The Royal Military Police Close Protection Unit (RMP CPU) is a unit within the
British Army's Royal Military Police (RMP) that has designated responsibility for protecting senior military and government personnel when deployed overseas. The unit itself does not supply the majority of the manpower for such taskings, but trains individuals from the RMP,
Royal Navy Police
The Royal Navy Police (RNP) is the service police branch of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. Members of the RNP enforce service law and discipline.
The Royal Navy Police was known as the Royal Navy Regulating Branch until 2007, when the servic ...
,
RAF Police
The Royal Air Force Police (RAFP) is the service police branch of the Royal Air Force, headed by the provost marshal of the Royal Air Force. Its headquarters are at RAF Honington and it deploys throughout the world to support RAF and UK defence ...
and
Royal Marines Police Troop for the role, as well as taking on urgent and short-notice taskings.
History
The CPU was formed in the late 1970s, after a number of RMP bodyguards attended the
Special Air Service
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...
bodyguard course at Hereford, and brought the skills back to an RMP-specific course, the first of which ran in 1976. Three years later, the course and unit moved to
Longmoor Camp
Bordon and Longmoor Military Camps are British Army training camps close to the A3 and A325 roads in and around the settlements of Bordon, Longmoor, Liss and Liphook in Hampshire, England. The main street of the Longmoor part of the camp is bui ...
where it remains.
Structure
The CPU is a
sub-unit within the RMP's
Specialist Operations Regiment, commanded by a major. It is considerably smaller than most RMP companies, however, with just a small staff of experienced CP operatives who act as instructors or are held ready to deploy on short-notice tasks.
Role
Close protection operatives trained by CPU protect high-ranking British army officers in high-threat environments, most notably during the
Iraq war
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
and
Afghanistan war
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC)
*Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709)
*Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...
, and ensuring counter-insurgency and peacekeeping operations.
They also protect British
ambassadors and other high-ranking
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...
officials in locations where the threat level demands it.
Training
The CPU offers a range of training courses. These include the eight-week Close Protection Course that qualifies
service police men and women to be CP operatives, a further two-week pre-deployment training course carried out before teams deploy overseas, and specialist driving courses for locally-employed civilian drivers.
Equipment
The CPU trains and deploys with a range of specialist weapons not used by the majority of the British army. These include the
Diemaco C8
The Colt Canada C7 is a Canadian family of military rifles, manufactured by Colt Canada (formerly Diemaco prior to 2005), having similar design and function to the Colt M16A3.
The C7 and its variants have been adopted as the standard issue rif ...
, in the past the Sig Sauer P229, possibly more recently variants of the Glock and the
H&K MP5K.
References
{{reflist
Close Protection
Organisations based in Hampshire
Protective security units