Sky Soldiers staff to train with allies, partners at Arrcade Fusion 15

Courtesy Photo | Soldiers from the 173rd Brigade Support Battalion have been supporting Exercise Arrcade Fusion at RAF St. Mawgan, Cornwall, UK, during November 2014. The soldiers have travelled from their base in Vicenza, Italy, as the US Army Europe contribution to the exercise. Whilst on exercise the soldiers will play the part of infantry units, reacting to, and providing feed back for, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters during the ARRCs main exercise of the year. The exercise also provides the 173rd with valuable training in a multinational joint operations environment. Exercise Arrcade Fusion 14 sees Headquarters Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARRC) tested whilst it commands two divisional and one brigade headquarters from across Europe and North America. The exercise swells the 450-strong headquarters to close to 1,000 personnel and is designed to ensure the Innsworth-based NATO headquarters is ready for any potential short-notice call-up it may receive in 2015. Participating in this exercise are units and troops from ARRC Partner Nations Czech Republic, Canada, Italy, the United States, as well as personnel from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and others – all-in-all totaling some 2000 military and civilian personnel. Additionally, FUSION will present the headquarters with an opportunity to further develop training the ARRC’s capability as a NATO Force Structure Joint Task Force Headquarters. An operational concept conceived by NATO, the JTF builds a land-centric headquarters, like the ARRC, into an element capable of commanding an entire military theatre of operations. For ARRC, this means adding both air and maritime personnel to its structure so that it can command air, land, and sea troops.  

ITALY

11.06.2015

Story by Sgt. A.M. LaVey 

173rd Airborne Brigade

VICENZA, Italy—More than 25 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are scheduled to deploy to Rukla, Lithuania, next week for Exercise Arccade Fusion 2015.

Arccade Fusion, an annual exercise for the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, will involve nearly 1,700 personnel from 19 nations, and span four countries including the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

This year the exercise focus will be on command and control operations of land component forces of a combined joint task force.

“My aim is to evaluate our deployability, test key emerging concepts that can be used to develop NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, and strengthen our partnership with our allies, especially those in the Baltic region,” said British army Lt. Gen. Tim Evans, commander, AARC.

For the paratroopers of the 173rd, this exercise will be a chance to enhance the brigade staff’s ability to conduct high-level planning with European allies and partners.

“This is an opportunity to make sure that the brigade is not only training our companies and battalions, but also training our brigade-level staff in combined planning and assessment,” said U.S. Army Maj. David Mun, brigade fire support officer, headquarters, 173rd Abn. Bde. “Military to military staff development is critical: it’s one thing to understand our allies’ doctrine, but it’s another thing to sit beside them and exercise that doctrine together.”

For the duration of the exercise, the brigade will be working side-by-side with the Lithuanian Iron Wolf Brigade, an ally from the start of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the U.S.’s demonstration to the collective security of NATO and to stability in the European region.

“These type of combined exercises helps to build our personal and professional relationships with our allies,” said Mun. “So when we are called upon to work together, we already have this experience. These relationships and experiences also contributes to our combined readiness – we want to make sure that we are ready to go anywhere, anytime.”

The ARRC, a high readiness land force headquarters, is prepared to deploy under NATO, European Union, collation or national auspices to a designated area, to undertake combined and joint operations across the operational spectrum.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade is the U.S. Army Contingency Response Force in Europe and is capable of deploying ready forces to conduct the full range of military operations across the U.S. European, Africa and Central Commands’ areas of operations within 18 hours.

• Date Taken: 11.06.2015
• Date Posted: 11.06.2015 11:18
• Story ID: 181179
• Location: IT
• Hometown: BRUSSELS, BRUXELLES-CAPITALE, RéGION DE (FR), BRUSSELS HOOFDSTEDELIJK GEWEST (NL), BE
• Hometown: GLOUCESTER, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, GB
• Hometown: RUKLA, LT