Engineer Thunder 2015, a cooperative exercise of Lithuanian and U.S. troops training infantry personnel and military engineers to cooperate in a combat operation, is in progress at the Gaižiūnai Training Area.
The exercise is organised by Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalion. As the exercise progresses, members of the Lithuanian Engineer Company have made a 100 metre-long movable wooden bridge for infantry personnel to cross over a water obstacle, and a pontoon bridge also used for personnel and hardware. Water obstacles are also crossed with PTS-M amphibious vehicles used annually by the Lithuanian Armed Forces to provide assistance during floods in the western part of the country.
Support from military engineers is also indispensable when a minefield needs to be crossed. Soldiers with the Engineer Company, Juozas Vitkus Battalion, used remotely detonated charges to provide a safe passage. Each obstacle was under hostile fire making swift and coordinated actions of engineers and infantry vital.
U.S. military engineers taught the participating infantry personnel to handle detected standard and improvised explosive devices.
Exercise Engineer Thunder 2015 held at the Gaižiūnai Training Area on September 7-11 is the first exercise in Lithuania training Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers infantry-military engineer interaction.
An IED neutralisation team formed by military personnel serving across U.S. military bases in Europe takes part in the exercise on behalf of the U.S. Army. Other U.S. participants come from the Pennsylvania National Guard and the rotational U.S. forces deployed in Lithuania - TM Castle Engineer Company and Delta Company, 173rd Airborne Brigade, U.S. Army Europe.
The Lithuanian participants serve with King Mindaugas Hussar Battalion, Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion, and one more unit of the Lithuanian Land Force responsible for providing protection from mass destruction weapons. Dog handlers from the State Border Guard Service under the Ministry of the Interior had brought in their service dogs to help detect explosives.
POC - Captain Irmantas Genevičius, Head of S5 Section, Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalion Headquarters, phone no: 00370 601 01 118, email: Irmantas.genevicius@mil.lt
Photo credits: Captain Giedrius Strumila
