The Little Eagle I exercise organised in the Baltic Barracks on 14-18 March 2011 concluded today and first observations and lessons learned have been presented.
On Monday, 14 March, Headquarters Multinational Corps Northeast (HQ MNC NE) staff “took over” responsibility of the Headquarters Aurigan Forces’ (AUFOR) mission. Soldiers manned the centres and cells of the command post, thoroughly and well prepared by its supporting units from Command Support Brigade.
The first day was filled with familiarizing with the personal workspace, the establishing of communication channels and basic training within functional areas. All staff members learned about their specific mission tasks and responsibilities and the situation in Auriga, an artificial state in the world suffering from civil war and natural disasters.
The next day the members of the NATO mission in Auriga learned how natural disasters can hamper even a well trained and equipped NATO command: severe flooding in the country caused different power cuts so the Headquarters could not rely on their computers and networks.
But during the following days all staff personnel from MNC NE accelerated their efforts: almost all facets of a Crisis Response Scenario were simulated and handled from Headquarters AUFOR. A challenging planning task on very short notice had to be managed by the Headquarters planning capacities. The well-known staff procedures were combined with the recent experiences from Afghanistan and led to great training effort for the established personnel as well as for the newcomers who started their tours in the Baltic Barracks last year. Certain media contributions supported all efforts and illustrated an excellent picture of the staff members’ skills and abilities.
A wide spread of tasks and challenges had to be handled by the exercise participants in order to help the struggling state: planning tasks, mission briefings, operations and immediate help during a flooding catastrophe.
High ranking visitors like the Marshal of Westpomeranian Voivodeship and the Deputy Commander of the German 13th Division visited the exercise area and convinced themselves on the sophisticated and high-professional work.
Numerous findings and results were collected in order to further improve procedures, set ups and equipment. The aim of the exercise to integrate recently arrived newcomers and to train basic procedures was fully met. All staff members are ready to conduct further training during the next exercises.
During so called Hot Wash-up conducted at the end of the exercise, first comments and lessons were identified which would further be discussed and implemented during the next Corps’ training undertakings. That meeting was also a perfect occasion to award a former MNC NE member Lieutenant Colonel Lothar Hoffmann with the Cross of Honour of the Bundeswehr in Gold (Ehrenkreuz des Bundeswehr in Gold) and a member of German National Support Element Master Sergeant Frank Joisten with the Combat Action Medal of the Bundeswehr (Einsatzmedaille der Bundeswehr "Gefecht"). Moreover, the MNC NE Legal adviser, Mr Jochen Katze was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
