12th Annual Warrior Competition Underway With A Bang

The 12th AWC dynamic display commenced with an insurgent IED attack on a armoured vehicle convoy escorting a VIP [© Bob Morrison]

The 12th Annual Warrior Competition got underway with a bang, or to be more precise several bangs, earlier today at KASOTC in Jordan, reports Bob Morrison.

Following the formal Opening Ceremony in front of a grandstand full of VIPs and Honorary Guests, Special Operations Forces from several branches of the Kingdom’s military and security services mounted a spectacular dynamic display with live ammunition.

As the VIP’s protection detail J-turned and spirited him away, his escorts dismounted and fired on the attackers [© Bob Morrison]

This multi-faceted operation was too complex to cover in any great detail with only a travel laptop to work on (and another four days of competitions and very early starts to contend with) so for the moment I am only bringing you a brief photographic flavour of this ‘SpecOps Olympics’. Once things hopefully calm down a little bit after Eurosatory 2022, which kicks off with a Media Preview in seven days time, I will return to the dynamic display in more detail. I also hope to bring an update tomorrow evening on the SCHADENFRUDE and F300 LOMAH Relay events. The TOP GUN live-firing event was the first of this week’s competitions and by tomorrow evening I hope to have the final results of this. It’s been an interesting couple of days out here so far, and it looks like there is a lot more in store. It’s great to be back at KASOTC… though just a little bit warmer this time around as the date has moved forward.

After some of the attackers vanished into a multi-storey building a SpecOps assault team went in to winkle them out [© Bob Morrison]

Overhead another assualt team arrived by Black Hawk helicopter and fast-roped onto the roof
[© Bob Morrison]

By now the Jordanian QRF had joined the fray, along with heavily armoured vehicles and more helicopters to wipe up the last of the insurgents [© Bob Morrison]s

The teams of competitors were introduced after the dynamic display and afterwards we grabbed the Cypriot team for a quick photo ~ some governments insist that Operators’ faces are obscured if the photo is going out in print or on the web [© Bob Morrison]

Some of the Nigerian team pose for us after the dynamic display ~ it will be interesting to see how their camo pattern fares out on the ground [© Bob Morrison]

The first competitive event, TOP GUN, commenced on the short ranges this afternoon ~ teams were paired and shot against the clock to see who moved onto the next heat [© Bob Morrison]

In the first leg of the first event competitors had to engage ten falling plate targets with ten rounds using a 9mm pistol ~ this shooter is from Chile [© Bob Morrison]

The German Team Leader watches on as one of his guys loads prior to engaging the targets, which were only visible for a short period [© Bob Morrison]

In the second part of TOP GUN assault rifles and combat shotguns were introduced ~ this competitor is from Romania [© Bob Morrison]

Although competition is fierce, there are actually very few egos on the loose ~ here shooters from Brunei and Indonesia shake hands prior to a shoot-out which will lead to one of them being scrubbed out
[© Bob Morrison]

AWC, Featured, Jordan, KASOTC, Special Operations, SpecOps, Warrior Competition