The British Army’s 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh took over the lead role for the NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) in Estonia on the 18th March 2022 and has undertaken Battlegroup integration exercise, say the British Army in a press release.
The British Army say here that Exercise Bold Dragon was the first combined training opportunity with the full Battlegroup capability consisting of main battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, mounted and dismounted infantry, a sniper section, artillery firepower and attack helicopters.
“It demonstrated the ability to operate and fight together as one Battlegroup and maintain the operational condition of the soldiers.”
Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Streatfeild, Commanding Officer of the eFP Battlegroup Estonia, was quoted as saying:
“Bold Dragon is designed to give us an opportunity to shake out in new territory, in terrain we are not used too, and to give us the opportunity for each of the elements of the Battlegroup to work together.
It is a big Battlegroup, we are over 1400 strong so there are lot of working parts but there are very well designed training lanes for the sub-units to go through to get used to working with each other. We’ve settled in really well, we are pretty confident with our surroundings and getting into our training now, so it is going well at this stage.”
The UK-led armoured infantry Battlegroup deployed to the Baltic State a month ago and Exercise Bold Dragon will see them officially integrated as part of the 1st Estonian Infantry Brigade.
Big props to the Danes as well. They’ve got a company attached to each of our battlegroups and are/have deployed a battalion to either Latvia or Lithuania.
The British Army mastered all-arms groupings so long ago. This is a strong BG at 1400 strong when an Inf Bn is (generally) 550. I bet the Russians wish they could do this as well as we can. Pity we could not form that many BGs though!
We just need the modern equipment to go with it Graham, especially turret equipped APC’s with capable modern sensors, enabling Hunter Killer capability, stabilised cannon etc ….
First rate situational awareness has never been more important.
Ukraine shows us just how very vulnerable older vehicles like the Warrior are now, effectively blind in an era of lethal man op AT systems…
I agree with your point, but its worth remembering the Russian armoured losses are more to do with poor utilisation, weak logistics, and poor integration with other forces.
Better trained and integrated armies than the Russians – e.g. ours – can likely make excellent use of older platforms like Warrior.
given what the ukraine army has done to their russian opponents its clear that modern western kit can make mincemeat of the much vaunted russian war machine
If put an automatic unmanned turret with many sensors on the WORRIOR, can use it until 50 years later
Fully agree that the army needs modern equipment – it has 50-year-old recce vehs, and 30-35-year-old Warriors and AS90s – mostly unmodernised or little-modernised. It is a disgrace. The RN and RAF would never put up with, in 2022, operating late-batch Leander class frigates and Phantoms respectively. The replacement for Warrior is now deemed to be Boxer and I fervently hope that all will have a turret with stabilised cannon (at least of 30mm calibre). You are proposing APS for such vehicles – it is a pity that APS has only been specified for CR3, and then only about 60… Read more »
These battle groups are a great way to help shore up nato defences. Could do with contributing a few more. If Ukraine has taught anything it’s that forces have to be completely integrated. A tank cannot afford to role without full support. This is the armies time to shine and show what it needs to make sure it’s effective in the roles given. Really hope the weapon purchases are getting sorted to help equip Ukraine. They are going to need loads of equipment until Russia stops it attacks. At least a couple of 1000 NLAWs a month, probably a million… Read more »
Sir Basil Liddel Hart advocated all-arms groupings in the 1920s. The British Army were early advocates (as was the Wehrmacht).
Interesting point about whether the UOR systems could be used to restock UK supplies – of course that is not the usual rationale for UOR procedures.
I totally agree to give Ukraine full support – it is the right thing to do.
The British Army in general where big fans of mechanisation and all arms fighting in the 1920’s, which surprises a lot of people (or at least people who didn’t look at how WWI was won), even if some of them (ahem Fuller I see your “all tank army”) had some very….interesting ideas…