No Bargain, No Attack
// Russians got round Americans to take part in the attack
Military cooperation
A scandal burst at the Grafenwuehr training ground in Germany yesterday where Torgau-2005 Russian-U.S. military exercise is held. The Americans declared without any explanations that the attack at the simulated country of Bodaria would be carried out by their troops only, with the Russians watching the fight from the outside. The Russian military men managed to get the “allies” round after long talks. “We have come here to take a practical part in the exercise, not to watch it,” the Russian head of the military exercise Vladimir Glebov, who successfully defended rights of the Russians during the talks with Gen. Michael Tucker, explained to Kommersant.
As Kommersant wrote on May 30, the second stage of Torgau-2005 exercise (the first one finished in Moscow Region last week) started on Monday when 168 military men came to the American exercise ground in Bavaria and got down to prepare an active stage of the exercise. Several dozens of officers belonging to the joint staff of the exercise framed a plan of the participation of Russian and U.S. military elements in an offensive at the territory of a simulated country of Bodaria. Under the legend, the Bodarians threaten the adjacent pretend country of Atropia. That is why the latter turns to the UN for military aid.
Meanwhile, 85 Russian military men (cadets of the Moscow troop commanding military school and the Kolomenskoye artillery school) started studying American weapons and equipments, for which two days were allocated, according to the schedule. Not only had the cadets mastered the equipment but they also showed their skills of the handling of enemy’s weapons (for instance, M16A2 rifle, M4 carbine and M145 machine-gun) at the fire line having successfully fulfilled all the U.S. tasks. As for “bigger pieces”, the Russians became familiar with M1A2 Abrams tank, M2 Bradly infantry fighting machine and Paladin self-propelled mount, training driving the machines at trainer-simulators.
The final stage was fixed on June 1-2. It was to include an offensive against the Bodarian aggressor (a defensive was trained by the Russians and Americans at the Vystrel training ground outside Solnechnogorsk). However, as Kommersant learnt, the deputy commander of the exercise from the U.S. Michael Tucker told his Russian counterparts yesterday that the active stage would take only one day (June 2) and will involve only the U.S. soldiers. The Russians were offered a role of outsider watchers was.
What served the cause of this demarche is still unclear. Perhaps, the progress of the Russian cadets in mastering American weapons seemed inadequate for the Americans. Or, perhaps, the reason was an abrupt departure of Lieut. Gen. Alexey Potapov, Russian head of the exercise, who had to leave Bavaria for Moscow on his family affairs. However, Col. Glebov ruled out the latter theory as baseless saying that he had assumed all powers of Gen. Potapov. In any case, the Russian party would not agree to the new plan, after all the deputy commander of land forces Vladimir Bulgakov was due to attend the final part of the exercise wishing to see these practical actions of the Russian unit attacking.
In the end, Glebov managed to persuade Gen. Tucker of the necessity to keep the previously agreed on plan of the Russian participation by the evening talks that lasted for many hours. Russian interpreters had to repeat several times that the joint military exercise were in fact designed for military men of the two countries to act together. Russians also insisted that no one was in charge to alter the approved plan without sanctions of the commanders. It is hard to say which of the arguments seemed more convincing to Gen. Tucker but he did change his mind. So the Americans and the Russians will attack the Boradian terrorists together today.
Ivan Safronov, Grafenwuehr
All the Article in Russian as of June 02, 2005
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