Celtic Thunder – Multinational Artillery Battalion VJTF 2023 (L)

On 21 and 22 November 2022 Tank-Masters.de visited the multinational exercise Celtic Thunder of the Multinational Artillery Battalion of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (Land) 2023 in the maneuver rights area between Kusel and Landstuhl.

The Celtic Thunder exercise was based on a very sophisticated training schedule. For three days, almost around the clock, the self-propelled howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems processed the required fire commands. In addition, soldiers from Jägerbatallion 291 regularly disrupted the artillerymen’s staging areas with enemy insertions. Furthermore, soldiers from the Idar-Oberstein Medical Deployment Company repeatedly placed wounded comrades or casualties that needed to be rescued, and German Luftwaffe Tornados flew enemy reconnaissance flights to increase the pressure of the exercise. By the end of Celtic Thunder, however, all self-propelled howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems had worked through their fire commands and laid down their fire along the coordinated fire line. The fire along this CFL was the basis for the counterattack planned in the scenario.