Assault Engineers After The War
After the end of the Second World War, 79th Armoured Division was disbanded. The remaining Assault Engineer Regiment was disbanded in July 1957 and briefly reformed as 32nd Armoured Engineer Regiment, in 1964 before a further reorganisation in 1969 reduced the Armoured Engineers to one squadron.
In 1980, 32 Armoured Engineer Regiment was again reformed and was the largest tank regiment in the British Army. The Regiment was the only unit equipped with specialist Sapper tanks and heir to the traditions of past assault and armoured engineers. The regimental crest includeded the bull's head device of 79th Armoured Division.
32 Armoured Engineer Regiment had three squadrons each of 4 troops, a total of 72 tanks. Each troop had 3 AVREs and 3 AVLBs (bridge layers). The AVRE has a wide range of capabilities including launching fascines (large pipe bundles) into anti tank ditches, laying trackway, clearing mines, dozing and destroying enemy strong points. The bridge layer can lay a scissor bridge over a gap up to 23m wide or a fixed bridge over smaller gaps up to 12m. The complete launching sequence takes less than five minutes. Larger gaps can be crossed using bridges in combination.
As of 2008 Engineer Regiments attached to Armoured or Mechanised Brigades in the British Army, have Armoured Engineer Squadrons included within their organisation.
Read more about this topic: 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers
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