Exercice African Lion 2020

Citation :

U.S. Army Africa, alongside representatives from Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Senegal, Spain, Tunisia and the United Kingdom, prepare for African Lion 20, during the initial planning event Aug. 5-9, in Agadir, Morocco. Exercise African Lion is a U.S. Army Africa-led multinational joint force exercise focused on improving interoperability between participating nations.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/16/army-africa-took-this-exercise-from-the-marines-and-plans-to-make-it-the-biggest-on-the-continent/

Citation :

Army Africa took this exercise from the Marines, and plans to make it the biggest on the continent

Kyle Rempfer
7-9 minutes

U.S. Army Africa has big plans for the coming years, as they look to take African Lion — an exercise previously owned by the Marine Corps — and make it the biggest on the African continent in spring 2020.

U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa has owned the exercise for the past 16 years. But now, Army Africa will be assuming responsibility for the planning and execution of African Lion, which will take place at the end of March and early April.

“It was a transition year this past year. This is the first year that we are truly in the lead,” Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, U.S. Army Africa commander, said in an interview with Army Times.

“To be quite honest, it has been going down in scope over the years and being reduced,” Cloutier said. “We saw it as an opportunity."

Cloutier envisions the exercise as an opportunity to not only develop partner capacity, but to build readiness for the U.S. forces that participate. At the end of African Lion 2019, Cloutier and his staff met with key players and began to develop a different concept of operations that would bring the exercise into much more of a multi-domain focus.

“For example, in this upcoming exercise, we are going to be jumping in a battalion task force alliance out of the 173rd Airborne Brigade here in Italy," Cloutier explained. "That is going to allow them to exercise their rapid deployment capabilities and do parachute assault. In my role as a senior responsible officer in Italy, it will allow me to exercise Vicenza [northeastern Italian city] as a power projection platform.”
Members of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Moroccan special operations forces, and the British Army’s 4 Rifles, Bravo Company, begin a room-clearing drill during the field training exercise portion of exercise African Lion 2019 in Tifnit, Morocco, March 26, 2019. (Deanna C. Gonzales/Navy)
Members of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Moroccan special operations forces, and the British Army’s 4 Rifles, Bravo Company, begin a room-clearing drill during the field training exercise portion of exercise African Lion 2019 in Tifnit, Morocco, March 26, 2019. (Deanna C. Gonzales/Navy)

African Lion is being envisioned as a multi-domain, complex training exercise that includes NATO allies and takes place in four countries: Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal and Spain.

Sign up for the Army Times Daily News Roundup
Don't miss the top Army stories, delivered each afternoon

Enter a valid email address

Thanks for signing up!

Sign up for the Army Times Daily News Roundup to receive the top Army stories every afternoon.

By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Army Times Daily News Roundup.

Army Times Logo

In addition to the airborne operations, the re-imagined African Lion will involve theater and strategic logistics planning, naval gunfire, special operations forces and even bombers and fixed wing assets out of Europe, according to Army Africa’s commander.

“This is going to be a no-kidding multi-domain complex exercise that people build readiness in," Cloutier said. “We are going to do very complex logistics and open the theater in three different countries.”

This past year, Army Africa still did “the heavy lifting, but we were falling in on kind of a Marine Corps plan and methodology," Cloutier noted.

“We are still working on the forces that are going to show up,” he added. “It will be two to three times bigger than it was last year. My intent is for this to be the largest exercise that takes place on the African continent.”

During the 2019 African Lion exercise, there were 2,500 participants. Troops from Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Spain, France, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States participated.
U.S. soldiers with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division run through squad battle drills with a member of the Rwanda Defence Force during Exercise Shared Accord in Gabiro, Rwanda on Aug. 20, 2019. (Sgt. Heather Doppke/Army)
U.S. soldiers with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division run through squad battle drills with a member of the Rwanda Defence Force during Exercise Shared Accord in Gabiro, Rwanda on Aug. 20, 2019. (Sgt. Heather Doppke/Army)

Cloutier also met with the chiefs of various armies during the 2019 African Land Forces Summit this summer in the southern African nation of Botswana.

The summit has representatives from 41 countries. It served as an opportunity to discuss issues and solutions for problems that they see currently in Africa.

“These are common problems that everybody is facing,” Cloutier said. “Most importantly, it was an opportunity to develop relationships. ... It makes it much easier to open doors, to pick up the telephone and call a land forces commander in a specific country and get a lot of things done fairly quickly that we could not do in the past."

Building those relationships is important for the United States. The African continent has a population of nearly 1.3 billion people. By 2050, it is expected to grow to about 2.4 billion.

“About 40 percent of the world’s population growth between now and 2050 is going to occur on the African continent,” Cloutier said. “By 2050, one out of every four people in the world will be African. It is a super young population. There is a youth bulge. They have six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world in Africa.”
A member of the Dutch Army uses a sand table to give feedback to members of the Rwanda Defence Force following their run of convoy operations training as part of Exercise Shared Accord 2019, in Gabiro, Rwanda Aug. 23, 2019. (Sgt. Heather Doppke/Army)
A member of the Dutch Army uses a sand table to give feedback to members of the Rwanda Defence Force following their run of convoy operations training as part of Exercise Shared Accord 2019, in Gabiro, Rwanda Aug. 23, 2019. (Sgt. Heather Doppke/Army)

China and Russia are heavily invested on the continent, building infrastructure, bridges and roads. But they’re also involved in the defense sector.

Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group — a private military company with deep Kremlin connections — have been active across the continent. They offer African governments training and equipment much like U.S. troops would, but without human rights oversight, American officials said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in April.

“They’re a quasi-military and as we saw play out in Crimea and Ukraine, little green men running around, not necessarily following rules or behavior we would expect from proper armies,” Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, who helms U.S. Africa Command, said during the hearing. “So I have a pretty significant concern for the use of these kinds of forces and the way that the Russians are using them on the continent.”

Cloutier said he has seen both Russian and Chinese military personnel on the African continent in different capacities.

Competing for partnership in Africa fits well into the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which prioritized a shift of U.S. military attention away from fighting insurgencies and toward competing against peer adversaries.

African partners are receptive to American trainers, even when they have long-term relationships with others, according to Cloutier. He recounted a conversation he had recently with a senior official from an African country, the name of which he said he would withhold.

“He told me, ‘hey look. We have had a long-standing relationship with another country for a long time. We feel like the world is passing us by,’” Cloutier said. “'We are looking for something new. We are looking for something new to be with the United States.'"

“There is an example of great power competition in the context of the NDS,” Cloutier added.

In that specific case, the country the African nation had a long-standing relationship with was Russia, Cloutier confirmed.

Le teaser de AL20 l'US Army parle de "Game Changer". Ça va être énorme, l'exercice rentre dans une autre dimension et avec notre coopération militaire avec les US

https://twitter.com/i/status/1192834160248807426

Citation :

AFRICAN LION MAIN PLANNING EVENT

Troops from across the United States as well as servicemembers from Spain, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy, gather at the main planning event for Exercise African Lion in Agadir, Morocco, Nov. 7, 2019. Spearheaded by U.S. Army Africa and hosted by the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, African Lion 20 is a joint force headquarters-validating, partnership- strengthening, readiness-building, multinational, multi-domain and multifunctional exercise testing the warfighters’ ability to deploy, fight and win in a complex, competitive and global environment.

Citation :

U.S. Army Africa Deputy Commanding General Brig. Gen. Eric Folkestad and Moroccan Brig. Gen. Abdelilah Sahri, the operations officer for the Southern Zone Headquarters, Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, sign minutes from a weeklong planning event ending Nov. 8, 2019, in Agadir, Morocco. (Army photo by Maj. Cain S. Claxton.)

Citation :

Army Capt. Kenny McWilliams discusses aspects of African Lion 20 with a member of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces in Agadir, Morocco, Nov. 5, 2019. McWilliams, state partnership coordinator for the Utah Army National Guard, joined more than 200 other service members visiting Morocco Nov. 4-8 to plan the largest exercise scheduled in Africa next year. (Army photo by Sgt. Jennifer Garza.)

Citation :

Navy Lt. Stephen Bean, U.S. Navy Africa, and Ltcdr Giacomo Potena de Martino, Italian navy, plan a maritime exercise for African Lion 20. (Army photo by Maj. Cain S. Claxton.)

Citation :

Army Capt. Kenny McWilliams discusses aspects of African Lion 20 with a member of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces in Agadir, Morocco, Nov. 5, 2019. McWilliams, state partnership coordinator for the Utah Army National Guard, joined more than 200 other service members visiting Morocco Nov. 4-8 to plan the largest exercise scheduled in Africa next year. (Army photo by Sgt. Jennifer Garza.)

Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, the USARAF CG meets with Royal Moroccan Armed Forces Southern Zone Commander, General Belkhir Farouq, Nov. 16 in Agadir, Morocco. USARAF is proud to host African Lion 20 with our partners. @USEmbMorocco @USArmy
@USAfricaCommand @DeptofDefense pic.twitter.com/2Rn0fNIIGi

— US Army Africa (@USArmyAfrica) November 18, 2019

Zaama... New treillis....

Après.. J'aime bien celui là..
Il est simple et costaud.. Enfin qd il est bien fait..

https://www.usaraf.army.mil/media-room/article/29388/exercise-african-lion-20-main-planning-a-success-in-morocco

Citation :

Exercise African Lion 20 Main Planning a Success in Morocco

AGADIR, Morocco – Military planners from the U.S., Africa and Europe worked alongside their Moroccan partners to plan U.S. Army Africa’s largest exercise, African Lion, in Agadir, Morocco, Nov. 4-8, 2019.

African Lion 20 will take place in four different countries: Morocco, Senegal, Spain and Tunisia and is the largest exercise to be implemented on the African continent.. This complex multi-national, multi-domain exercise consists of combined arms live fire, air-to-ground integration, naval gunfire, joint forcible entry, CBRNE operations, medical readiness, special operations and information warfare operations.

Morocco currently has a state partnership program with the Utah National Guard, which will be playing a significant role in the exercise.

“African Lion 20 is huge this year for the Utah National Guard and our state partnership program with Morocco,” said Capt. Kenneth J. McWilliams, the Utah Army National Guard state partnership coordinator. “We are in the process of working on a field training exercise as part of our combined arms exercise, a humanitarian aid component, and an air refueling detachment.”

McWilliams said the opportunity to plan with partners is crucial to the exercise’s success. It allows planners to coordinate the complexities of planning for several separate events within an exercise. Making sure all of coordination is complete prior to the exercise is essential for the service members who will be a part of the main event.

This year a veterinary exercise will be added to African Lion 20.

“The veterinarian component of this exercise is important to both militaries’ veterinarian services because we experience the same challenges, and we like to learn from each other in that regard,” said Capt. Maren Mason, a veterinarian assigned to the 83rd Civil Affairs Battalion. “We also experience a lot of different challenges and it is important for us to identify them in different areas of the world so that we can partner, become better and learn from each other.”

Maren said one of the primary goals of this exercise is to create a strong relationship and a solid foundation for the veterinarians to build on in the future to make exercises like this one more successful.

The upcoming exercise will bring together several foreign allies who are committed to African partners and the security and stability of their nations. Planning for African Lion will continue with a final planning event set to take place in January.

Citation :

More than 200 planners from several countries join together Nov. 7, 2019 in Agadir, Morocco, to plan the largest exercise scheduled for Africa next year.

Des nouveaux ateliers préparatifs sont organisés à partir d'aujourd'hui et jusqu'à Samedi au QG/EM/ZS.

Citation :

Militaries make final preparations for African Lion 20





“This annually scheduled, multi-national exercise is meant to enhance interoperability with U.S. and multinational partners in the spirit of the combined strategic military cooperation,” said Col. Nabil Taoussi, operations officer, Royal Moroccan Armed Forces.

African Lion 20, set for March 23-April 3, will be conducted in the Kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Spain. During the event both land and maritime training will be conducted by more than 5,000 service members from the U.S., Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, Tunisian Armed Forces, Senegalese Armed Forces, Spanish Armed Forces, alongside participants from the armed forces of Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands and military observers from more than a dozen nations.

“African Lion will include the set-up of a combined joint task force, command post exercise, academics and workshops, a field training exercise, air training exercise, maritime, CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives] activities, civil humanitarian exercise and medical-related exercises,” Taoussi said.

The activities are designed to enhance interoperability among partner nations against adversarial networks intent on destabilizing the region.

“African Lion is focused on getting after our joint task force capabilities,” said Col. John T. Harris, director of exercises and training for U.S. Army Africa. “The ability of AFRICOM and U.S. Army Africa to stand up a joint task force, address all the domains of combat, and be able to exercise air forces, naval forces, special forces and ground forces … make this a unique opportunity for us to get out and practice fighting as a joint force and command and control all of those domains.”

More than 30 U.S. and partner units will participate, including U.S. Africa Command, its service components, U.S. European Command, U.S. Strategic Command’s Global Strike Command, 101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, 173rd Airborne Brigade, 31st Fighter Wing, 100th Air Refueling Wing, Utah National Guard, Michigan National Guard, Washington DC National Guard, USAID, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the 79th Theater Sustainment Command, among others.

https://www.africom.mil/media-room/Article/32536/militaries-make-final-preparations-for-african-lion-20

Army Africa Intelligence Analyst Scott Saunders explains how planners built the scenario for next year's African Lion exercise.
https://www.dvidshub.net/audio/61642/designing-war-game

C'est le debut d'African Lion..

Le Paladin va être testé. C'est le futur nouveau entrant de l'artillerie Royale c'était prévisible.

Here comes the King of Battle. M109A6 Paladins from @UTNationalGuard were among the first equipment for #AfricanLion20 to roll off a @DOTMARAD vessel at the port in Agadir, Morocco, March 1. @US_TRANSCOM @USEmbMorocco @USAfricaCommand @USArmyEurope @USDOT @USArmy @thejointstaff pic.twitter.com/YK7jVHpXYu

— US Army Africa (@USArmyAfrica) March 2, 2020

Citation :

A M109A6 Paladin rolls off a Ready Reserve Force vessel as part of a 7,000 cargo movement from Jacksonville, Florida, to Agadir, Morocco.

Citation :

Bring in the heavy artillery -- M109A6 Paladins of the Utah Army National Guard are staged for movement from the port in Agadir, Morocco, to training areas where they will be used as part of African Lion 20, the largest exercise in Africa.

Citation :

Lt. Col. Scott Wyatt, commander of the 839th Transportation Battalion, explains the effort to move cargo from the states to Africa for the African Lion 20 exercise

[url=]

Citation :

Ship comes in -- equipment for AFRICOM’s largest military exercise arrives in Morocco

AGADIR, Morocco – A cargo ship from the United States arrived in port Feb. 29, with nearly 7,000 tons of military equipment set for use by more than 9,000 troops during Exercise African Lion 20 in the coming weeks.

A team of U.S. Army military logistics and transportation professionals received the equipment Saturday and moved it off the port to training locations in Morocco by Sunday night.

“It takes a lot of coordination. It takes a lot of teamwork,” said Lt. Col. Scott Wyatt, commander of the 839th Transportation Battalion, Surface Deployment and Distribution Command. “We at SDDC focus on a team of teams: partnerships, friendships and relationships. All of that is being showcased in this movement here in support of African Lion.”

Members of the U.S. Army Reserve 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command and the 970th Movement Control Team joined Utah Army National Guard 1st Battalion, 145th Field Artillery Regiment, and the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, to assist the SDDC in clearing the port.

Second Lt. Jean Rossy-Negron, the 970th MCT platoon leader, ensured all pieces were accounted for and tracked their movements all the way to the final destinations at nearby training areas.

“We work hand in hand with the SDDC,” Rossy-Negron said. “As soon as it comes off the vessel, it is in our jurisdiction. Once we accounted for everything, it’s about getting them ready to roll, whether that’s by getting them loaded onto trucks and having them line hauled, or preparing them to be fueled and convoy down on their own.”

The crew of about 40 Soldiers and Army civilians worked in darkness before sunrise through darkness after sunset to complete port operations.”

The effort was monumental, Wyatt said.

“In order to make something like this exercise be successful,” Wyatt said, “to activate reserve component units from the United States, to activate a Ready Reserve fleet vessel from the Department of Transportation, through the Military Sealift Command and, ultimately, U.S. Transportation Command, and get all of that equipment to the port in the U.S., and then get it on the vessel, have it shipped over here, and offload it in the country of Morocco, using Moroccan forces to support our onward movement, as well as Moroccan local authorities to protect our forces here as they download, and to facilitate the movement, is pretty amazing.”

Almost 4,000 U.S. troops are scheduled to join 5,000 warfighters from Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and many others in African Lion’s 17th year. This year’s iteration is the largest in its history.