Article Posted on : - Oct 05, 2010

A total of 30 ships will take part in Exercise Joint Warrior. A UK Navy photo

CLYDE NAVAL BASE, SCOTLAND (BNS): Thirteen European countries along with the US will showcase their military might when they kick start ‘Exercise Joint Warrior’ off the coast of Scotland and across the UK this month.

The coalition exercise, designed and led by Britain’s Joint Tactical Exercise Planning Staff (JTEPS), will see the participation of land, air and naval forces from the US, Canada, Italy, France, Estonia, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the UK MoD said.

A total of 30 ships, three submarines, seven helicopter units, 14 land based air units and 11 separate ground forces will take part in the annual wargame, pegged to be Europe’s largest military exercise.

The exercise is aimed at providing coordinated tactical training for all three UK Armed Services and also forces from allied nations. The tri-forces of all the participating countries will be involved in composite air operations, close air support, electronic warfare (EW) training and mine countermeasure training exercises.

The exercise scenarios will challenge the coalition navies in major warfare areas such as air defence, anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. The tri-forces will also conduct anti-insurgency, anti-terrorism, anti-narcotics and state on state conflict operations.