Breaching by explosives is pretty hardcore, and in our Photo Of The Day, we’re looking at just that. These are combat engineers from the New Zealand Army. They are carrying the MARS-L rifle made by Lewis Machine & Tool Company, with the Trijicon ACOG optic with an RMR red dot.

Below: Everyone please stay behind the blast shield.

From shields to explosives, our Combat Engineers were put to the test on Explosive Method of Entry tactics, processes and procedures used for urban clearance operations.

Over multiple days, soldiers undertook challenging scenarios including:

Calculating and constructing explosive breaching charges appropriate to the type of obstacle (e.g. doors, walls, fences and large concrete T-walls).
Multiple breaching techniques including manual, mechanical and explosive methods of entry to overcome a diverse range of obstacles.
Being assessed to qualify as Instructors, Safety Supervisors and Range Conducting Officers to facilitate future training to prepare for operations.

Our soldiers are trained within the balances of health and safety practices while mimicking real life scenarios they may come across during operations. Training is done in gradual steps to ensure our soldiers fully understand the risks and learn skills before progressing to the next level.

One of the funnier breaching POTDs we had is the “Afghan Commandos in a breaching exercise, with what seems to be DeWalt quick-saws” with some golden comments, but the “Breach – Bang – Clear” is pretty cool also.

All pictures from the New Zealand Army.