Copehill Down and Related Topics

Salisbury Plain

Chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering 300 sqmi.

Rough map of military training area (green) on Salisbury Plain within Wiltshire (blue) (it accounts for about half the area of Salisbury Plain)

Military use makes some areas of the plain inaccessible to the public.

The burnt-tip orchid (Neotinea ustulata) can be found on Salisbury Plain

The Duke of Burgundy butterfly (Hamearis lucina)

The fairy shrimp Chirocephalus diaphanus

Copehill Down is an urban warfare training site.

Chitterne

Village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, in the south west of England.

Large parts of Chitterne parish are Ministry of Defence land within the Salisbury Plain Training Area; the Imber firing range is to the north and the Copehill Down training area to the east.

Urban warfare

Combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities.

JGSDF soldiers practice MOUT tactics in the Ojojibara Maneuver Area of Sendai, Japan during an exercise in 2004.

The Battle of Tampere during the 1918 Finnish Civil War was the largest urban warfare in the Nordic war at the time, measured by the number of troops involved. The picture shows the ruins of the city of Tampere after the battle.

Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Manila, the capital of the Philippines, devastated during the Battle of Manila in 1945.

Urban warfare is fought within the constraints of the urban terrain.

Home Army soldiers assault a fortified house in downtown Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Italian soldiers street fighting in Stalino, October 1941.

The Reichstag after its capture in 1945.

A devastated street in Berlin city centre, 3 July 1945.

A Chechen separatist near the Presidential Palace in Grozny, January 1995

Israeli soldiers of the Kfir Brigade during an exercise simulating the takeover of a hostile urban area.

An IDF Caterpillar D9L armoured bulldozer.

Zambraniyah Training Village in Orogrande, New Mexico, United States

A Brazilian soldier moves down an escape corridor

A newer purpose-built training area has been created at Copehill Down, some 3 miles from Imber.

Ghost town

Abandoned village, town, or city, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads.

As farms industrialize, smaller farms are no longer economically viable, leading to rural decay.

Prior to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Varosha, now falling into ruin, was a modern tourist area.

Akarmara, a mining town in Abkhazia/Georgia, was abandoned in the early 1990s due to the War in Abkhazia.

Nature slowly reclaiming the ruins in Aghdam (2010)

Craco, Italy, was abandoned due to a landslide in 1963. It has since become a popular film set.

Pripyat, Ukraine, was abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster.

Rerik West, Germany. Turned into a restricted area after 1992 due to ammunition contamination from a nearby abandoned Soviet Army barracks.

Kolmanskop, Namibia (2016); a ghost town since 1956

Unoccupied residential complexes in the Chenggong District, Kunming, China

The town of Namie was evacuated as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

The derelict British base in Whalers Bay, Deception Island, destroyed by a volcanic eruption

Main street of Oradour-sur-Glane, France, unchanged since the German massacre.

Abandoned mining building on the Jussarö island in Ekenäs, Raseborg, Finland.

Robsart Hospital, one of many abandoned buildings in Robsart, Saskatchewan

Cook Bank building in Rhyolite, Nevada, a gold mining town

1884 assay office in Vulture City, Arizona, a gold mining town

After all those years of drought and dust storms, the town of Farina in South Australia was abandoned.

3 mi southeast of Imber is Copehill Down, a deserted village purpose-built for training in urban warfare.

Imber

Uninhabited village within the British Army's training area on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England.

This building was a pub known as The Bell

Monument to victim of highwaymen, Imber Range

Since 1988, urban warfare training has been centred at a purpose-built complex at Copehill Down, about 3 miles to the southeast.

MilSim

Abbreviation of military simulation, refers to live-acted simulation of armed conflict scenarios conducted by civilians for entertainment, sporting or nostalgic purposes.

In the United Kingdom, airsoft organizers run in conjunction with Live Action Role-Players (LARP) at British Army training facilities, such as Copehill Down and Catterick Garrison.