Exercise started yesterday Offshore, second annual edition of the largest training event of the Navy, which will involve forces belonging to 5 NATO nations including ships and submarines, aircraft, helicopters, as well as the amphibious departments of the marine brigade Saint Mark and COMSUBIN raiders and divers. At sea, under the surface of the sea, in the air and on land, approximately 4.000 soldiers and more than 45 units between ships and submarines will be employed.
The Forces of Naval Team they will exercise until 27 October, together with those of the Atlantic Alliance and some foreign navies, operating in the maritime spaces between the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian and Canale di Sicilia. A complex and articulated training context, also developed in the innovative and increasingly important dimensions of space and cyber-security.
The exercise, directed by the command in chief of the Naval Team boarded the aircraft carrier Cavour, will see the evolution of a realistic scenario designed in continuity with that of the previous edition. The forces in the field - under the leadership of the staff of the various naval divisions, of the marine brigade Saint Mark and of the commands of the specialized components of the Navy - will engage in high-intensity combat activities, fight against conventional and asymmetrical threats, raids on coastal sites of interest, maritime safety, control and reclamation of the seabed, prevention and contrast of illicit trafficking.
The training activities will be planned and conducted according to the consolidated procedures that the Navy applies to carry out its institutional tasks in the wider Mediterranean region, with particular attention to the protection of national interests, the surveillance of strategic areas, the maritime surveillance of sensitive objectives. and to safeguard the freedom of navigation on the high seas.
This edition of the Offshore will see the integration of a company of lagoons of the Italian Army into the landing force made up of the fusiliers of the marine brigade Saint Mark and the participation of several aircraft of the Italian Air Force, including CAEW G550 aircraft, fighters Euro Fighter and F35 aircraft in versions A and B. Just this last variant, the same one supplied to the Navy's air forces, will operate from ship Cavour, in close cooperation with the other aircraft on board and fully integrated into the daily flight cycles scheduled by the coordination cell for air operations at sea located on the aircraft carrier.
