Cougar Sword – over fiords and mountains

“Mission accomplished, Tromsø is freed!”, the commander of 37 Armoured Infantry Brigade, Alexander Krone, reports upon the end of Cougar Sword exercise. In this exercise, the brigade obtained the certification for its mission as Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTFVery High Readiness Joint Task Force ) of NATO and passed the CREVAL test (Combat Readiness Evaluation).

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For two weeks, about 2,200 servicemen and women from the Netherlands, Norway and the Bundeswehr, among others, have been practising combat in a national and collective defense scenario at the Army Warfighting Simulation Centre at Rhön barracks in Wildflecken. The aim of the exercise was to respond to an attack by the fictitious state of “Murinus” on northern Norway and restore the territorial integrity of the NATO partner. The German-Netherlands Corps from Münster was the designated Land Component Command of NATO and operated the command posts of the future VJTFVery High Readiness Joint Task Force Brigade Land, of 21 Armoured Brigade “Lipperland”, the NLD 13 Light Brigade as well as a multinational CBRNchemical, biological, radiological, nuclear defence unit.

Successful certification

The difficult terrain in between numerous fiords and more than 1,000 m high mountains around Tromsø was quite a challenge for the operation planners. In addition, the Norwegian partners requested to spare the historic old town of Tromsø with its typical wooden buildings from heavy weapon fire, if possible. The forward brigades, however, succeeded in persuading the adversary to give up. The scenario, which was practised merely on the basis of maps in the digital battle command systems, followed events that were recently observed during the war in Ukraine.
Major General Ruprecht von Butler was responsible for the certification. “2022 is a special year in many repects”, the commander of 10 Armoured Division points out and refers to what has happened in Ukraine. This has also had an effect on the Bundeswehr since it “forces us to focus, more than ever, on national and collective defense again.” Against this backdrop, 10 Armoured Division is fully oriented towards obtaining immediate cold-start capability. Von Butler’s division HQHeadquarters carried out the exercise evaluation from Veitshöchheim in Frankonia and certified the VJTFVery High Readiness Joint Task Force brigade as mission ready.
 

Between reality and simulation