Land Force practices NBC defense at the exercise 'Grifo'

Land Force's NBC units (FUTER in Spanish) have participated in the exercise "Grifo", that has been developed in different manoeruvre fields and in other external areas, in Valencia and Castellón, covering a deployment closer to 3500 square kilometers, from the 20th to the 27th of October.

This is the main exercise, in the NBC field, that the Spanish Army conducts. In this ocassion, Land Force's NBC units, were added to the Canaries Command and to the units of the Command of Engineers especialized on EOD-NBC (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). It also participated, as operative unit, the 8th Cavalry Regiment "Lusitania".

The stage of the exercise was framed in the development of specific operations of NBC defense inside of the framework of Land Component Command deployed in an allied country that has suffered the invasion of a neighboring power, that is to say, a mission from the NATO's 5th Article, of medium-high technical level.

The main activities consisted on the establishment of an Alert Network and NBC information, a tactic reconnaissance and specialized on NBC, an operative and completed decontamination and, finally, on taking samples. These establishments provided an improvement of the procedures of coordination and exploitation of the stages, as well as the preparation of their transfers.

Part of the conducted impacts of these activities were useful for practicing the recovery of the operative capatity of the units that were contaminated. Morever, it was supported by the 21st Regiment of Transmissions in order to carry out the Alert Network and NBC Information in the deployed units.

During the development of the exercise, it took place an inspection visit by the chief of the Land Force, General Lieutenant Gomez de Salazar, apart from the presence of observants from the United Arab Emirates.