Calian began supporting the Exercise Orion series in September 2021, delivering a range of expertise, including exercise and project management; strategic and operational planning; civil/military affairs; land, air and intelligence specialists; and international organizations specialists. The exercise is the result of the French strategic review published in 2017, which signalled a return to war fighting and a return to near-peer conflict after two decades of mostly asymmetric warfare with non-state actors, predominantly in Africa. The backdrop of the exercise is the ongoing war in Ukraine, re-focusing training efforts on high-intensity conventional operations. France has not held an exercise of this scope and scale in decades.
The scenario was developed in September 2021 before the invasion of Ukraine and has proved highly relevant to delivering challenging training and tactical development at all levels and across all domains. The challenge was developing a realistic, credible and coherent scenario within the constraints of integrating a large-scale live training component in training areas in the south and north of France with concurrent constructive simulation activity.
The exercise concept includes two components, executed between February and May 2023. The first component included 7,000 maritime, air force, amphibious and airborne troops conducting expeditionary operations in South of France. For the first components of the exercise, French troops operated alongside forces from the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany. The second component will be held in April and will include 12,000 troops deploying to North-East France for what is known as Orion 04. This large joint exercise includes the full range of French military capabilities for air forces, amphibious and airborne operations.
Calian supported the final MEL/MIL scripting for Orion 04 execution phase and will deploy to France in April to support Orion 04 EXCON during execution of the exercise. In Orion 04, a French armoured division will deploy and exercise over two weeks in the Champagne-Ardenne region at the Suippes, Mailly and Mourmelon training areas. Orion 04 will focus on the deployment of a French 3rd armoured division with three brigades. Other HQs will represent a partner division HQ, corps/division troops and lower response cells. The higher, warfighting headquarters, will be Rapid Reaction Corps (France) with a simulated corps, land component HQ and host nation HQ to provide wider context and training.
