Army's shoot & scoot tactic

Irish soldiers practise skills that see them rain down deadly fire on targets up to 15kms away - and then escape before their enemies can find them.

- MICHAEL O'TOOLE

The Irish Mirror was granted access yesterday to a special exercise by members of the Army's Artillery Corps at the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow - where dozens of soldiers honed their long range gunnery skills.

These images show members of the Artillery Corps firing their 105mm light guns in the exercise in the isolated Wicklow Mountains.

The artillery pieces are amongst the heaviest calibre weapons in the Defence Forces' arsenal - and can fire six rounds in a minute up to 15kms away.

And one of the key areas of training was a tactic that is keeping gunners alive during the Ukrainian war - shoot and scoot.

That's where gunners pitch up at one site, set up their artillery pieces - and then bombard the enemy target.

But they can only fire for a few minutes or else the enemy uses radar to track down their firing point and attack them. The technique is being used heavily by both sides in the Ukrainian war - but a senior Irish artillery officer told us that the Defence Forces have been using the technique for years.