skin" vehicles with RPG's. So i would say in that war the frontline could be anywhere, I could have popped up two feet infront of you thats why every soldier is armed.

[Doc]

I could have popped up two feet infront of you thats why every soldier is armed.

You a RPG armed camel jockey then dalo?

[adj125]

[dalo]

Not at all Doc im just looking at the reality of it, In Iraq the enemy relied on ambushes, and the fact is you dont know when and where an ambush is going to happen so therefore every soldier would have the possibility of ending up in one and having a responsibility to fullfill, Royal engineers or not.