Canadian Armed Forces training exercise in Wainwright creates European invasion scenario

Greater than 3,000 Canadian Armed Forces personnel are presently participating within the Canadian Military’s largest and most advanced annual coaching train.

Roughly 3,200 personnel are participating in Exercise Maple Resolve 22 in Wainwright, Alta. The train ensures troopers are ready to deploy in assist of Canadians in any capability, together with fight operations. It additionally enhances their fight readiness.

This 12 months, troopers are going via the Date Europe situation, which centres on a deteriorating safety scenario in Jap Europe. In keeping with the CAF, it theoretically proposes a scenario the place the Baltic States are invaded from the east by a fictional drive and NATO is required to reply.

“That’s essentially drawn from the present battle in Europe, in fact,” mentioned Minister of Nationwide Defence Anita Anand, who was in Wainwright Thursday to fulfill with these participating within the train. “However the actuality is that our Canadian Armed Forces should be ready for any eventuality.

“My impression is that it is a extremely organized and extremely deliberate train. What I’ve seen in the present day has been outstanding when it comes to the extent of planning that goes into a really advanced train like this.”

Many of the troopers participating in Train Maple Resolve 22 are from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (2 CMBG) primarily based in Petawawa, Ont. It additionally contains troopers from america and the UK.

Civilian actors are additionally participating, serving to the troops lay out what may very well be very actual conditions.

Col. Eric Landry, commander of two CMBG, mentioned this large-scale train is a part of coaching they’ve been doing all 12 months.

“The situation is basically: there was a ceasefire, we had been on the border of a NATO nation and there’s an invasion we now have to react to,” Landry defined. “It’s very, very, very life like.

“It makes it actual for the troops. The troops are prepared, they’re able to go, they’re enthusiastic about what they do, they love what they do.”

Chief of the defence workers Gen. Wayne Eyre mentioned such a coaching underpins their readiness to have the ability to conduct operations around the globe.

“They know that is actual, they know what they’re making ready for might come to fruition,” Eyre mentioned.

“This group right here, over the course of the summer time, will grow to be the nucleus of our NATO response drive.”

The Royal Canadian Air Drive is offering an Air Job Drive to assist the coaching operations. This contains six CH-146 Griffon helicopters and about 300 personnel. A CP-140 Aurora can also be collaborating within the train, together with a detachment of 5 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the Oregon Military Nationwide Guard.

This 12 months, Train Maple Resolve can also be a part of a wider spring coaching routine for two CMBG, which incorporates Train Intrepid Bear. Additionally held in Wainwright, that coaching train will even function live-fire coaching.

The CAF mentioned this 12 months’s train will not be an entire return to the scale it was earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic hit, however it’s a sizeable improve over final 12 months’s coaching.

Wainwright is positioned about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

— with information from Breanna Karstens-Smith, World Information.