Combat Engineers – trained to fix stuff under fire

On any modern battlefield, the people you want most in a fight – be it in urban terrain or facing a determined adversary in rural environments – are engineers and maintainers. They are of far more use than a coder or pentaphibian in combat operations. How do you the military train these people? After all, giving them the skills needed, both foundational knowledge and type-specific familiarity, is not something that can be provided on a drill square or in the field. Peter talks to Brigadier Caroline Woodbridge-Lewin, Commandant of the Defence College of Technical Training in the UK, about the British approach. Turns out, a lot of this comes down to the instructors. Training and retaining those people deserves much more of our attention.