Regiment soldiers completed a series of public order exercises in Dockyard at the weekend as part of their internal security role.

Second and third-year soldiers were put through two days of gruelling scenarios that included dealing with rioters as well as raiding and clearing a house that contained armed insurgents.

“The idea of the strike was to quietly surround the target house where the person we wanted to arrest was in order to detain him before he could flee,” said regiment commanding officer Lt Col Michael Foster-Brown

“In other scenarios, we put people under pressure with an active opposing force acting as rioters, including the controlled use of petrol bombs, with the aim of reinforcing key points and dispersing the crowd.”

Operation April Advance was the final significant piece of training before the annual overseas training exercise at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Lt Col Foster-Brown added: “We hope we will not have to use these skills in anger, but our aim is to ‘train hard, fight easy’ as well as to practise new and interesting things, and the planning, co-ordination, command and control aspects and small unit tactics are very transferable to other potential tasks.”

Specialist officers from the Bermuda Police Service joined soldiers in Dockyard to watch the training.

Pc Brian McNab, who works in public order and officer safety training, said: “There are more similarities than differences between the way the Police and the Regiment work. The objectives are the same and what we want to achieve is the same and we want to get our tactics as close together as possible — we’re a lot closer together than we were 18 months ago.”

Private Sheneve Campbell, a 21-year-old psychology student from Smith’s, joined the Regiment’s operational support unit (OSU) in January.

She said after the Dockyard exercise: “I loved it — it’s trying, but I still enjoy it. I always wanted to learn how to be a soldier and how to learn to stay switched on.”

Pte Bradley Mitchell added: “It was fun — it was a lot of preparation and a lot of hard work. Wearing all this kit with the heat takes a toll on you, but you just had to fight through it.”

The 26-year-old Pembroke conscript, a chartered accountant at KPMG, added: “A lot of people were feeling it, but we got our chins up and just muscled through.”

Lance Corporal Seth Campbell, who acted as an armed rioter, said he had enjoyed the experience.

The 20-year-old from St George’s added: “My job was to help test what the OSU would do if they were fired on. I enjoyed the entire day very much.”