Italian Navy press release – Translation by Luca Peruzzi
About four weeks of intense training, with over 100 ships, aircraft, submarines and unmanned vehicles. There will then be a substantial presence of amphibious ships and personnel both from the San Marco Marine Brigade and from the Spanish and French Navies and Marine units, alongside the US Marine Corps and US Navy, all with their wheeled and tracked vehicles. COMSUBIN raiders and divers are also involved.
In the joint and inter-agency context, Mare Aperto 2024 will see the presence of units from the Army, Air Force, Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza, as well as naval and air vehicles from the Coast Guard. Added to these are civilian personnel from various university institutes, research centres and organizations in the maritime sector, Defence and other Ministries.
“The edition of Exercise Mare Aperto (MA24) which started today, constitutes the largest training event ever organized by the Italian Navy. There will be four intense weeks in which over 9,000 men and women will be confronted with a simulated crisis scenario which will progressively lead to a situation of open confrontation. The forces will be organized into opposing parties that will operate in all the different environments of the maritime domain, from the high seas, including the seabed, to the coastal and littoral areas. The other domains, air, land, space and cyber, will naturally also be intensely involved, in a fully multi-domain manner and with an approach that will be joint, inter-agency and inter-ministerial at the same time,” Admiral Aurelio De Carolis, Commander in Chief Naval Fleet.
“Among the novelties of this year, I would like to highlight the connection between Mare Aperto and the Polaris exercise of the French Navy, which in the hottest phase will lead to the confrontation between the attack groups of the Cavour and Charles de Gaulle aircraft carriers. As regards the international level, Mare Aperto 24 sees the participation of forces belonging to 11 NATO member countries and as many partner nations of the Alliance,” remarked Admiral De Carolis.
Admiral Aurelio De Carolis, Commander in Chief Italian Naval Fleet
This year, the exercise will also involve NATO’s standing naval mine countermeasures group deployed in the Mediterranean (SNMCMG2), naval assets operating under the EUROMARFOR initiative, the Spanish landing force and the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier group.
“The Maritime instrument will be able to demonstrate all its capabilities, acting in the multi-domain context and remaining interconnected through the infrastructures of the innovative cyber and space domains,” Admiral Aurelio De Carolis explained, underlining how the Italian Navy’s commitments have never been so numerous and challenging, with command roles carried out throughout the entire area of the ‘Wider Mediterranean’, starting with the tactical direction of all three European naval missions currently underway – Atalanta, Aspides and Irini -, Task Force 153 within the Combined Maritime Forces, as well as the Gabinia mission in the Gulf of Guinea. “The Mare Aperto represents a now consolidated and internationally recognized exercise format, which allows us to train maritime forces in order to carry out these command tasks with capacity and authority, developing challenging training scenarios consistent with the current global geostrategic framework.”
The forces and personnel of the Italian Navy Fleet, which will exercise until May 27th, together with the French and Spanish forces, supported by those of 20 other NATO and partner navies, will operate in the central Mediterranean in an area that will go from the Ionian Sea to French coasts, incorporating Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.
During the exercise, aspects of support for the civilian population in the event of natural disasters will also be taken care of and, in this context, some training activities will be conducted in the port of Cagliari with the involvement of local authorities and organisations, the Italian Civil Protection, the National Inspectorate of the Volunteer Military Corps of the Italian Red Cross, the Volunteer Nurses of the Italian Red Cross and of the Italian Order of Malta Corps.
On board the Italian Navy Fleet ships, there will also be 65 university students, including students and accompanying teachers, representatives of 15 Italian universities who will integrate into the staff on board, depending on their studies. The involvement of the students, in a consolidated multi-year relationship, highlights the constant commitment of the Navy in promoting the culture of the sea as the main element for the growth and prosperity of Italy. On board the Cavour ship there will also be representatives of the Centre for Defense Higher Studies (CASD), the highest training body for officers of the Italian Armed Forces, the Ce.S.I. (Centre for International Studies) and the Center for Geopolitics and Maritime Strategy (CESMAR).
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