This year the German Army Artillery School once again organised the two-week GRIFFIN STRIKE multinational training exercise.
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News Release, Baumholder, 28 October 2024: [auto-translated] This year the German Army Artillery School (Artillerieschule des Heeres) once again organised the two-week GRIFFIN STRIKE multinational training and exercise. For the soldiers, this consisted of training on simulators and a practical phase with scenarios of national and alliance defence at the Baumholder military training area.
The international spectators look on excitedly at the Baumholder military training area in front of them. A speaker points out the exercise sequence that is about to follow. Suddenly there is a bang. Smoke and dust rise at a distance of several hundred metres. Further impacts follow one after the other and land precisely in the target area. The artillery fire gives the combat troops deployed at the front the opportunity to evade, in other words to distance themselves, from the enemy.
More than 600 soldiers from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany recently trained in this, the use of artillery in combined arms combat, and similar scenarios with more than 30 tracked and 60 wheeled vehicles and various aircraft. The focus of GRIFFIN STRIKE 24 was on calling in fire support from artillery, mortars and air power for two weeks.
Use of the most suitable weapons: The first week was used to train the soldiers in tactical behaviour and to deepen the processes and procedures for cooperation with the combat troops at international level. In order to ensure multinational cooperation, the focus was exclusively on NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) procedures.
The six participating Joint Fire Support Teams from the three nations had to provide fire support from weapon systems in the air and on the ground in a coordinated and timely manner. Army howitzers, helicopters and mortars, as well as Air Force fighter planes, were available for this purpose. Three German artillery platoons with the Panzerhaubitze 2000, as well as a Dutch and a German mortar platoon, provided solid fire. Eurofighter fighter jets and Tiger attack helicopters, provided support from the air along with KZO drone systems for target location and reconnaissance. In addition, Leopard 2 battle tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles were used to realistically demonstrate the interaction of combined arms combat for the exercise participants.
Complex system network: In the second week, the focus was on live fire in combat. A scenario in which artillery, mortars, combat helicopters, battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, drones and aircraft were used simultaneously was also demonstrated during two Visitor Days. The aim was to demonstrate the system network of the Joint Tactical Fire Support System network. The whole thing was presented to the junior officers of the armoured troops school as well as numerous civilian and military guests from home and abroad. During the entire exercise, 950 rounds of Panzerhaubitze 2000 artillery ammunition, 600 120mm mortar shells and 48 guided missiles from Tiger attack helicopters were fired.
Unique in Europe: Colonel Olaf Tuneke, head of the artillery school in Idar-Oberstein, drew a positive conclusion after the exercise: “GRIFFIN STRIKE is a multinational exercise that is unique in Europe.” The elements of the Joint Tactical Fire Support System Network of different nations and leadership levels coordinated intensively and extremely effectively.”
“Idar-Oberstein offers the perfect environment for this. The connection between simulation-based training and the immediate implementation under real conditions on the military training area is invaluable,” emphasised Tuneke.
At the Artillery School, preparations for Exercise GRIFFIN STRIKE 2025 are already in full swing.
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