The ISTAR Battalion of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force conducts exercise Black Dragon 16

Over the last week around 450 Spanish soldiers and nearly 50 vehicles from the ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) Battalion attached to NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) have been conducting exercise Black Dragon 16 in Almería and León. The bulk of this ISTAR Battalion comes from the Intelligence Gathering Land Systems Group of the 1st Intelligence Regiment, based in Valencia.

Black Dragon 16 is an exercise which involves the actual deployment of personnel and resources at the training field of Viator (Almería) and the airfield of Pajares de los Oteros (León). UAVs have been deployed in the airfield in order to obtain images.

The aim of the exercise is to train and integrate all the intelligence gathering entities which make up this ISTAR Battalion so as to sustain the level of preparation achieved and be able to face any threat or danger. All the units assigned to VJTF 16, such as this Battalion, were certified last year during exercise Trident Juncture 15 and must maintain a high training level – and that is the purpose of exercises such as Black Dragon 16.

The ISTAR Battalion brings together the most modern reconnaissance and surveillance technology to obtain information about the battlefield which may assist all units. It incorporates UAVs, such as the ones deployed in León; cavalry reconnaissance vehicles; electronic warfare; advanced reconnaissance patrols; a geo-meteo cell; a psychological operations unit… The data received through the different transmission mediums is centralised and then integrated, filtered and made available to all units.

The 1st Intelligence Regiment of the High Readiness Force Headquarters is unique in the Spanish Army for its information gathering capabilities. It is the core of the VJTF ISTAR Battalion, which in 2016 is part of the VJTF Brigade (7th Brigade ‘Galicia’) under the command of NATO HQ in Bétera (Valencia).

The VJTF, a Rapid Reaction Force agreed upon at the 2014 Wales Summit and put to the test in this type of exercises, is an excellent example of the Alliance’s ability to adapt to new threats and challenges.
 

ISTAR Battalion vehicle