Security Journal UK hears exclusively from Andrew Vincent, CEO of QUICKBLOCK about how its training solution will prepare police and military personnel for counter-terrorism attacks.

No single scenario is the same, so why train that way?

It was a sunny crisp June morning in 2022 when I first wandered round ‘the German Village’ at Copehill Down, a purpose-built, simulated German village on Salisbury Plain, built by the British Army for urban warfare training.

It was constructed to resemble a Bavarian village and is used for simulating operations in European theatres.

It has rows of houses, even children’s play parks, shops and some rather gnarly looking burnt out vehicles which gave an eerie feel to the place, it was like a film set.

In 2022 our company had ventured into the Defence and Security sector, the world of FIBUA (Fighting in Built Up Area) and CQB (Close Quarter Battle) training was new to me at the time.

It was a treat to see the effort that was made to create spaces which provide troops with a realistic backdrop for practicing urban warfare and close-quarters combat.

However, as my interest grew, I realised that this level of immersion wasn’t present on all training spaces across our military and police estate.

In fact, in some instances, mock training “buildings” were stitched together with old bits of wood and pallets, mazes of piled tyres or in the worst case… tape markings on the ground to mark out each room.

On my travels around the world, I’ve found a varied level of sophistication in FIBUA training villages.

One thing that’s not found regularly – is the ability to adapt these spaces easily and quickly to allow training staff to change the scenarios and keep people on their toes.

Not every building or space is the same, no mission or scenarios is the same as the last, so why are we training in static villages we built decades ago?

Is our infrastructure fit for the emerging terror threats?

Given that the current terrorism threat level in the UK is signalling that attack is likely, Counter Terrorism Policing, our military, security and emergency services need to be trained, alert and adaptable to a variety of threats and attacks.

My travels in the UK have found ageing infrastructure, a lack of facilities and very few flexible spaces to build out scenarios and immerse our responders in ‘real life scenarios.’

Sure, some high-tech facilities exist and bespoke “replica” houses are built to plan for high-risk, high priority missions – but this is usually only the gift of the highest readiness of operators.

There is a lack of even the most basic facilities in the UK due to budget constraints, decades of underinvestment and lack of available space often limit options.

The best facilities are often full or are impractically far from where our service men and women are based, which then increases training time and costs, leading to less frequent and varied training.

Train often, train well

Our findings led us to develop our QUICKBLOCK offering for FIBUA training.

QUICKBLOCK is a product used to build rapidly deployed structures and training kits (including adult sized children’s building blocks) which lends itself well to create realistic and flexible scenarios to add realism to training.

Our product, made from 100% recycled plastic, can be flat packed on a pallet when not in use and then used to build custom scenarios in car parks, gym halls or anywhere you may have the space.

It can also be built and reconfigured in a matter of minutes with no need to bring in specialist contractors.

The structures can be popped up for a day or two or remain as semi-permanent fixtures if required.

The British Army has adopted QUICKBLOCK to enhance its CQB training at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon and several other units across the UK have acquired QUICKBLOCK for their training needs.

We offer a cost effective, flexible resource that can be used to meet a variety of training objectives.

For instance, the kit is used to recreate houses, industrial compounds and urban layouts, as well as simulated trenches that are used to train medics how to work in confined spaces.

Given the system is reusable, reconfigurable and will last decades, the kit is a more sustainable solution compared to using traditional materials.

West Midlands Police recently utilised QUICKBLOCK to build a facility for public order training, which recreated corridors, building entrances and cells.

This project led to us developing breaching doors and windows that fit within the system, adding to the realism of each scenario we can create.

Working with end-users is what we do best, not only in training.

We’ve worked with the UK MoD to develop our simple construction system for an operational setting to rapidly deploying structures which offer ballistic and blast protection to protect people and assets.

We’ve also developed easy to assemble hostile vehicle barriers to protect critical infrastructure and the public at large-scale events.

Is it time for the UK to invest in the training estate?

There are many creative, innovative and useful training products on the market (many of which are made by UK SME’s).

If there’s one thing I’ve learned on our journey into this sector, is that underinvestment is evident across the UK, there is a requirement for better infrastructure from basic training to the highest level of operators and we believe that our products will form part of that future.

International examples in France and Germany show us how investment in modular training environments have improved counter-terror preparedness.

Investing in reconfigurable training environments resulted in improved speed, neutralised active threats 40% faster and improved decision-making by 35%.

This article was originally published in the June edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.