Soldiers held back by cuts in manoeuvres (9)
I believe the answer is:
exercises
'manoeuvres' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'soldiers held back by cuts in' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers).
'held back' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'by cuts' becomes 'excises' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'by' bit.).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
're' back-to-front is 'er'.
'er' going into 'excises' is 'EXERCISES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for exercises that I've seen before include "Works out" , "Activities to develop a skill" , "Multiple repetitions to train" , "trains" , "Keep-fit activities" .)