Tactical Exercise of River Units of Serbia and Hungary
Friday, 20.9.2019 | Training
In the framework of bilateral military cooperation, members of the River Flotilla of the Serbian Armed Forces and the 1st EOD and Warship Regiment of the Hungarian Defence Forces conducted a multinational tactical live fire exercise on the topic of protection of inland waterway traffic dubbed Iron Cat 2019.
Seven joint engagement exercise sequences show the work of divers and pontoneers when removing a sunken car from a river, mine action in finding, deactivating and destroying underwater mines, anti-ship actions and various variants of fighting terrorist groups on the water.
This is an important exercise for our soldiers, because we in Hungary do not have the opportunity to conduct live firing on water. The exercise showed excellent competence of both the individuals and the units involved. This year's exercise also showed that joint cooperation at the level of the group of ships, while carrying out live firings as the greatest challenge, is truly a unique level of our cooperation – Brigadier General Attila Takacs, Inspector of the Hungarian Land Forces, said.
Evaluating the exercise as successful, Captain (Navy) Andrija Andrić, commander of the River Flotilla, pointed out that it was for the first time that the firing was performed by a combined group of ships, and the cooperation of members of the two armies, as before, was excellent.
The exercise, which involved 90 members of the River Flotilla, 29 members of the HDF 1st EOD and Warship Regiment and many vessels on both sides, led by Lieutenant Commander Dalibor Tasić, was monitored from the deck of Kozara special purpose vessel by Brigadier General Zoran Nasković, Commander of the 1st Army Brigade, Colonel Goran Stamenković, Head of the Training Department in the Army Command, and Colonel Zsolt Szilágyi, Commander of the HDF 1st EOD and Warship Regiment.
Corporal Nemanja Ugren and Private First Class Janoš Pocok were named Best Gunners, and Brigadier Generals Takacs and Nasković presented them with the badges of a great marksman.
The first joint exercise of the River Flotilla and the HDF 1st EOD and Warship Regiment dubbed Iron Cat was carried out at the training area near Titel, on the Tisa River, in 2011, and the following year in Varpalot, on the Danube River in Hungary. In the following years, the exercise has been carried out alternately in Serbia and Hungary, and this is the ninth edition of joint exercise involving members of the river units of the two armies.
