The Nordic Reccex 17 CBRN Exercise will come to a close on November 24. The aim of the exercise was to enhance the abilities of Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish CBRN specialists to react against CBRN threats. The commander of the exercise, Lieutenant Colonel Tero Savonen says that the exercise has produces valuable knowledge on the challenges of leading multinational troops.
Reccex 17 has been a compact exercise. The troops have executed challenging missions, with little time to prepare. According to LtCol Savonen, the tasks had been planned to resemble modern threat scenarios.
– In the past our training scenarios were planned around more traditional military threats. This time we wanted to add some counter-terrorism attributes in the mix, LtCol Savonen describes.
The head of the exercise says, that the troop’s actions have been professional from the start. The biggest difficulties in the beginning of the exercises impacted the troop’s initiative and ability to react.
– This exercise was filled with versatile professionals. The tasks have been difficult, which means that leadership should be straight forward and simple. As the exercise continued, the troops gained confidence in their actions. They trusted more in their abilities as professionals and their readiness improved significantly, LtCol Savonen says.
Lieutenant Colonel Savonen states that international cooperation has been a crucial part of CBRN defence.
– We are used to working together. This time we were able to create joint patrols between Finnish and Nordic CBRN specialists, which shows the real level of our interoperability.
Realistic tasks
Finnish troops in the exercise included personnel from Deployable CBRN Laboratory, Deployable EOD Unit and military police from different brigade-level units of the Army. In addition to these, participants included the Finnish Police and CBRN experts from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Norwegian Army CBRN School’s Development Officer, Major Jomar Kjevik says that the exercise has been realistic, fast paced and well planned. The cooperation between Finnish and Norwegian specialists has improved interoperability task by task. He describes, that Finnish soldier’s problem-solving skills are creative.
– Exercise tasks have been challenging, realistic and well planned. We’ve been able to exercise right things with realistic courses of action, Major Kjevik describes.
