Reservists from the British Army’s 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment are participating in a Brigade-level field training exercise in Lithuania.
Led by the Lithuanian Army, Exercise Iron Wolf is being held on the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ main training area in Pabrade.
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As many as 3,500 troops, representing 14 Nato and partner nations, are part of the brigade-level training event.
The exercise is aimed at strengthening the integration among Nato members, allowing them to work smoothly in difficult terrains.
Four Wildcat helicopters from the UK Army’s 1 Regiment Army Air Corps have been brought in to train the personnel on air and land integration.
The reservists were deployed with dismounted infantry soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh. The latter is currently leading Nato’s enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) Battlegroup in Estonia.
Lithuanian Mechanised Infantry Iron Wolf Brigade commander colonel Mindaugas Steponavičius said: “We conduct Exercise Iron Wolf to train and evaluate the ability of our units to quickly redeploy forces to any place in Lithuania, and to carry out multinational defensive operations.
“This is the biggest exercise this semester together with our allies. We will train mobility, the ability to quickly reach any area to defend it against any enemy in the territory in Lithuania.”
During the training process, nations will learn various skills from one another and use the opportunity to develop tactical measures needed for offensive and defensive operations.
Apart from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, and Norway, troops from Estonia, Italy, the US, Canada, Slovenia, and Ukraine are also taking part in the training.
The exercise initially focused on the integration of assigned formations. Later on, the units were then trained to fight against each other as part of force-on-force operations.
Last month, the eFP Battlegroup in Lithuania conducted Beowulf, a battalion-level field training exercise.
Earlier this month, the UK Ministry of Defence announced that the British Army’s Ajax programme has “gone badly wrong”.
