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CBRN Exercise Coronat Mask 2024 wrapped in the Czech Republic

CBRN Exercise Coronat Mask 2024 wrapped in the Czech Republic

The new unit of the Col Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalion, CBRN Company, trained at the international Exercise Coronat Mask 2024 in the Check Republic. The exercise involved over 800 troops and nearly 100 units of chemical reconnaissance equipment from 13 states. It is the largest exercise of such orientation and scope since 2018.

Exercise Coronat Mask 2024 trained the most realistic tasks reflecting the existing threats and building on the principle “train as you fight“. Special harmless materials were used to imitate chemical-radioactive contamination, intense coordination with laboratories, explosive ordnance disposal experts and medics was honed.  All participants trained executing different tasks and providing support to each other in joint operations on a daily basis. The training method was particularly useful for unit interoperability improvement as it challenged the training audience to recognize the differences in each other’s capability and standard operating procedures and to put them to work.

“We were working with Slovenian and Bulgarian CBRN and EOD experts and completing the full range of designated tasks depending on the unit specifics: taking samples, reconnaissance, decontamination. We had the opportunity to familiarize closely with the equipment and procedures used by the other participating states and to improve ours during the exercise,” told Commander of the CBRN Defence Company Capt Martynas Žukovas about the exercise.    According to him, the exercise offered plenty of new experiences and chances to pick up useful practical know-hows. “Decontamination of CBRN casualties was a completely new ground broken. The make-up, the acting, imitation of panic attacks and serious injuries were particularly realistic… EOD tasks were also impressive, it was an especially enriching experience to  coordinate the sampling with laboratories and post-exercise visiting where we were instructed in detail on yet more efficient ways to gather samples to ensure more precise identification of the material.”  

One of a kind, Exercise Coronat Mask is designed to test CBRN defence capabilities of different CBRN NATO units, to improve their interoperability, share experience and procedures, and to check the C2 schemes at tactical level while ensuring protection against weapons of mass destruction. The exercise was halted due to the Covid pandemic, later it was postponed because the Check capability was deployed with the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group to Lithuania. Now Coronat Mask is planned to take place bi-annually, the next one due in Slovakia.

Photo credits: Col Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalion.