OPERATION Iron Anvil was planned months ago, long before media attention focused on storm clouds gathering over the Iraqi desert once again.

The British Army rotates units on instant readiness to deal with flashpoints around the globe every three years.

This year, it is 19 Mechanised Brigade's turn to take on the role.

First, the regiments which make up the brigade's three battle groups have to prove their mettle in the field and, as the British Army Training Unit Suffield (Batus), near Medicine Hat in western Canada, boasts 2,700 square miles of open prairie, it is deemed the best facility available to UK forces for brigade-sized manoeuvres.

As a result, three ship-loads of equipment began the journey to Alberta in July, with soldiers from regiments based in North Yorkshire's Catterick Garrison, Ripon, Topcliffe and Fallingbostel, in Germany, following in August.

Today, 4,500 troops are preparing for a mock battle in a training area the size of Luxembourg.

If they impress, they will be awarded Collective Performance Five status, which designates them ready for operations. For officers and men, it represents the pinnacle of their training.

However, this year, the talk around the camp fires, on the prairies and in the barrack blocks on camp is also about the possibility of a real war within months of the brigade taking on its new role.

"Of course we would go if we were sent, but no one is expecting a walk-over,'' said Kings Regiment private, Michael Bowskill. "The Iraqis are fanatical fighters and we would expect them to throw everything at us.''

"It seems to be a case of public opinion versus political will back at home,'' added Lance Corporal Lloyd Dunn of the Ripon-based 38 Engineer Regiment.

"If we are sent to the Gulf, then we would have to go. But it may be that the Government is hoping to settle things with air strikes and an internal coup rather than having to send men in on the ground.''

Captain Leon Ayo, who commands one of the King's Regiment's Milan anti-tank missile platoons, confirmed that younger soldiers seemed the most preoccupied.

"It's a lot for them to take in. This exercise has its own pressures and then there's the chance of going to war. We haven't had any problems with morale but it's fair to say all of us would feel better if we knew what was happening,'' he said.

Major Mark Norton, a Gulf War veteran who commands 43 Battery (HVM), Royal Artillery, which would protect ground forces from attack from the air, said the gathering storm had so far proved no more than a background issue.

"I wouldn't say this exercise has been overshadowed by the thought of going to war but it has helped to focus a few minds," he said.