Northern Challenge 18
The exercise NORTHERN CHALLENGE is a Multi-National Bomb Disposal Exercise which was conducted between 16th of September to the 27th of September. The purpose of Northern Challenge is to train response to real-life terrorist incidents involving improvised and military explosive devices, similar to those that have occurred in recent NATO missions and of those to be expected in future missions. IEDs in a maritime environment have proven to be a serious threat in various mission areas. The exercise area offers the opportunity to exercise maritime IEDD as a supplement to land based IEDD. 14 nations, the C-IED COE and EOD COE attended the exercise, with a total of 250 participants, 24 EOD teams, 2 search teams and 4 WIT operators. The teams had to deal with 590 devices, from which 315 land and 100 maritime. The aim of the exercise is to provide a unique possibility of pre-training mainly for IED teams serving, or being deployed, for international missions. C-IED COE has supported this exercise with subject matter expertise in various areas of the Counter IED domain.