Organised by the German Rapid Reaction Division, exercise Green Griffin 2021 saw some 3000 troops from Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and the United States being trained in Eastern Germany between 27 September and 8 October.
During the latest iteration of the bi-annual field training exercise, AEC Skyline deployed its Learjet 36A platform, hereby delivering much needed Close Air Support (CAS) training. Meanwhile, vital, specialist C4I support by AEC Skyline aided some of the ongoing ground operations by establishing critical communications.
In addition to German and Romanian troops, Green Griffin participants included elements from the Dutch 11th Airmobile Brigade (Air Assault). In its turn, the exercise’s ground component was supported by Dutch, German and US rotary wing assets.
One of the units from the Dutch Airmobile Brigade that was involved was the brigade recce squadron’s Pathfinder platoon. Renowned for their ability to reconnoitre potential landing sites for air assault, airborne and tactical air landing operations, the pathfinders brought along some of their recently acquired mini unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Among the capabilities provided by these UAS is the ability to generate imagery of possible landing sites from the air. This provides friendly forces with considerable stand off range from enemy troops that might be operating in the area.
However, in order to guarantee adequate situational awareness among the full Pathfinder platoon as well as in the tactical operations centre, AEC Skyline was asked to deploy an Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) server/media gateway combo. The latter equipment provided the essential linkage between the platoon’s and higher echelon’s various ATAK, WinTAK users.
Meanwhile, the adhoc router streaming box we deployed, combining Peplink’s LTE-A with Haivision’s video encoding technology, allowed us to distribute UAS video feeds, reports, 2D and 3D overlays. In addition, ATAK users benefitted from Level 2 Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED L2), on- and offline maps. Communications using the devices that have been issued to the pathfinders to run ATAK and other applications, was enabled by our multivendor connectivity simcards, the latter provided through AEC Skyline’s Whisper secure roaming services.
