Dragoon Ride Operation In Poland. US Armoured Vehicles Passing Through Mid-Eastern Europe

Dragoon Ride exercise involves the elements that were participating in the Atlantic Resolve operations. They are going to return to their home bases, back in Germany with the use of road transport (on own wheels). The training operation is going to involve 9 columns of vehicles in total – they are equipped with 90 Stryker APC’s and support vehicles.

The US Army soldiers will be supported by the units of the host nations (e.g. the Polish Military Police), as well ass helicopters, deployed by the elements of the US Army’s 12^th Brigade of Combat Aviation. Cavalrymen will be also present in Czech Republic. According to Lt. Col Artur Goławski, who is the spokesperson for the Polish Armed Forces General Command, the Polish military bases will provide accommodation and parking space for the US soldiers.

Main objective which is realized by the “Dragoon Ride” operation is to check the capabilities of the US Army units, within the scope of logistics. Secondly, the operation demonstrates capabilities of deploying the forces to the territories located in Mid-Eastern Europe. The exercise shall be controlled from the command station in the Joint Multinational Training Command, located in the German town of Grafenwoehr.

Units of the 2^nd Cavalry Regiment will be replaced in Poland and in the Baltic states by selected elements of the 1^st Brigade of the 3^rd US Army Division, which are using, inter alia,  M1 Abrams tanks or Bradley IFV’s. The Americans are also planning to expand the area covered by the Atlantic Resolve operation and start some activity in Romania and Bulgaria, which would be probably mean that some form of rotational presence of the NATO forces would be introduced in the aforementioned countries.