Soft Caps 2018: International Exercise in Ócsa

About eighty soldiers of six nations co-operated in the course of the two-week exercise. The primary objective was to combine the civil-military interoperability that is the task-system of the CIMIC with the PSYOPS, the psychological operations, by establishing special, so called civil contact groups.

Colonel Csaba Szilágyi, the Commander of the HDF Civil Military Co-operation and Psychological Operations Centre (HDF CMCPOC) in reply to our inquiry noted that the appropriate co-operation between the nations is very important. “As we serve together with other nations in the missions, the exchange of experiences, the joint training and getting acquainted with the methods of each other is indispensable" – underlined the Colonel.

The typical task of the non-kinetic groups, used in practice, was the preparation and conduct of negotiations with the representatives of the governmental, non-governmental and other civil organisations. According to the fictitious situation a far-away land needed international help, which was provided by the United Nations and its specialized agencies, and an international military contingent. In the scenario furthermore another problem was also included: the conflict of two ethnic groups.

In the two-week exercise, in addition to the Hungarian soldiers five nations were present: participants arrived from the United States, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Slovakia, so foreign soldiers accounted for about one-third of the troops. The Soft Caps 2018 was at the same time one of the stations of the training of the European Battle Group offered by the Visegrád Four (V4), which enters standby-service in 2019.

The guests attending the last day of the exercise could view among others the container producing multimedia products, and also the part and parcel of the scenario of the exercise was the static display demonstrated for the schoolchildren of Ócsa.