RESURGENCE OF VIGOROUS MECHANIZED INFANTRY WITH ITS FIELD FIRING

The Mechanized Infantry Regiment conducted the Field Firing on 27th and 28th October 2021 at Kalpitiya Air Force Field Firing Range after 7 years. The Mechanized Infantry Regiment is the youngest fighting Regiment in the Sri Lanka Army and is equipped with sophisticated military equipment, including Infantry Combat Vehicles and Armoured Personnel Carriers, to conduct operations in specific forms which cannot be accomplished by other forms of forces.

Though the Mechanized Infantry Regiment keeps continuing with training to ensure operational readiness to face security challenges of any form in the contemporary environment, practical training of the field firing couldn’t be conducted due to the unavailability of a suitable field firing range, which provides facilities to fire long range weapons of the Mechanized Infantry Regiment and rounds of the 30 mm cannon can travel more than 13 km from the firing position at its highest, finding a suitable firing range was quite a challenge, and finally, it was a success with the support of the Sri Lanka Air force.

The field firing of the Mechanized Infantry has been planned for 3 successive stages, and out of those, the first stage was successfully conducted in the Kalpitiya Air Force Field Firing Range with the participation of 15 Officers and 55 Other Ranks of the Regiment. The event was conducted by the Senior Instructor of the Mechanized Infantry Training Centre, Major Emilson Hapukotuwa and the team of qualified instructors under the supervision of the Commandant of the Mechanized Infantry Training Centre, Colonel Koshina Peiris RSP,under the directions of the Commander of the Mechanized Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Kavinda Balsooriya RSP psc, under the guidance, facilitation, commitment and initiative of the Director General General Staff of Sri Lanka Army and the Colonel of the Regiment of the Mechanized Infantry Regiment Major General Priyanka Fernando RWP USP.