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NATO Naval Mine Warfare School Conducts Mine Exercise

OSTENDE, Belgium- Exercise DYNAMIC MOVE (DME15), a two week long naval mine counter-measures exercise, began yesterday in Belgium-Netherlands (BE-NL) Naval Mine Warfare School EGUERMIN (NATO Naval Mine Warfare Centre Of Excellence / NMW COE).  

The annual NATO exercise, designed to test naval mine counter-measures (MCM) tactics and procedures, is being directed by staff officers from MARCOM who provided the overall operational guidance and exercise control. The exercise is run on more than one hundred networked computers and servers, allowing the training audience to plan and execute naval mine warfare operations in a controlled but challenging environment.

150 sailors from 15 NATO and 3 Partner countries (NATO: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States; Partners: Finland, Sweden and New Zealand) are participating in the exercise.  The training audiences also include the incoming command staffs for both Standing NATO Mine Counter-Measures Groups (SNMCMGs), US Fifth Fleet Task Force 52 (Mining/demining force) which enable these staffs to build their abilities to work together as multi-national forces supporting NATO missions.

The focus of the exercise is to test MCM forces’ abilities to enter a shallow water, or littoral area, clear the way of sea mines, and ensure freedom of manoeuvre for forces involved in an operation. Each participant comes away with an enhanced ability to conduct naval mine countermeasures operations in a littoral environment.

"DYNAMIC MOVE-15 provides a significant venue for NATO nations and our partners to test their ability to perform prolonged MCM in a time-constrained and challenging environment,” said Vice Admiral Bruno Paulmier, Deputy Commander of NATO’s Allied Maritime Command. "This exercise will have the added benefit of the exchange of experience and information between incoming and incumbent SNMCMG staffs and Partnership for Peace (PfP) nations’ MCM forces. Past exercises have provided Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Groups the skills to successfully accomplish Historic Ordnance Disposal operations, clearing mines, torpedoes and bombs from the Baltic, North, and Mediterranean Seas during the First and the Second World Wars, and making those waters safer for all mariners.”