On August 3 nearly two-week long joint combat training exercise Uhlan Rage of the Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion and the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the U.S. Army begins. The cooperative training event involves over 100 uhlans and roughly 80 U.S. troops.
The exercise will be located at the General Silvestras Žukauskas Training Area in Pabradė. It is the final phase of a joint Lithuanian-U.S. combat training cycle at Birutė Uhlan Battalion. The first week of the exercise will focus on live fire using a wide range of weapons. Exercise participants will hone their firing accuracy with the FN MAG and the M50 medium and heavy machine guns, the FN SCAR sniper rifles, and the GMG and the CGM3 automatic and recoilless grenade launchers. The live fire training is also planned to include firing with the TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided) anti-tank missile units.
The second week of the exercise will train paradrop with support from the C-27J Spartan of the Lithuanian Air Force, and include a Situational Training Exercise encompassing an offensive, a defensive and advance to contact. Black Hawks will support troops during the offensive; airlift of combat equipment will also be carried out.
Soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the U.S. Army have been deployed to the Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion in Alytus since June. They are planned to be training in Alytus till mid-August and then move to King Mindaugas Hussar Battalion in Panevėžys.
U.S. troops are taking part in collective and individual training exercise in Lithuania alongside Lithuanian counterparts.
Rotating U.S. contingents are deployed in the Baltic states and Poland since last spring as part of operation Atlantic Resolve in Eastern Europe.
The rotating contingents deployed as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve is one of the NATO measures launched in response to the changed security situation in the region and for strengthening security of the Baltic states and Poland after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
The hosted U.S. military personnel join all the major exercises in Lithuania and other Baltic states.
Lithuania provides full Host Nation Support, i.e. lodging, feeding, other logistic support, to U.S. soldiers.
Photo credit: Sergeant James Avery
