‘Trident Juncture’, live

Around 4,700 troops, 93 armoured vehicles, 23 tanks and 6 army helicopters are taking part in the real combat phase of exercise Trident Juncture, which is starting today and will continue until 6 November. They have been deployed at the training centres “San Gregorio” and “Chinchilla” and at the base “Álvarez de Sotomayor”.

The unit contributing the most personnel is the 7th Light Infantry Brigade “Galicia”, with 1,700 troops and over 40 armoured vehicles and howitzers. For its part, the 2nd Cavalry Brigade “Castillejos” is contributing more than 500 troops, 8 Centaurs and 43 armoured vehicles.

As well as those brigades, several other Army units are contributing troops and materiel to the exercise: The Parachute Brigade, the Logistic Brigade, the Medical Brigade, the Signals Brigade, Balearic Islands General Command, Special Operations Command, the NBC Regiment, the Intelligence Regiment, the Army Helicopter Forces, the Civil Affairs Battalion and the Military Police Battalion.

They will be taking part in operations involving combat, the control of territory, stabilisation and dealing with a humanitarian crisis as part of a scenario devised for the Army which contemplates a conflict between fictitious countries in the Horn of Africa where NATO decides to intervene.

Before the start of the live phase, during which units are actually deployed in the field, there was a command post exercise which ran from 3 to 16 October and served to validate and certify the capacity of the High Readiness Force Land Headquarters in Bétera (Valencia) to lead the land component of the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2016.

High visibility exercise

Trident Juncture is one of the most important exercises in NATO’s history. Alongside personnel from the Spanish Army, Navy and Air Force, soldiers from 30 other nations are taking part. In all, more than 30,000 troops distributed across 16 locations in the three host nations: Italy, Portugal and Spain.

The objective is to train and certify NRF 2016, a highly ready and technologically advanced multinational force which can be deployed quickly wherever needed.

Germans and Americans yesterday at “San Gregorio” (Photo: Ángel Manrique/DECET)