Summary: A film, intended for instructional purposes, of the major exercise 'Spartan' held in England in March 1943.
Description: The footage is grouped under headings such as "Road Movements", "Bridging", "Concealment" and examples of good and bad practice are shown and commented upon. The regiments of those who perform well are named.
(Reel 1) Road movements, bridging: a number of examples of bunching, poor traffic control, general incompetence etc are shown. Means of crossing streams using pontoon and bailey bridges, and boats are shown.
(Reel 2) Concealment, roadblocks, alertness: half-hearted camouflaging is pointed out (washing hanging on netting lines and troops cooking and eating out in the open). A scout car is successfully put out of action at a roadblock. Instances of negligence include sleeping troops, unattended rifles, troops and vehicles ignoring air attacks.
(Reel 3) Cooperation, artillery deployment: good and bad examples of setting up observation posts, then some examples of deploying light, medium and heavy guns (mostly well done) are given.
(Reel 4) Battle discipline, tactics, realism: troops are shown crossing fields (against the skyline), searching a house (badly), executing an attack (well), setting up anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns (some errors here such as driving vehicles straight across fields).
(Reel 5) Defensive positions, tanks: troops are seen digging in and disguising the spoil, and the infantry and Churchill tanks form up for a big attack (more examples of good and bad concealment are shown). This reel also includes some general scenes of filling in time - shoe repair, haircutting, maintenance work - and some bad umpiring - umpires giving away positions, and a burning haystack caused by a carelessly thrown thunderflash.
(Reel 6) Tank attack, general interest: the tanks go into action against a position held by the infantry (various sitting targets are pointed out). Tanks ignoring the umpires instructions to 'play dead' ("sheer stupidity") and telephone lines laid across roads are included. Some miscellaneous items include an Auster light aircraft used for observation, tank recovery operations, messenger dogs, medical work. The film concludes with the "battalion who wouldn't be beaten" (the 4th Welsh) seen improvising a method of crossing a river.
