Defender Europe 20

[Worldnis]

US Army Europe has opened dedicated web-pages for Ex DEFENDER Europe 20.
Supposedly the largest movement of US soldiers & equipment into Europe for over 20 years.

https://www.eur.army.mil/DefenderEurope/

This Ex will interface with more commonly known exercises like Saber Strike and Swift Response.
No information on (extra) aviation assets though, but several airports in Netherlands, Germany and Poland are mentioned in the Deploy phase.

Let's follow up on how this develops (deployment starts end of Feb)

Rob

[Zonan]

The first thing that comes to my mind is the excercise around volkel last year where everything was kept secret, apaches were patrolling around the base, etc.
I heard that was some kind of preparation for an excercise this year. It could also have something to do with excercise Brilliant Jump, which would be in april according to the SIS summary

[T-O]

Gemakkelijk te volgen via

https://defensiefotografie.nl/nieuws/al ... europe-20/

[Niek]

The first thing that comes to my mind is the excercise around volkel last year where everything was kept secret, apaches were patrolling around the base, etc.
I heard that was some kind of preparation for an excercise this year. It could also have something to do with excercise Brilliant Jump, which would be in april according to the SIS summary

That was something completely different, that was a smokescreen for the exchange of the B61s at Volkel.

[Flyboy]

De oefening DefenderEurope gaat fors geraakt worden door het Coronavirus. U.S. Army Europe heeft besloten het aantal deelnemende militairen terug te brengen. In overleg met de Europese militaire partners zal de komende dagen besluiten worden genomen over de inzet en het verloop van de oefening in de komende periode.

In de afgelopen nacht heeft president Trump het passagiersverkeer tussen Europa en de USA met ingang van overmorgen stilgelegd.
De oefening Cold Responder 20, die nu met 15000 militairen loopt in Noord Europa, wordt per direct stilgelegd.

google translates: The DefenderEurope exercise is going to be hit by the Corona virus. U.S. Army Europe has decided to reduce the number of participating military personnel. In the coming days, decisions will be taken in consultation with the European military partners about the deployment and progress of the exercise in the coming period.

Last night, President Trump shut down passenger traffic between Europe and the USA as of the day after tomorrow.
The Cold Responder 20 exercise, which now runs with 15,000 soldiers in Northern Europe, will be stopped immediately.

[K-9]

With such a relative harmless virus having such impact ... I'm going to prepare for ebola 3.0 !

[Le Addeur noir]

With such a relative harmless virus having such impact ... I'm going to prepare for ebola 3.0 !

With an excess of 600 deaths frim this disease in Italy alone, in the last 5 days, it is hardly relatively harmless.

The scientific community have identified at least 2 strains of this disease, and there is talk of a so-called super strain mutating, so the military are right to be cautious.

Exercises (and airshows) are very likely to be cancelled across Europe and elsewhere this year.