LOCAL RESERVISTS TACKLE EXERCISE RESOLUTE CASTLE

Exercise Resolute Castle is an ongoing NATO assurance operation, part of a USAEUR initiative to provide opportunities for NATO partners to operate together and provide a more visible presence in the face of increasing pressures in Eastern Europe. 

As part of this 71 Engineer Regiment was tasked with the construction of a K-SPAN building, used for storage and administration and a Plumb and Synch Ramp, used for bore-sighting for Heavy Armoured units. Within this 591 Field Squadron was assigned a part of the construction of both tasks.

On the Southern camp, known as Trzebien, a team of 38 Army Reserve, Regular Army, US Army and US Navy ‘Sea Bees’ worked on the Presidential Tank Range, a dusty 15 min drive away. Split over two co-located tasks – building a K-Span shelter and laying the foundations for another – the teams shared knowledge, resources and manpower in order to complete two challenging tasks, despite supplier errors, a very tight timeline and one of Europe’s hottest summers on record.

At the Northern location, Known as Karliki, a Troop of combat engineers, often reinforced by those of Trezibien for events such as concrete pours, oversaw the completion of 12 of 20 concrete pads. These were massive constructions containing over half a ton of rebar and 15m3 of concrete apiece, leading to over 188m3 of concrete being poured for the 591 element of the task. It was challenging throughout, with quite a few long days pulled not only to bring the task back on schedule, due to earlier delays, but bring it to a successful end-state for the squadron and help the overall regimental task come to a successful completion.