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“Push forward to the edge of the wood line! Three section firm!”
This British platoon commander is leading his men through a forest in Bavaria. They’re
launching an attack on a village to clear it of insurgents.
They’re taking part in a live-fire exercise involving 19 NATO and partner nations.
This training event is the biggest multi-national exercise held here in Germany since reunification.
“The platoon commander is going to give a quick set of battle orders for these sections
here and then the forward section is going to be moved on to the houses. Use smoke to
give them some cover and then they’ll start clearing through the buildings to the forward
edge of the village and from there they’ll press on.”
Dubbed “Sabre Junction” the exercise is hosted and organized by the US Army Europe’s
Joint Multinational Training Command in Grafenwoehr. The vast training area of Grafenwoehr and
Hohenfels to the south and much of the civilian landscape between them has been turned into
a virtual battlefield for the whole month of October.
This is not a pre-deployment training for Afghanistan but it does draw heavily on lessons
learnt from that conflict and from Iraq. “Grant, Grant, lead your lads this side,
we’re going this way. (Explosion) That’s the village down there. Move your guys onto
this side. Ok!” “Sabre Junction” aims to prepare troops
for any kind of future conflict that requires a multi-national response.
“This event prevents potential adversaries of the future just through the ability of
the nations participating to show a readiness to take on new challenges. Criminal or insurgent,
conventional, even electronic warfare, cyber-warfare type scenarios are being worked out in this
exercise. And it’s those types of things that as we practise we get better and as we
get better we present a risk to any adversary that they may not be willing to take.”
As the British platoon advances, German fighter jets above drop live bombs on targets in the
Grafenwoehr training area. The exercise requires a lot of coordination between the different
nations. It’s meant to be as realistic as possible without hurting anyone.
“We can see a press target. What’s this, why is it here?”
“It’s classed as a friendly target and it’s a judgmental target. We train the soldiers
not to engage obviously people like press or civilians.”
The exercise involves 4.200 US troops and some 1.800 soldiers from other NATO and partner
nations. For all participants one of the main objectives
is to enhance their interoperability. “The business of fighting in coalitions
whether in a formal alliance like NATO or a coalition of the willing will always involve
burden-sharing and working very closely together and so at the tactical level maneuvering through
each others battle space. And if we develop the understanding and the capability to work
properly with one another all the issues, the frictions of war will be much more easily
resolved.” As the Brits continue their advance in Grafenwoehr,
a hundred kilometers further south in the Hohenfels training area, US and other NATO
forces are preparing a similar operation to free a village.
American, Czech and Bulgarian soldiers are playing insurgents.
They’re expecting to be attacked by a unit of the 2nd US Cavalry regiment. They’ve
been waiting for three days. And it could happen at any time. For them training interoperability
is mainly about communicating with each other in English.
“The valuable thing for us in this exercise is that we work in an international environment.
We have a task force which consists of a Czech company, an American company and Bulgarian
company, which is for us demanding and also it’s good to train communication between
those different units.” Playing the enemy helps the soldiers to understand
what they’re up against in counter-insurgency operations.
But the US commander leading this attack must be much more methodical and careful as he
prepares a coordinated attack. “As a military commander he’s using all
of his combat power available to him, as you hear the aircraft flying overhead which means
that the US commander has eyes on the objective right now. He’s identifying the enemy positions
that are the most threat to him and he’s using all of his assets to remove the most
lethal targets from him now in a deliberate fashion so that he doesn’t put American
soldiers in harms way as he makes his approach into the city.”
And so the waiting game continues. The soldiers get ready for a long night. They’ll be sleeping
in shifts, if at all. Most of them expect the attack around 4 or 5 in the morning – at
least that’s when they would do it. I’m Mike Muehlberger reporting for the NATOChannel
from Grafenwoehr in southern Germany.