Exercise Joint Warrior - will see warships, submarines and aircraft take to the west coast of Scotland for a two week training exercise – it is held twice a year to prepare forces from the UK, USA, Denmark, Norway, France, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands for events and active service.     The event is aimed at creating a task group capable of being deployed to worldwide incidents such as last year's war in Libya, as well as testing the ability of the Armed Forces to cope with events such as a terrorist attack on the Olympics.      An air assault exercise will see 1,600 troops from the 16 Air Assault Brigade secure an airfield at West Freugh (Stranraer) through a combination of parachute, air assault and tactical air landings.     Once it has landed, the task force, based around the 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders that was), will defend the airfield and carry out air assault exercises to defeat a notional enemy force. This part of the exercise will involve more than 1,600 troops, and be supported by APACHE, CHINOOK and SEA KING helicopters.   

 The military exercise comes as the Scottish National Party played down reports that its leadership was considering proposing a change to the party's policy on Scotland's future membership of NATO - the party has been opposed to membership of the military alliance for more than 30 years - its policy is to be a member of Partnership for Peace, such as Sweden, Austria, Finland and Ireland, which allows bilateral co-operation between NATO and non NATO countries.   Though at least Nationalist MSP seems more concerned about the “disorientating” impact war games have on whales, dolphins and porpoises, claiming "They will shell the cliffs at Cape Wrath while surface ships and aircraft hunt submarines from Plockton to the North Minch”.    The Cape Wrath Training Area is located approximately 120 miles from Inverness and is the only Range in Europe where Land, Sea and Air forces can conduct live firing training activities.

 

A key element is the exercise will be nine (9) maritime patrol aircraft - Canadian and US P3-ORION aircraft whilst the French will provide a contingent of ATLANTIQUE II aircraft – all operating from the former NIMROD base at RAF Lossiemouth – sadly there can be no British maritime patrol aircraft contribution to this activity.    The Royal Navy will field its two major surface ships at Joint Warrior, fresh from Exercise Cold Response with the repaired helicopter carrier ILLUSTRIOUS hosting the UK’s Joint Force HQ, whilst the assault ship BULWARK will host the Commander United Kingdom Task Group.