“Harpun 14” Exercise Demonstration

The live-fire exercise, held from 5-9 May 2014, has been a central Croatian Navy’s training event in 2014, and aimed to demonstrate the joint operation capability for seaborne attacks. It involved the units of the Croatian Navy, Army, Air Force and Air Defence, the Special Operations Battalion and the Electronic Recce Division.
 The distinguished invitees (Defence Minister Ante Kotromanović, commanders of the services of the Croatian Armed Forces, defence attachés) were observing the exercise from the Croatian Navy’s yacht “Učka”.
Following the Army units’ shooting of seaborne target from the Zečevo Training Range, four Navy frigates conducted target shooting from different distances; two seaborne attack vessels demonstrated the landing on the Žirje island with the aerial support provided by the Croatian Air Force and Air Defence’s PC-9 M aircraft.
Defence Minister Ante Kotromanović praised the capabilities demonstrated at the Exercise; «Our goal was to observe the state of the trainedness and the interoperability of the Croatian Army and the Navy. During my office as Defence Minister I have placed the emphasis on training, which has seen significant upgrade over the past few years“: The Minister also underlined being committed to the development of the Croatian Navy, and informed of the closed tender for patrol boats and pending contracts signature.
The Croatian Navy Commander, Commodore Robert Hranj commended the interoperability of the Croatian Armed Forces services, in view of the fact that the exercises of the kind are not too frequent.”The Harpun 14 has been an Army, Navy, Air Force and Special Forces Exercise focussed on the missions-at-sea, to which the Navy personnel looks forward to”, concluded Cdre Hranj.
The Croatian Army Commander, Major General Dragutin Repinc also expressed satisfaction over the Exercise saying “The exercises of the kind are of critical importance, as they enable practicing of embarkation, debarkation,  landing and other procedures with the rest of the Services, particularly the Navy”.
“The Harpun 14 has been a large-scale exercise, preceded by months-long training, throughout the winter, and as a result they have done a great job”, said the U.S. Defense Attaché to the Republic of Croatia, Colonel Douglas M. Faherty.

The five-day Exercise entailed practice of the special operations tactics, EW, communications, tactical manoeuvres, force protection, indirect missile-attacks, search-and-rescue, damaged vessel trailing and signal procedures.