The 11th year of the Annual Warrior Competition Event took place last month in Amman, Jordan. The Czech army was represented by members of the 102nd Reconnaissance Battalion from Prostějov, who took wonderful fifth place in a tough competition of 37 teams.

Picture: Warrior Competition 2019 | army.cz, mjr. Ing. Jiří Smažil

The competition is aimed not only at military, but also at special police and anti-terrorist units, it examines capabilities of individuals as well as the ability to cooperate in a team. “We went through six disciplines in total, including the final, which was the most difficult one. Each discipline had different difficulty level and was evaluated accordingly,” noted the team leader, Lieutenant Šedivka.

Picture: Warrior Competition 2019 | army.cz, mjr. Ing. Jiří Smažil

The disciplines included literally all situations that can be faced by the soldiers and special units – ranging from various types of shooting, demanding movements, crawling, and rappel to hostage freeing techniques. “The aim was not only to complete the particular discipline. The most difficult was that our team had to decide very fast how many tasks we will complete within the particular discipline, so that we fit in the time limit. And we also had to monitor time by ourselves,” added Lieutenant Šedivka.

Picture: Warrior Competition 2019 | army.cz, mjr. Ing. Jiří Smažil

This year soldiers of the 102nd Reconnaissance Battalion attended the competition for the fifth time, so they could anticipate, what they should focus on: “We were right when we expected a lot of running with load. Our training included shooting after physical load, shooting in gas mask and first aid in the field. We also trained fighting in buildings and enclosed spaces,” he added. Thorough training paid off for the team. They took first place in the Trench Foot discipline, where running with load was followed by shooting from a trench filled with water up to waist level. They gained imaginary bronze in the Asylum discipline within which they had to “clean up” a building and rescue a captured person. Also the nomination for the final of the competition - the last stage called King’s Challenge for the best 15 teams, was regarded as success by the Czech team.

Picture: Warrior Competition 2019 | army.cz, mjr. Ing. Jiří Smažil

The Czechs were captivated by training in former quarry

The nine-day competition took place in KASOTC, King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre, which is unique by its location in a former quarry. “Shooting ranges are built here for shooting with hand guns as well as carriage guns. In fact it is a small town, where a wide range of fighting situations can be trained. We were captivated by the wide variety of options of this training facility,” mentioned Lieutenant Šedivka.

Picture: Warrior Competition 2019 | army.cz, mjr. Ing. Jiří Smažil