From Yonne to Aube, the Army will have sought on several occasions to overcome natural obstacles during the fourth and final phase of the ORION exercise. The opportunity, for the battalion armed with the 3rd engineering regiment of Charleville-Méziéres, to confront some technical and tactical innovations with the realities on the ground.
Around fifty sappers were busy this afternoon of April 22 on the banks of the canal linking Lake Amance and Lake Temple, in the center of Aube. Behind, the VBCI and Griffon of the 1st Tirailleurs Regiment are preparing to cross this wet cut using forward crossing machines (EFA) implemented by the 19th Engineer Regiment. The place was not chosen at random. Combat engineering divers infiltrated there a few hours earlier to report the current, the state of the bottom and the banks, the presence of enemies, and to neutralize the mines and other underwater traps encountered. A dangerous but discreet 5 km infiltration, carried out for almost 9 hours, more than half of which was spent underwater. But an operation for which the 3rd RG was able to count on a team of four Belgian divers from the 4th engineering battalion of Amay, a Liège unit with which the Ardennes maintain privileged links.
Once the crossing point has been determined, operations continue on the surface. The 7th Armored Brigade, one of the units engaged in a final phase having mobilized 12,500 French and foreign soldiers, is leading its counter-offensive against «Âa Mercury-sizing enemy“who trapped or destroyed the surrounding bridges, indicates the corps commander of the 3rd RG, Colonel Jérôme Pâris. It’s up to the engineers to do what they do best: allow others to progress despite the hazards of the terrain. If water helps divers escape enemy eyes, the rest of the force must be imaginative to guarantee their survival. This time, and contrary to usual, the crossing of several hundred vehicles will take place under a magnificent spring sun. HAS” The enemy, who has been trained in French doctrines, expects us to cross this night and not before. The innovation encountered today is to carry out a daytime crossing“, he continues while recalling the care of the organizers of “move up with one click in animation and enemy scenarios» between ORION 2023 and this second edition.
The night has long been synonymous with discretion. It was before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “We noticed, thanks to the lessons from the Eastern flank, that today working at night was an additional danger“, notes Colonel Pâris. The multiplication of infrared sensors and light intensification systems carried by drones, vehicles, satellites and dismounted combatants in fact further exposes machines whose thermal footprint is further strengthened on water cooler than the ambient air. “You are visible for miles around“, summarizes the commander. The Russian army tried its luck several times, but fared badly.
Regardless of the moment, a crossing remains a risky operation. “The complexity of this maneuver must be understood as an immense moment of fragility for the maneuver of the brigade which wants to cross“, points out a colonel at the head of a battalion of around 400 sappers during ORION. Mercury suspects that the Army will try to pass somewhere. “The strength of this type of operation is the surprise, it is putting all the means in place at the last moment. The most fragile means – the EFA – will only arrive at the last moment », explained colonel Paris. «ÂThe chef’s intention was to go quickly and surprise“, he notes. The 7th BB is moving quickly. HAS” We are even ahead so we will try to dynamically push our leading units through“, announces its commander, Brigadier General Maxime Do tran. 30 km to the south-east, in Bayel, another detachment assisted by a SPRAT section of the 13th engineering regiment carried out an equivalent maneuver for the benefit of the “Ace of Clubs” tactical group led by the 35th infantry regiment and reinforced with Italian armored elements.
« We are realizing some obvious things and changing the way we wage war“, assures Colonel Pâris. Drones, for example, whose detection announces the inevitable strike that will follow. The anti-drone fight has therefore become “everyone’s business“. Positioned in the surrounding woods, the very short-range ground-to-air defense is systematically present to reinforce the jammer rifles and other 12 gauge rifles available to non-specialized personnel. However, no shield is perfectly waterproof. At the same time, we must regeneralize certain tasks – or rather reflexes – a time set aside, starting with air surveillance. “Not only is it no longer secondary, but essential», insists the boss of the sappers.Â
The speed of execution underlies excellent coordination, another challenge in a minimum combined arms maneuver akin to “a clockwork mechanism“. Long invisible, the circulators of the train regiments nevertheless play a central role in the fluidity of the maneuver. Upstream or downstream of the crossing point, it is up to them to guide the different “sticks”, trains of around ten vehicles spread over a radius of 5 to 10 km which must be brought to the site in the right order and at the right time. The brain of the maneuver, the command post has long since become a prime target again. Here again, the Army is increasing its experiments. During ORION, the 3rd RG will have counted on two innovations. On the one hand, inflatable tents in just a few minutes for the driving PC. And, on the other hand, a dummy PC to deceive opposing sensors. The 3rd RG will have relied on a few dummy devices to construct this attempt at deception, such as this low-cost multispectral decoy made of canvas and tubes and tasked with imitating a small protected vehicle. Or, simpler still, this radio and this generator set at full speed to cover the tracks in the electromagnetic field.
Other “large objects” will arrive in a few years to renew French crossing capabilities. Registered in military programming law, these will require a little patience. With its 40 years of service, the fifteen EFAs in service “Â still work very well“. Its replacement is nevertheless already planned through the SYFRALL program. Entrusted to the temporary consortium formed by CNIM Systèmes Industriels, CEFA and SOFRAME, SYFRALL announces, among other things, a teleoperation capacity for crossing machines allowing “to put a robot wherever possible and a man only if necessary“. Although eagerly awaited by the Army, this program was only launched at the end of last year. Only a first increment has so far been contractualized, but the subject will at least have been the subject of ” a grouped order from 2025 for all systems within the scope of increment 1 rather than several orders spread over timeHAS”. The update of the LPM in no way changes the objective set until then of delivering eight doors (300 m) by 2030, then 2500 m by the end of 2035.
And if the mass and the means are lacking, there will always be recourse to the allies. This is also the central issue of ORION, designed to demonstrate France’s capacity to assume its role as the framework nation of a coalition of allies during a major engagement. The presence of Belgian divers was therefore not insignificant. And even less so in view of the historical links built between “Ardennes” units and strengthened thanks to the binational CaMo partnership. Established in 2018, the latter will have made it possible to build and then maintain a common base. Since then, the sappers have increased the number of appointments for “put common words on identical procedures“, for example of shooting exercises in an aquatic environment. These links will soon be further strengthened. At the end of June, the 3rd RG and the 4th engineering battalion will lay the foundations of a first binational crossing section. A Belgian officer, a non-commissioned officer and a non-commissioned soldier will join Charleville-Mézières before the summer, an advance guard followed later by around ten other sappers. They will participate in a sharing of essential know-how at a time when the Belgian Defense seeks to rebuild a capacity put on the shelf two decades ago. The “heavy crossing” unit that it intends to create could be set up on the site of the Cerfontaine aerodrome, close to the Eau d’Heure lakes and a stone’s throw from the Franco-Belgian border. A choice which, if confirmed, will contribute to bringing the engineers of the two countries even closer together.
