Multinational Military Drills Noble Partner 2018 Concluded
The US-led, multinational annual military drills in Georgia, Noble Partner, were concluded at the 11th shooting range in Vaziani with a live-fire demonstrational exercise on August 15.
Georgia’s Ministry of Defense reports that the multinational division conducted a combined live-fire exercise, in which the objective of the unit was regional defense by elimination of a fictious enemy in the region of operation and giving the division the chance to counterattack.
The Minister of Defense of Georgia Levan Izoria, Chief of General Staff, Major-General Vladimer Chachibaia and Director of the Joint Staff for the Georgia National Guard, USA, Brigadier General Reginald Neal, as well as the representatives of Georgia’s legislative officials, foreign defense attachés and Substantial NATO-Georgia Package core team experts attended the event.
This year, the drills involved 1300 Georgians and 1170 US soldiers as well as 500 soldiers from 13 other countries: Georgia, USA, UK, Germany, Estonia, France, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.
The Georgian MOD reports that the goal of the multinational military exercise is to improve skills in stability, defensive and offensive operations, increase interoperability between the armed forces of participating countries and contribute to the security of the Black Sea region. The motto of the military exercise is “Strength in Partnership.”
The exercise is complex, and its scenario involves command and staff and field exercises with live fire, coordination of the maneuver and combat support elements in defensive and offensive operations.
This year, Georgian military personnel for the first time used the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile system. The exercise also involved US AH-64 Apache helicopters.
By Thea Morrison
Photo: MOD
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