Copehill Down
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2010) |
| Copehill Down | |
|---|---|
| Part of Salisbury Plain Training Area | |
| Near Warminster, Wiltshire in England | |
 Armoured vehicles during a training exercise at Copehill Down | |
  Copehill Down Location in Wiltshire | |
| Coordinates | 51°12′25″N 1°58′37″W / 51.2069°N 1.9770°W / 51.2069; -1.9770 |
| Type | Urban warfare training facility |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Ministry of Defence |
| Operator | Defence Infrastructure Organisation |
| Controlled by | Defence Training Estate |
| Condition | Operational |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1987 |
| In use | 1987 – present |
Copehill Down is a Ministry of Defence training facility near Chitterne on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England. It is a 'FIBUA' (Fighting In Built Up Areas) urban warfare and close quarters battle training centre, where exercises and tests are conducted.[1]
The site lies in open ground in the northeast of Chitterne parish, between Chitterne and Tilshead, at Ordnance Survey grid reference SU017453.
The facility was built in 1987 to resemble a German village in Bavaria, to provide troops with a simulated backdrop when training for operations in European theatres including the Cold War, the Balkans and Northern Ireland.
The facility includes a shanty town made up of cargo containers stacked and laid out in rows of tightly packed streets, to provide an additional training area that more closely resembles the Army's operational theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Copehill Down training area is open for public access. Non-combat access to the FIBUA village is restricted, but has been used for airsoft wargaming and by historical reenactment societies, which take part in private reenactments of battles.[2]
References
- ^ "Wiltshire – In Pictures" BBC News, October 2007. Retrieved 18 November 2010
- ^ Kaushik. "The Mock Village of Copehill Down". Amusing Planet. Retrieved 30 July 2019.
External links
- Copehill Down at hiddenwiltshire.com
- Photos of Copehill Down at Thinctanc
- Copehill Down FIBUA training Village – description and pictures from urban exploration
- Robots battle for military prize – 2007 BBC report on the use of Copehill Down for testing surveillance robots in urban areas
- In Pictures: Grand Challenge – images related to the above; see picture 3
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