Sri Lankan 4th ARMOURED REGIMENT - Foreign Military Studies ...

egiment they were adorned with aspecial uniform with a black cross beltand shining brass buckles, an innovationof Major Rohan Jayasinghe, the secondin command, who possessed an aestheticeye. Besides the usual policing duties,RPs were trained on plumbing, electricalrepairs and basic masonry by the ArmyEngineering Service Regiment throughnecessity. Clappenburg was an isolatedcamp with meager resources and had tobe self contained as much as possible. –‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’A Czech training team of fifteenmilitary and civilian specialists arrivedlate January 1992 to conduct the muchawaited three-month advanced tankcourse. Training commencedimmediately and progressed well withofficers and men mastering theequipment. Night firing with Infra Redsystems, advance driver gunnery andmaintenance training were done.Floating targets at 2000 meters out at seawere successfully used to train gunnerson long range engagement of targets.While local training progressed fourofficers and forty enlisted men left to theSchool of Armour, Naushera, Pakistan,for four weeks of T-55 training.The regiment received a warningorder for operational deployment byearly April 92’, and consequently, thetraining program was modified to meetthe directive. With return of Pakistantrained crews late February, troops andsquadrons were reorganized andregrouped with permanent tank crews.With additional men being posted sparecrews were trained and provided tosquadrons.Under normal circumstances anarmoured regiment is structured andequipped based on its’ tactical role. Therole and tasks determine the equipment.In this case it had to be worked in the31