The most elite combat formations of the Ukrainian military’s airborne and armored branches have completed the Combined Resolve X maneuvers with NATO forces in Germany.
During the drill’s mock battles with friendly troops from NATO, Ukrainian paratroopers and tank troops demonstrated a strong performance in both offensive and defensive operations, such as urban warfare, rear area incursions, close quarters combat, and fighting against hostile artillery and armored power, the General Staff said on May 11.
Hosted by the U.S. Army Europe between April 9 and May 12 at the Joint Multinational Training Center near the town of Hohenfels, Bavaria, the drills involved some 3,700 personnel. Ukraine’s Armed Forces, which participated in the exercises for the first time, resolved to pull out a composite warband of troops from the 79th Airborne Brigade and the 14th Mechanized Brigade, both of which recently returned from the frontline in Donbas.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the Ukrainian team brought seven BTR-80 armored personnel carriers and five T-84 tanks, all equipped with Harris tactical radio sets, as well as with Ukrainian-produced Bazalt geolocation devices.
The Combined Resolve X maneuvers allowed for an exceedingly realistic simulation of a combat environment, so each and every vehicle was also geared with Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES), widely used by the U.S. Army for its training battles.
Each personal weapon was attached with a laser transmitter that mimicked shooting within a corresponding effective range, while each trooper was equipped with individual laser sensors which would receive weapon laser illuminations and detect a simulated injury on a certain body part. All the data on individual hits were collected for further statistic and tactical gap analysis.
The same gear was also installed on vehicles and their embedded weaponry. However, for more realistic combat simulation, firearms were equipped with blank ammunition, while tanks used special barrel grenades that exploded during rounds to simulate the discharge booms.
“Such an imitation enables the enemy to define where the fire comes from when we are destroying him,” said Ukrainian tank squad leader Lieutenant Oleksandr Okhrimchuk.
“Because without this thump, you can’t learn from which direction you were hit.”
The red against the blue
Following the war game scenario, all troops from 13 nations were divided into two groups.
Ukraine, together with the forces of the United States, Latvia, Romania, and Slovenia, formed the OPFOR team that, apart from T-84 and BTR-80, also fielded M-84 (a Slovenian version of Soviet T-72 tanks), as well as Humvee, 103 Spartan, MLI-84M, and 107 Scimitar light armored vehicles.
Their opponent — the BLUEFOR team consisting of the United States, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Poland — rolled out M1A2 Abrams tanks, Humvees, Rosomak and Bradley light armored vehicles, and also Paladin self-propelled artillery pieces, and Apache attack helicopters.
The war game’s first day started with a major offensive by the OPFOR forces, in which Ukrainian tank troops and paratroopers found themselves on the tip of the spear. According to the General Staff report on May 3, Ukrainian formations engaged the enemy forces and damaged several Abrams tanks in combat, and without sustaining severe casualties, marched to a rendezvous point, then mined all local communication lines, and arranged an ambush to confront the enemy’s pending counter-attack.
The next day, the OPFOR expanded its offense when Ukrainian forces rushed into the enemy’s rear and took control of a strategic point near the simulated town of Ravensdorf. The BLUEFOR failed to forces the intruders out of their strongpoints, losing as many as 4 Abramses, 4 Bradleys, 2 Apaches, several Humvees and some 20 personnel after several fruitless counter-attacks.
However, the OPFOR also lost 1 BTR, 2 tanks and 13 soldiers.
The mock battle of Ravensdorf continued for two more days, during which the Ukrainian troops managed to capture a BLUEFOR’s operative map and delivered it to their command staff and then raided the enemy’s rear. As a result of a two-hour engagement, Ukrainians inflicted heavy losses upon the BLUEFOR but were later suppressed by artillery.
Urban warfare
The final day of the war game saw the OPFOR forces defending another simulated town of Ubersdorf, built especially for urban warfare training at the multinational center.
The battle was supposed to be difficult from the very start: the OPFOR forces, particularly the Ukrainians, had arranged several defense rings inside the town, mined its outskirts, and also fortified most of its buildings to meet the enemy with a hail of fire.
For the sake of realism, the U.S. Army organizers hired actors to pretend to be local civilians who were stuck in their war-ravaged town. Moreover, all of the actors were also wearing MILES devices for collecting data on casualties among civilians. The BLUEFOR eventually seized the town, after deploying a battalion tactical group supported by artillery and Apache helicopters.
However, as Ukraine’s General Staff says, the combat forces avoided targeting building where the civilians were hiding, instead concentrating their precise strikes on hostile firing points and ambushments.
