Hungarian Exercise Control Staff at Clever Ferret

The Hungarian participants of the exercise are drawn from the HDF 5th ‘Bocskai István’ Infantry Brigade and its modular elements, the HDF Civil-Military Cooperation and Psychological Operations Centre, the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base, the HDF 1st EOD and Warship Regiment and the HDF Medical Centre. The exercise also involves the Italian Alpine Brigade ‘Julia’, subunits of the Slovenian 72nd Brigade and observers from the Austrian armed forces. The exercise training objective (ETO) is to make sure that the subunits – which come from various countries but have been serving with MLF for years – are capable of efficient cooperation.

During the time spent here, soldiers of contributing nations have multiple opportunities to practice together. Apart from the executive subunits, the HDF Joint Force Command (HDF JFC) has delegated controllers/evaluators to the Exercise Control (EXCON) staff. They are in charge of coordinating and controlling the cooperation between the headquarters of the Multinational Land Force (MLF HQ) and other MLF subunits. The members of the team are doing their job in different cells corresponding to their special fields.

In answering our question, Lt.-Col. Győző Atkári, a designated senior officer of the HDF JFC Command Directorate, the EXCON EVAL/O-CJOC controller/evaluator of the exercise told us that the participating staff had a very complex mission, because a multinational team of controllers/evaluators had to control the work of a multinational brigade HQ, to analyze the lessons learned and to evaluate its combat readiness. Lt.-Col. György Örley, a designated senior officer of the HDF JFC Land Operations and Training Directorate was a liaison officer of the situation centre, being responsible for the proper, necessary and timely flow of information among the EXCON, the training audience and the team of controllers/evaluators. He pointed out that during the exercise, the synchronization of live tasks with staff exercise tasks was of outstanding significance.

Logistic support is equally important in everyday life and during an exercise.
Lt.-Col. Szabolcs Horváth, a designated senior officer of the HDF JFC Logistic Operations Directorate was in charge of the tasks of logistic support in the EXCON staff. One of the primary training objectives of Exercise Clever Ferret 2014 is to create and strengthen civil-military cooperation. Maj. Gyula Harnócz, a senior officer of the HDF JFC Civil Affairs Directorate is a Hungarian expert member of the EXCON staff. His tasks are to monitor and evaluate the management of those events during the exercise which relate to the special field of CIMIC/INFOOPS/PSYOPS. The multinational staff of the MLF HQ had to execute tasks and respond to various incidents during the exercise. In the pre-exercise phase the EXCON Main Event List/Main Incident List (MEL/MIL) cell scripted these events/incidents and sent them to the given special cells. Naturally, the Hungarian soldiers’ expertise is needed in this field too.

Capt. Sándor Szabó, a senior officer of the HDF JFC Land Operations and Training Directorate had actively participated in the work of the EXCON MEL/MIL cell during the exercise planning phase and is now involved in the execution phase as well.