NATO Exercise - Trial Spartan Hammer 2006

Source NATO: http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2006/02-february/e0208a.htm

A major exercise to be held in Greece in November this year will test NATO countries’ capability to share real-time intelligence to support operations, including counterterrorism.

Trial Spartan Hammer 06 will test for the first time a joint intelligence system combining land, maritime, airborne, space, and special operations forces assets.

It will focus on critical NATO shortfalls in real-time geographic location of threats, including terrorists, detecting and locating GPS jamming, managing joint signals intelligence systems, and improving technical interoperability.

"Trial Spartan Hammer is the next in a series of NATO intelligence-related field trials. Focused on combating terrorism and other critical military missions, Trial Spartan Hammer is part of NATO's ongoing military transformation," said Marshall Billingslea, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment.

Key capabilities

The exercise builds on last year’s NATO Trial Hammer 05, a demonstration in which participating NATO countries implemented a new standard for sharing signal intelligence.

This year’s exercise will focus on signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities for expeditionary forces and counterterrorism missions.

It will have specific implications for the NATO Response Force by developing methods for sharing time-critical information to build a common picture of the battle space.

The exercise will exploit NATO Network-Enabled Capabilities and use data links such as Link-16 and Link-11 to share intelligence and electronic warfare information instantaneously across 13 countries’ equipment. It will feature defence against terrorism scenarios to determine how intelligence and electronic warfare can aid in locating and characterizing terrorist threats.

Through this, the exercise will contribute greatly to transforming NATO’s intelligence capabilities and to NATO’s Defence Against Terrorism programme, run by the Alliance’s Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD).

The exercise will take place at various Greek airbases, and will be conducted in conjunction with its national electronic warfare exercise, ‘Trojan Horse’.