Some exceptions were made, such as undercover civilian-type vehicles or, in certain occasions when heavy equipment or materials should be transported, lorries had to move through a series of checkpoints to reach their destination safely.

[5][6] At 12:55, some five kilometres from Silverbridge, as they approached the 234-metre high hill where the IRA men had taken positions,[7] the aircraft was hit by 15 armour-piercing and incendiary rounds on its fuselage and rotors, and got into a spin.

[5] The IRA team, armed with machine guns and an anti-tank rocket launcher, searched for the crash site to finish the helicopter and its crew off, but they were unable to find it.

This time the target was an unmarked civilian-type, armour-plated Ford Sierra driven by two uncovered RUC constables from Bessbrook Mills to Belleeks, which was riddled with more than 70 rounds and exploded in flames.

[5] By June 1989, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King admitted that a number of counter-measures had been taken by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deal with the increasing threat of the IRA's use of heavy machine-guns.

[16] On 12 December 1993, after a successful ambush on an RUC patrol in Fivemiletown, an East Tyrone Brigade unit made good its escape by firing at a Lynx helicopter involved in a follow-up operation.

[17] Lynx XZ664 returned to service, but suffered a failure of the tail-rotor while flying near RAF Leeming in February 2001 and rolled over; this time the machine sustained enough damage to be written off.