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REME 10 Airborne Workshop

The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers workshop of 5 Airborne Brigade at Aldershot, which around 1993 built the prototype Pathfinder Platoon long-range patrol vehicle — FASTBALL 90, a cutaway Defender 90 — from home-designed parts, and in 1994 recovered and repaired the UN's abandoned vehicle fleet in Rwanda on Operation Gabriel.

History

Airborne forces have had their own REME workshops since the 1st and 6th Airborne Divisional Workshops of the Second World War and 16 Parachute Workshop after it. 10 Airborne Workshop was the brigade workshop of 5 Airborne Brigade, part of the brigade's logistic battalion at Aldershot, responsible for keeping its vehicles, weapons and equipment serviceable and for the kind of one-off engineering a light brigade needs. In 1993 it turned a cutaway Defender 90 into the prototype long-range patrol vehicle for the Pathfinder Platoon, codenamed FASTBALL 90 — windscreen and doors removed, jerrycan racks where the doors had been, weapon mounts and stowage, with anything that could be designed and made by REME fitters preferred over bought-in parts because the Pathfinders were an unofficial reconnaissance asset with little money; about twelve cutaway Defenders were brought to LRPV standard in 1994.

That summer the workshop deployed with the brigade contingent to Rwanda on Operation Gabriel, arriving at Kigali on 30 July 1994 after five days' notice and, until the withdrawal on 1 November, recovering and repairing much of the UN's diverse fleet of armoured, utility and transport vehicles that had been abandoned across the country. 5 Airborne Brigade was disbanded in 1999, ending nearly fifty years of airborne presence at Aldershot, and its role passed to 16 Air Assault Brigade at Colchester.

Vehicles in this registry (1)

Sources & citations

Maker record updated 2026-09-11T09:21:18.634Z · status: researched