Croatian soldiers take part in “Trident Juncture 18”

The LIVEX of the “Trident Juncture 18” kicked off in Norway on 25 October 2018, to last until 7 November 2018, with a participation of the members of the Croatian Armed Forces too.

The international military exercise “Trident Juncture 18” is a NATO-led high-visibility exercise hosted by the Kingdom of Norway, with the objective of testing interoperability of the international forces in a joint opeation and testing NATO capabilities to restore the sovereignty of the member country following an armed aggression and to test and certify NATO  Response Force 2019.

The Exercise engages ca 50,000 of the armed forces of  29 member nations and two partner countries (Republic of Finland and Kingdom of Sweden), operating 250 aircraft, 65 vessels (including the U.S. aircraft carrier “Harry S. Truman”) and some 10,000 vehicles. 

The Exercise Commander is Admiral James G. Foggo III, the Commander of the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Trident Juncture 18 i is a three-phase exercise – the deployment of the participating units to the Exercise area from August through October, a LIVEX from 14 – 23 November 2018, to be followed by a Command Post Exercise, and a return of the participants in November and December. 

The Croatian Armed Forces are represented by  25 members of the Deployable Communications Module (DCM) Company of the Croatian Army’s Signal Battalion, assigned with CIS support to the Exercise. (from 30 September through 13 November 2018).

In the period September – December 2018 two staff officers of the Support Command of the Croatian Armed Forces are taking part as members of the Joint Logistics Support Group.

The Commander of the Joint Logistics Support Group (composed of some 1,000 members of the armed forces from 19 countries from the logistic units JFCNP , including  Sweden and Finland as partner cpuntries) is Brigadier General Darko Pintarić of the Croatian Army, who is taking part from  17 September – 2 December 2018, heading the JLSG Command  based in south Norway. 
 
The JLSG is tasked with managing the arrival of the participant units and vehicles and supplies from the points of entry into Norway to the destination (comprising the  transportation of goods to Norway from all over the world and the supply of individual force elements during the Exercise and the return of the participating units to their respective bases. 

The Croatian representative from 20 October to 24 November 2018 is 1st Sergeant  Zdenko Karasek as Watchkeeper of the Joint Task Force Headqarters (JTF HQ) within the International Combined Joint Operations Center (CJOC).

The Exercise “Trident Juncture 18“ engages the land, naval, air and special and amphibious landing forces.  The land component of the LIVEX  is conducted to the south of Trondheim and to the north of Oslo, the naval component is taking place along the coast of Norway to the north part of Scotland, in the Baltic Sea and in the Atlantic and the air component is taking place in the air spaces of Sweden and Finland.  
The Exercise Scenario features the invocation of the Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, with the North forces engaged in active combat against the South forces.

“North Forces“ are led by the Allied Land Component Command composed of the Norwegian north brigade and brigades of the Canadian and Swedish armed forces; “South Forces“are led by the German/Dutch  Corps composed of  brigades of the German, Italian and the UK armed forces; both the North Forces and South Forces commands are based in Lillehammer. 

The Scenario also entails amphibious operations by the U.S. Marine Corps, and the engagement of the rapid response force of the Norwegian National Guard. 

The Distinguished Visitor Day of Trident Juncture will be held in Byneset on 30 October 2018, and will be attended by 500 visitors – national military and civilian representatives (the Croatian MoD and Croatian Armed Forces included) and international representatives.