Lithuania — International exercise Baltic Fortress 2012 ongoing off the Baltic shores

From May 4 to 9 inter­na­tion­al mil­i­tary exer­cise Baltic Fortress 2012 takes place off the Baltic coast. The mar­itime mil­i­tary train­ing event includes five Lithuan­ian and two Lat­vian war ships and atten­dees of the Baltic States Naval Staff Offi­cer Course from Lithua­nia, Latvia and Esto­nia who will grad­u­ate with this exer­cise.

Pho­to from MOD archive

Ships of the Baltic Mine Coun­ter­mea­sures Squadron (BALTRON) along with the Squadron’s staff also take part in the exercise. 

Dur­ing the exer­cise crews improve maneu­ver­ing, fir­ing, mine neu­tral­iza­tion, ship con­voy­ing, ship at-sea deten­tion, search and res­cue, and sup­port and sup­ply skills. Staff offi­cers are observed and giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve as they react to dynam­ic sit­u­a­tions of the sim­u­lat­ed mil­i­tary naval oper­a­tion on the basis of a mil­i­tary con­flict sce­nario imi­tat­ing threats of ter­ror­ism. The exer­cise is con­duct­ed in line with NATO doc­trines and procedures. 

The Exer­cise Baltic Fortress was intro­duced in 2008 and turned into an annu­al inter­na­tion­al event giv­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the lis­ten­ers of the Baltic States Naval Staff Offi­cer Course to do exer­cise plan­ning and prac­tice staff pro­ce­dures across a spec­trum of exer­cise staff lev­els on the basis of NATO pro­ce­dures and using oper­a­tional terms-loaded English. 

Com­bat readi­ness of the Lithuan­ian Navy is also test­ed dur­ing the exer­cise as well as the abil­i­ty of Lithuania’s war­ships to engage in joint oper­a­tions at sea as a sin­gle unit is improved. 

This year the Lithuan­ian Navy del­e­gat­ed three lis­ten­ers to the five-month inter­na­tion­al Baltic States Naval Staff Offi­cer Course. 

LITHNAVY Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for CIMIC Lt (N) Antanas Bren­cius, phone 00370 46 391 207, cell phone 00370 698 18 196 

Source:
Min­istry of Nation­al Defense Repub­lic of Lithuania