NATO is practicing urban warfare in the Altmark

ISpring has arrived in the Altmark, the farmers from the area near Magdeburg are driving out into the fields with heavy tractors. Right next door, the landscape is plowed through in a completely different way. Because April brings new troops to the massive Letzlinger Heide training area. The training area is 30 kilometers long, up to twelve kilometers wide, and full of sensors and evaluation technology. With the test-tube town of Schnöggersburg, the combat training center has a scenery for urban warfare that is unique in Europe, 500 buildings, fully digitalized.

There are houses, churches and the “seat of government”, a rudimentary university and even a subway – at least a few meter long underground tubes. Behind the intersection of “Teufelsberg” and “Altstadtring” you go to the train station and a loose collection of old containers – the “slum area”. One of the concrete houses has the sign “Annabel's Golden Rings” on it, and another houses a taxi headquarters. The “bishop's seat” is a building that should not be shot at if possible. The special thing: Every movement, every shot there is filmed and recorded and can be evaluated later. “We are making the battlefield transparent,” says Colonel Heiko Diehl, he is the boss here.

Together with Norwegian and Czech soldiers, units of the Panzergrenadier Brigade 37 “Free State of Saxony” are in the area, one of the best-trained combat units in the Bundeswehr. Together with its partners, including the Norwegian Telemark Battalion and a combat battalion from the Czech Republic, the brigade provides a combat-ready unit that can be deployed particularly quickly in the event of a conflict and quickly engage in combat. The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force is the best that NATO can offer in the shortest possible time for alliance defense; the Bundeswehr Grenadiers were at the forefront of this spearhead last year.

With more than 90,000 soldiers and 6,000 vehicles, the Western defense alliance is currently practicing defense against a large-scale attack in many places in Europe, from the far north of Norway to the Romanian Black Sea region. As things stand, he comes from Russia. These days, transport ships are leaving America's coasts, the European landing ports, such as Antwerp and Emden, are preparing for the arrival of thousands of vehicles: everything from tanks to maneuverable jeeps. Thousands of troops are flown across the Atlantic.

Risky exercises on the program

The hub of the “Steadfast Defender” exercise is Germany, where the Bundeswehr is holding the largest maneuver in a long time: “Quadriga 2024”. Brigadier General Alexander Krone and the units subordinate to him are taking part in this in the Altmark. Its approximately 5,000 soldiers have been on the move for around two years. For the 3,000 Germans and their multinational comrades, it was a long journey of constant practice and improvement, tough tests and constant readiness to be relocated to any location within a few days. Krone, a wiry officer in combat fatigues, has led his brigade since the end of 2020. He has apparently done well, because the experienced Panzergrenadier is now set to take over the Special Forces Command (KSK), a special challenge.

Risky exercises are on the agenda at the combat training center these days: First, large parts of the unit crossed a body of water with the help of the German-British “Minden Pioneers”, who have a pretty spectacular floating bridge system, a monster called the Amphibian M3. In just a few minutes it transforms from a truck into a boat with bridge elements that, when put together, allow even tanks to cross a body of water like the Elbe. And as quickly as they come, the Minden bridges are packed up again and well hidden. A particular advantage in times when reconnaissance and combat drones have significantly changed the battlefield.