Over the past week, Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 and the French Navy’s CHARLES DE GAULLE Carrier Strike Group (TF 473) conducted exercises across the Mediterranean Sea in a demonstration of the power of NATO maritime forces to rapidly come together in a crisis or for collective defence.
The ongoing exercises between the two forces focused on integrated training, practicing the latest procedures, communications protocols, and tactics, a mix of low-end daily operations such as refueling at sea and ship maneuvering to high-end training in tactical air, surface, and subsurface warfare.
During the past week’s exercises, ships’ watch teams worked together, sharing operational best practices in order to forge a unified force, demonstrating the ability of NATO maritime forces to seamlessly integrate follow-on forces when required to do so.
As NATO moves forward with the implementation of the Readiness Action Plan, exercises and training between Standing Naval Forces and national forces will become the norm in order to enable the effective transition from peacetime operations to robust and credible crisis response at and from the sea.
SNMG2 is currently comprised of flagship USS Vicksburg (CG 69), Turkish ship TCG Turgutreis (F 241), Canadian ship HMCS Fredericton (FFH 337), and German oiler FGS Spessart (A 1442) and is deployed in the Mediterranean serving as NATO’s maritime force dedicated to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
Image: MARCOM