Army effects, joint fires exercise ends at Rovajärvi

The Army effects exercise MVH21 organised at the Rovajärvi range and training area to develop the Army effects and joint fires in a rapidly developing situation framework ended on Friday.

Another objective of the exercise was to strengthen troops’ competence in planning joint fires and in combined arms inter-service-branch interoperable cooperation.

A total of 4,000 personnel — including about 2,700 conscripts, reservist and salaried service personnel from the Finnish Defence Forces and 800 vehicles from all services and from the Finnish Border Guard — participated in the exercise, which took place in November 10–26.

The exercises amid snow and ice encouraged the conscripts, who arrived from different parts of the country to become fully ready to operate in wartime heavy military ranged weapons.

“It is my third exercise but first time in Lapland. It is taking place in a beautiful atmosphere. I like such exercise very much,” conscript Leivo told the Daily Finland during the exercise.

Two other conscripts, Kiiskinen and Soini, expressed their satisfaction about successfully completing their tasks in the exercise in winter and getting the opportunities to gain more experiences of heavy weapons.

“The objective is to develop the entity of Army effects and joint fires in a rapidly developing situation framework. The exercise will also develop inter-service and intra-Army interoperability,” Exercise’s Public Information Officer Marika Heinilä said.

“The exercise will strengthen troops’ competence in planning joint fires and in combined arms inter-service-branch interoperable cooperation,” the officer said about the event, which takes place once a year regularly.

She said that a significant number of conscripts participating in the exercise would be mustering out in December.

“For the conscripts, it marks the final training exercise after which they are ready to operate in their set wartime tasks. The exercise tests and validates the competence, capability and training of the conscripts mustering out later this year on their set tasks as a wartime force," Heinilä added.