Spanish troops take part in NATO's exercise 'Wolverine Strike' within the enhanced Forward Presence

• The aim of the exercise, conducted by allied forces deployed in Latvia, has been to practise defensive tactics

Spanish military personnel deployed in NATO's enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) have taken part in exercise 'Wolverine Strike', carried out over the last week as part of training exercises prior to the 'Crystal Arrow' exercise, in which NATO units deployed in Adazi (Latvia) will take part together with the Latvian Mechanised Brigade.

Exercise 'Wolverine Strike' is intended to integrate allied units for defence purposes. To do so, a tank company, three mechanised companies, an artillery battery and engineer and logistics units faced an enemy mechanised company simulating an attack on allied forces.

In the course of the activity, several key areas were seized in force and in depth, while maintaining a reserve that could be deployed quickly to the areas where the Allied forces were attacked by the enemy. In this case, a zone defence was implemented, in its most dynamic version, in such a way that ground was gradually cleared until the enemy was driven into a zone of destruction where a decisive counter-attack was successfully launched to defeat the enemy.

The major benefit of this kind of exercise, involving opposition forces and a referee team, is that it recreates conditions similar to those that would be faced by a real enemy in terms of command and control. Therefore, 'Wolverine Strike' not only provides a challenge and an opportunity to train allied units, but also puts the command posts to the test.

Once again, the outstanding capabilities of the Spanish tactical group have been verified, as it has led the main effort and virtually led all the main operations that have been conducted during the entire exercise.