Start of Exercise Clever Ferret 2017

During the two-week exercise, the soldiers can show their skills at a number of live fire tactical training events. In answer to our question, Brig.-Gen. Dr. Gábor Böröndi, Land Forces Chief, HDF Joint Force Command told us that “we are going to build cohesion among the troops of three nations at the LFX, so that the commanders can understand each other, can issue the fire orders and so we can see how they execute all that".

Besides developing interoperability, another objective is to learn from each other and collectively build the Multinational Land Force. Speaking about the MLF which is made up of Hungarian, Italian and Slovenian elements, Brig.-Gen. Dr. Gábor Böröndi mentioned that at the time of their NATO accession, the Hungarian Defence Forces were looking for member countries that would enable them to measure up to the member states of the Alliance in terms of interoperability, training and doctrines. Thus they first teamed up with the military of Italy and then with that of Slovenia.

Since then, the cooperation has been continuous and as MFL Commander Brig.-Gen. Paolo Fabbri stated at the opening ceremony of the exercise, spectacular progress has been made since the beginnings in 1995.

After the opening ceremony, the participating elements commenced executing the training tasks. The military press had opportunity to witness the training sessions of Hungarian and Italian ATGW teams coupled with a live fire exercise.

Photos by PFC Zoltán Hajdu and the author