20-year old Craftsman Matthew Welsby is a REME Vehicle Mechanic, currently serving in the Narh-e-Sharj province of Helmand with the Viking Group, the Royal Dragoon Guards.

It's Matthew's job to ensure that the Viking armoured vehicles are up to the rigorous jobs demanded of them in the rough and varied terrain of Afghanistan's green zone.

He says: "The job involves heavy maintenance. Anything that breaks we fix - engine changes, gearbox changes - if it comes to it all the hydraulics, bearings, brakes. Basically everything to do with the vehicle."

The cavalry soldiers of the Viking Group have been providing over-watch and protection to the soldiers from 1 Troop, 1st Armoured Engineer Squadron and Afghan contractors as they work on the new road being built between Lashkar Gah and Gereshk. The soldiers have come under daily attacks from insurgents as well as IED strikes, but have rebutted insurgent offences and continued to make steady progress.

"The main wear-and-tear is the running gear, tracks, the road wheels, top rollers, sprockets - the bottom half of the vehicle that gets a hammering on a daily basis," says Craftsman Welsby.

The agility and manoeuvrability of Viking, which is a tracked vehicle, combined with its mounted fire power of a 0.50 calibre heavy machine gun or the general purpose machine gun makes it the perfect vehicle to provide force protection to the engineers working on the construction of the road. However the nature of the job means they are put through their paces and often require repairs at the end of each day to ensure they are ready for battle. This is in addition to the regular maintenance that is required on the fleet of 10 which Craftsman Welsby is responsible for.

"Unusual jobs that I have had to do include taking out bullets from the bar armour where we have been hit. It can be quite a difficult task as some of them are really wedged in, but it needs to be done to check the condition of the armour and make sure it doesn't need replacing. If it does then obviously we replace - if not it will do for another couple of hits."