UK participates in Exercise Dragon
The UK's Lead Armoured Battle Group (LABG) is participating in a NATO exercise hosted by Poland, the UK Ministry of Defence announced on 19 October. The five-week, two-part exercise started in September and will run until the end of October.
Around 800 UK troops and over 130 British Army vehicles, including Challenger 2 main battle tanks and Warrior infantry armoured fighting vehicles, are participating in Exercise Dragon.
The first phase - a UK-only exercise - was conducted at the Drawsko Pomorski Training Area. The second phase, also involving Canada, the US, Germany and Poland, is being conducted at the Orzysz Training area.
The exercise allows the armed forces from participating NATO nations to practice and test multinational, joint combined arms manoeuvres at the divisional level. The UK’s contribution predominately involves the army. Up to 10,000 troops from the five participating nations are involved in the exercise in total.
Michael Fallon, UK Defence Secretary, said that the exercise will help preparations for NATO’s new rapid reaction taskforce, for which the UK will provide troops every year into the next decade.
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