About 50 soldiers from 2/4 Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment took part in training activities at Colin and Dianne Halder's farm about 8km northwest of Balclutha.
2/4 RNZIR Bravo company commander Major Lance Nicholas described the exercise as training designed to teach a range of individual and section skills in a platoon environment.
The ''soft-knock'' exercise involved working in a close and ''dangerous'' environment, clearing buildings, developing tactics, and individual rifleman skills.
The exercise began on Friday night, with soldiers ''uncovering'' suspicious papers and fake improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The scenario was based in an imaginary country in the South Pacific, where a farming couple had hired a younger married couple to work on their farm. The employers noticed odd behaviour, and intelligence discovered the pair planned to form a training camp on the property.
As police were busy attending to a civil defence emergency and an armed operation, the New Zealand Army was called in to assist.
Maj Nicholas said soldiers gathered evidence of plans for the training camp, and also ''captured'' the two suspects in the scenario.
''We went through the drills - cordon, contain, and clear.''
Commanding officer Lieutenant-colonel Amanda Brosnan, honorary colonel Jim Cutler (a previous commanding officer of the former 4th Otago and Southland Battalion Group), and senior weapons instructor Warrant Officer (Class 1) Jerry Costello also joined the exercise.
The exercise was the first this year for the company.
• The 4th Otago and Southland Battalion Group was amalgamated with the 2nd Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough and West Coast Battalion Group in December 2012, becoming 2/4 RNZIR Battalion.
The battalion has headquarters at Burnham and sub-units in Invercargill, Dunedin, Timaru, Christchurch, Nelson and Greymouth.
