European amphibious exercise Emerald Move concludes in Italy

European naval ships and personnel spent the last two weeks honing their amphibious assault skills during the Italian-hosted Emerald Move 2016 which concluded today.

Emerald Move is organized by the European Amphibious Initiative (EAI) while the Italian Navy was in command of the 2016 edition of the exercise for this year.

About 4000 men and women engaged, 8 ships, 1 submarine, 9 aircraft AV8B Plus and 18 helicopters were under the control of Italian Navy Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Donato Marzano while the Cagliari Naval Base provided logistic support.

Amphibious forces developed interoperability and integration in the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Sardinian ranges of Capo Teulada.

The exercise is scheduled to take place every five years.

European Amphibious Initiative (EAI) was formed by five EU nations, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, in 2000. The aim of this organization is to strengthen the interoperability of European forces and optimize and improve European amphibious operations capabilities through training and exercises.

An interesting feature of the exercise was the participation of the Italian elite commando frogman force COMSUBIN who made use of the newly commissioned Todaro-class submarine Pietro Venuti. The picture above offers a rather rare glimpse of the submarine fitted with a swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV).

SDVs are used by special forces for the delivery of divers during covert operations and battles.