Six nations, 25 ships including the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, and 65 aircraft (including 20 Rafale Marine) have been participating since Thursday in Polaris 21, an unprecedented full-scale exercise to prepare the French Navy and more generally the allies of France To a potential conflict that could take place at sea. Twelve boats have already set sail this Thursday from Toulon, the others will do the same for a ramp-up for a week. The real hostilities will begin in a week, requiring a high intensity engagement with an opposition between the blue force and the red force. The exercise will be played out mainly in the western Mediterranean, but also with impacts on the French Atlantic coast.
The precise scenario is known only to a few insiders precisely in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the exercise but in general terms, it will be for the blue force (which will be made up of the carrier strike group articulated around the PA Charles de Gaulle ) to react to the attack on part of the continent by the red force (gathered around the Tonnerre helicopter carrier) claiming to be from the fictitious country “Mercury”. And to accentuate the difficulty, this same red force will set up an air-land device which will prevent the blue force from approaching the coasts.
Particularity of this exercise, beyond the density and the quality of the units (Navy, Land and Air) which are engaged, it is an exercise which integrates all the new fields which one could henceforth find in a conflict today. hui. The crews will therefore have to face the war of disinformation, but also that which is being played out in cyberspace, or via electromagnetic fields. “All that thickens the fog of war“summarizes Rear Admiral Christophe Cluzel at the head of Polaris 21.
The latter does not know the entire scenario either. “I just know that we will be 2000 kms away when the action begins. And that the enemy will put a denial of access bubble on an area. What I want to demonstrate is that there is no inevitability in denial of access. With daring by combining our effects with a fairly broad approach, with the combination of kinetic and non-kinetic effects, and with the effect of surprise, we are able to lift all the locks on the door one by one. that the opponent is keen to put“details the commander of the carrier strike group.
A means therefore for the Allied forces to put themselves in real conditions and to prepare for the future, but above all for the French Navy to demonstrate that it would be operational in the event of a major conflict. “I am convinced that tomorrow there can be a hard fight at sea“concludes Rear Admiral Cluzel. The objective is therefore to prepare for it, but it is also a very clear message, coupled with a show of force, addressed to countries which are not allies of France: the French Navy has the means to be up to the task of inventing the war of tomorrow.
End of hostilities in two weeks.
– Christelle BRANDS