On June 29 the last military personnel and military equipment left the territory of Lithuania after the conclusion of the multinational Exercise Saber Strike 2014 which was running on June 10-18 in Lithuania, Gaižiūnų Training Range, and headed successfully for their permanent bases.
The major part of the participants of Exercise Saber Strike 2014, approximately 700 troops, returned to Denmark by six commercial flights from Karmėlava Airport on June 19 and 20. Another 60 Danish soldiers left for Denmark from Palanga Airport on June 24 when roughly 500 Denmark's military vehicles were driven or transported by lowloaders from Rukla to Klaipėda Seaport.
On June 26 a small group of Danish military and roughly 200 military vehicles departed for Denmark by the Corona Seaways vehicles carrier ferry from Klaipėda. On June 29 a ferry of the same type left for Denmark from Klaipėda Seaport with the remaining part of Denmark's military materiel and servicing personnel from to Denmark.
The reconnaissance platoon of the Polish Land Force with their HMMWV vehicles left for Poland On June 20. The element of the Pennsylvania National Guard drove by their Stryker armoured vehicles to Vilnius International Airport early in the morning of June 22 from where they reached the United States successfully by the same Lockheed C-5 Galaxy aircraft they had arrived to the exercise on June 7.
The combat vehicles deployed to Exercise Saber Strike 2014 drove or were transported by public roads with regard to road condition and maximum load capacity.
According to the Officer Conducting the Exercise Saber Strike 2014 in Lithuania Commander of the Lithuanian Land Force Major General Almantas Leika, such a large number of military materiel deployed in Lithuania was a unique opportunity for Lithuania military to train completing various combat tasks side by side with allies in their own country. Furthermore, logistics personnel of the Lithuanian Armed Forces successfully arranged and rendered host nation support to all the deployed allied troops in cooperation with various civilian institutions.
"I can firmly state that now we are ready to accept allied forces on our soil better which makes our defence capacity undeniably stronger," MG A. Leika underlined.
The field tactical exercise at the Gaižiūnų Training Range involved over 2thousand participants from the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States, Poland and Lithuania and roughly 800 combat vehicles the majority of which, approximately 500, were deployed by Denmark.
The Danish participants for the first time brought the Leopard 2 A5 heavy tanks, CV 9035 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, M113/G4 tracked armoured personnel carriers, Piranha wheeled fighting vehicles, Duro armoured medical trucks, and military materiel of other types. The element of the U.S. Pennsylvania National Guard were operating their Stryker wheeled armoured fighting vehicles at Exercise Saber Strike 2014, and Polish scout platoon - HMMWV wheeled cross country vehicles and four-wheelers.
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This year Exercise Saber Strike 2014 involved a record number of over 4.5 thousand participants from 10 NATO allies: Denmark, Estonia, the U.S., the UK, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Norway and Finland. Several hundred from them were training in Estonia, 2 thousand - in Latvia and roughly 2.3 thousand - in Lithuania.
This year's U.S. Army in Europe-led Exercise Saber Strike has taken place in the Baltic States for the fourth time. The exercise trained interoperability of allied NATO units, coordination of their actions, and readiness to compete defensive and offensive operations. Exercise Saber Strke 2014 comprised concurrent brigade-level command post exercise in all the three Baltic States, and tactical field exercises in Latvia and Lithuania.
More on Exercise Saber Strike 2014
Photo credits: 1LT Ervin Tylert
