As dawn broke on Wednesday, British, German, Polish and French military engineers swarmed the western bank, deploying their amphibious rigs in anticipation of the advancing vehicles.
The British Army say here that eight hours later, the eight ferries had successfully ferried more than 750 pieces of equipment and upwards of a thousand troops across the 300-metre-wide gap, in an impressive display of NATO capability.
“The wide wet gap crossing came mid-way through Exercise Dragon 24 (running February 28 to March 14), one of several elements making up the overarching Exercise Steadfast Defender.
Comprising circa 20,000 soldiers and 3,500 equipment platforms from nine NATO countries, Exercise Dragon aims to test the Land component of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF(L)).
While the UK’s 7th Light Mechanised Brigade Combat Team (7LMBCT) led the VJTF(L) to the Vistula, it was over to the subject matter experts, the German-British Amphibious Engineer Battalion 130 to orchestrate the river crossing.
Recent heavy rain only made the crossing more complicated for the exercising forces, testing their ability to adapt to changing scenarios. Nonetheless, the wet gap crossing successfully demonstrated the capability.”
Watching the display from the bank of the eastern shore, Brigadier Guy Foden, Commander of 7LMBCT, the Desert Rats, commented:
“It’s the first time for many in the Brigade that they’ve done a really wide crossing of a major waterway, certainly a river of this width – one of the major waterways in Europe. What you’re seeing here is NATO’s ability to project a Brigade with relative ease across a major water obstacle. It shows the capability of both the British and German amphibious regiment, but also our French and our Polish allies.
We don’t do this very often, so there’s not an inherent understanding of it, but what I would say is using the doctrine, using the procedures that we’re all taught, works and the proof in the pudding, because a large proportion of the brigade has already crossed over, and the rest will follow. And we’re putting deliberately every element across. So, this is not just a thing for Infantry Battalions; 6 RLC (Royal Logistic Corps) will be coming across later, 4th Regiment Royal Artillery will be bringing their guns across, Brigade main headquarters is coming across – the whole thing is coming across. But the key thing is, if you use the doctrine, it works.”
Did this in west Germany in the 70s but we did not need big flags.
Yep been there done that😀 hooray for the CRE👍
‘And worn the T shirt’ too don’t forget.🙂
Did the BCT command echelon function while moving and could this be done under fire and finally, given the scale of the Ukraine war, would a Bde make much difference?
I don’t know, but, I suspect this was all just a little bit too easy, except for on the eye.
Obviously you wouldn’t want to do it under small arms fire but any river crossing can be expected to attract enemy artillery and air attack👍
I know that there’s not a lot of information on it, and the force composition and purpose is probably quite different. But there’s a force of about 300 Ukrainian marines on the left bank (Russian side) of the Dnieper river and has been for quite some time. They’re basically there to force the Russians to keep forces in place to cover that front, thinning out the more active fronts further east (or at least, that’s what Twitter and bloggers tell me..!). They are well protected by long range artillery, drones, and EW, but they’re also pretty light role, and they’re causing quite a lot of trouble. So yes, a brigade could make a lot of difference- just depends on what it’s a brigade of, and what’s going on elsewhere!
Hi Joe
Now if only NATO would fund a Bde of M3 rigs for the Ukrainians and you do wonder what they could do with them.. Bde of A6 Leopards and Bradleys would rip the cr@p out of the RCZ of the Russian forces…
I’ll go back to thinking when I was young and about to change the world… ho hum.
They have been training on M3s! Whether there are any to spare is a different matter.You could not use them for an opposed landing anyway!
No, you’re right. I was referring to a NATO common purchase of new kit.
As opposed to doctrine and what the UKEs can do… give ’em the equipment and hold their beer!
No argument there,it’s just a numbers game with the rigs if there’s enough give them some👍
We only have one amph engr sqn, so not many M3 rigs. We had 37 rigs to 2019, but now have just 27.
Answers that question then doesn’t it! Even back in the day with two Sqns (M2s) we didm’t have that many spare. There were half dozen or so bagged up in airtight bags for WMR in Binden barracks.
Those 27 will be for: 23 Sqn, Attrition Reserve, Trg and posibly Repair Pool.
Not sure why we have lost 10 rigs since 2019!
Are there any in the UK with 412 Amphibious Engr troop (reserves)?
Thinking about it probably not as there would be no support services for them🤔
Whoops, forgot about them. I am sure they will have a small number of rigs. How could they train the guys otherwise?
Not sure how they would do REME support. Is the Tp part of a GS Sqn? if so, that should have a REME fitter section. But that would only be for minor Level 2 maintenance work.
I thought 412 were attached to 75 RE at Warrington for a time. They were a GS Reg I believe. Just looked and the Rny website now says they’re a bridging unit.
*army
23 used to be part of 21 engr Regt for admin etc but as far as I can tell they now fully part of the German battalion. 412 troop are on Facebook still and would join 23 if it’s necessary I assume🤔 again it looks like they are under 75 for admin. Probably all change next week who can keep up😂
just noticed the 2ic of the battalion is British.
Yes, 23 Sqn RE are in the Joint German Bn. I too had them with 21 admin wise at one time.
I do try to keep up mate! They never stop with their musical chairs changing of the ORBAT or the acronyms.
Hi mate. I served with reg RE units twice. I never heard a unit (Reg or TA/AR) being described as a bridging unit – bridging is just one of the very many combat engineer tasks undertaken by a RE Regt. So that puzzles me.
Rny is ? typo for army?
412 used to be attached to 23 AES, and was the only TA unit based in Germany – their fb page says they were still there in 2016, celebrating 20 years. Not sure where they are now!
Hi mate. Yes, typo, on mobile.
I did have that info but even I cannot recall all of it without consulting the files!
Out at mo so when I’m shortly I’ll have a look at what I had.
From memory, they were linked to 75 RE and used the Warcop TA at a camp there. That might be utter cobblers so I’ll look shortly at what I have.
OK, so I cannot find 412 either. And 75 are now the AR RE Reg for 4 LMBCT, so where that “bridging unit” ref I saw came from no idea.
Just had a look at Wiki and they have Ukraine down as ‘future’ users so new or second hand?🤔
We have not enough M3 rigs to spare, so it would be up to Germany to gift some of theirs.
Not surprised,however Sweden has just ordered a new batch so they are still in production at least.
Haha, I know what you mean..!
It is a little hard to understand why supply of Ukraine has been a drip-fed as it has been.
I think there was a fear of nuclear escalation at first at least, and a belief that the Russians might give up and go away- or that they might be content with just the eastern sections of Ukraine. That has clearly shown itself not to be the case.
But now, Europe at least is seeing more clearly what the situation is and is gearing up to look after itself. I’m guessing that the reason we haven’t seen more deliveries of armoured vehicles like your brigade of Leopards and IFVs is that European armies have let them get into a sorrier state of readiness than publicly let on. I did read a comment somewhere that one of the underlying reasons for the small number of CH3 is because a lot of the CH2 hulls aren’t in good enough shape for upgrade- even within our nominal strength of 225.
We’re already seeing the ramp up in munitions, which in the grand scheme of things is relatively easy to do, as well as artillery; I imagine the same will start to show for the more complex armoured vehicles in the next 12-18 months.
Now we just need HM Government to see the same writing on the wall as the rest of Europe and increase military spending…
The small number of CR3s reflect the continuous reduction in MBT numbers over time and whenever a new generation of tanks is fielded. We will only have two Type 56 armoured regiments (tank battalions in US-speak). Blame the politicians for defence cuts. The army has been cut once or twice a decade since 1953.
I have no idea where this rumour comes from that the 148 number is predicated by an insufficient number of good CR2 donor tanks. Donor CR2 tanks do not have to be in incredible condition – they apparently get something akin to a mini-Base Overhaul then get built into CR3s.
There will be a Minimum Acceptable Presentation Standard written into the contract. It should not be hard to meet the minimum standard. In theory a donor CR2 tank could have a totally unserviceable turret as it gets a new one in the CR3 conversion.
We have 213 tanks on the active list – last time they were reported on publicly around 150 were fit for deployment or peacetime use. That does not mean that the balance were absolute wrecks, but that they needed some crew or REME maintenence work doing – the old mantra was that a fleet could be brought up to 90% availability with 24-48 hrs concentrated work assuming spares were available.
Additional to the 213 active tanks there are a number in storage on the inactive list – those are likely to be mostly ‘hangar Queens’.
I’m always very happy to be put straight by those informed- and I’m glad that we haven’t let our tank force fall into such bad disrepair. Although it does raise eyebrows related to our continued low order for CH3 (yes, a political decision, and one I have great issue with) and our low provision to Ukraine (regardless of military funding, this one is baffling me).
Incidentally, action reports out of Ukraine say that their tankers are finding the CH2 underpowered for working in muddy areas compared to the 1500 HP Leopards and Abrams- probably worth the Army reviewing their decision on not going with a 1500+ HP power pack for CH3…
If our tank fleet was in bad disrepair then it would mean that both tank crews and REME tradesmen would have been doing a s*it job year in, year out.
I too think it rather pathetic that we only supplied 14 tanks to Ukraine.
I have never before heard that CR2s struggled badly in mud due to ‘only having a 1200bhp engine’. Interesting.