Medics from the Territorial Army (TA) are setting up the organisation's largest field hospital since the Gulf War at a Norfolk airbase.

Some 350 TA personnel from the 202 Field Hospital in Birmingham will be setting up and running a 200-bed dummy hospital at RAF Watton near Thetford over the next two weeks.

The drill is part of Exercise Log Viper - a massive army operation involving 6,000 troops which is said to have been 18 months in the planning.

Captain Paul Gahan said of the RAF Watton hospital: "It will be fully operational with the exception of one thing - live casualties."

Mock casualties will be taken from Friday

Instead, some of the regular army troops taking part in Log Viper will pose as injured soldiers.

Work is nearly finished on pitching the tent complex that will house the 25-bed wards and operating theatres.

From Friday, the reserves - mainly doctors and other medical personnel in their civilian lives - will start taking in the mock casualties.

Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Slade, the second-in-command of the 202 Field Hospital, said: "It's very useful to test our systems like this.

'Not for Iraq'

"It's going very well so far."

The Royal Logistic Corps' Log Viper exercise has been moving thousands of troops and vehicles, and tonnes of munitions and other vital supplies, to airfields and a military port near Portsmouth.

When details of the exercise emerged last week, newspapers speculated that the army was putting major stockpiles of weapons and supplies in the right place for an operation against Iraq.

Defence sources denied this, but analysts said the exercise would hone rapid deployment skills and show Iraq that British forces were ready to move if necessary.