The most important exercise of the year for the Spanish Army comes to an end

The Minister and JEME attended the exercise (Photo:MINISDEF)

Headquarters' Command Post (Photo:HQ NRDC-ESP)

Soldiers and "Pizarro" armoured fighting vehicles at "San Gregorio" (Photo:Iván Jiménez/DECET)

The Spanish Army has demonstrated that it is prepared to undertake a high-intensity military operation by applying NATO procedures in the planning, conduct and performance of that operation in the "Valiant-Lynx" exercise, which ended the 28th of May.

This exercise has been the main commitment of the Army to NATO in 2018 and its largest annual exercise; it has involved a significant number of its units, including, as hearings for training: the General Staff of "San Marcial" Division, the "Guadarrama XII" Brigade, the Field Artillery Command or the 11th "España" Cavalry Regiment.

The NATO's High Readiness Force Land Headquarters (CGTAD in Spanish) has led and directed the activities aimed at testing the Army's tactical command and control system by aligning the three levels of command of the Spanish Army- Army Corps, Division and Brigade- in a single exercise so that they have had to interact with each other.

"San Gregorio" Training Centre in Zaragoza and "Chinchilla" Training Centre in Albacete were the main scenes. In the first one, it deployed the entire 12th Brigade and other units that completed its capabilities such as the helicopters belonging to the Spanish Army's Airmobile Forces, aircrafts of the Spanish Air Force and Electronic Warfare equipments or Unmanned Air Systems; in the second one, the CGTAD and the "San Marcial", along with the Field Artillery Command or the Signals Command.

Around 5.000 soldiers, 235 armoured vehicles, 550 light vehicles and 160 containers have had to travel from their home units to the scenes. The main work of moving the materiel and personnel has been carried out by the units of the Logistics Brigade, which has already begun with the withdrawal operation, which will end the 1st of June.

Two phases

The exercise was developed in two phases: a first phase of Command Posts (from the 20th to the 26th of May), in which Command and Control structures were trained from the highest to the lowest level as vertical assessment (according to NATO's evaluation criteria). And a second one, at Livex (on 27 and 28 May) in which the final offensive operation was carried out by the units at "San Gregorio" Manoeuvres field.

The Minister of Defense, María Dolores de Cospedal, was able to be witnessed firsthand some of the actions that took place during her visit, being accompanied by the JEME, General of the Spanish Army, Francisco J. Varela Salas.

Meanwhile, in "Chinchilla", various civil and military authorities, not only Spanish but also from other contries belonging to the Alliance, were able to observe in situ how the operation was being conducted.

Inspection visit

A few days before, the 22nd of May, an inspection team of four Russian Federation officers, accompanied by personnel from the Spanish Verification Unit, had visited the same manoeuvres field in order to carry out an inspection of the Vienna Document 11 on the military units participating in the exercise.

There they received briefings on the purpose of the "Valiant-Lynx" exercise from the representatives of the units deployed in accordance with the provisions of Vienna Document 11.