Overview
- Roughly 1,300 troops from France’s 7th Armoured Brigade deployed with Leclerc tanks, VBCI vehicles, Caesar howitzers and eight helicopters for the 20 Oct–13 Nov exercise.
- The deployment used a ro‑ro ship to Greece, 12 road convoys through Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, 11 trains for armor and five military transport flights for personnel.
- Administrative requirements in peacetime forced planners to lock the force list in late August, with vehicle registrations, named manifests and police escorts required at each border.
- The EU is preparing a military mobility package targeting transit approvals in five or even three working days, while the Netherlands, Germany and Poland develop corridors and NATO keeps crisis‑time fast‑track procedures.
- Interoperability drills included river crossings, live artillery and breach operations, as France seeks to validate a brigade deployable in 10 days and to reach division‑level readiness by 2027, with a U.S. troop reduction in Romania judged militarily negligible.