Lest is more. It is an unfortunate quirk of CBRN

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1 CBRNeWORLD Gwyn Winfield visited the CBRN training areas at Lest and Zemianske Kostrolany to see how the Slovak armed forces are improving their CBRN capability It is an unfortunate quirk of CBRN fashion that the role of the Slovaks is overlooked. I would suggest the genesis of this was the first Gulf War, when Czechoslovak forces detected an organophosphate release that no-one else did, and in the ensuing passing of paper up and down the lines of command this became shortened to Czechs. Certainly many Americans, and some Europeans, would be surprised to find that the quality and the standard of Slovak forces is at least as high as that of their old compatriots across the border. We have looked at Slovak CBRN capability before (CBRNe World Spring 2007 and December 2013), but for no good reason it is the first time that we have visited. It is very easy to be impressed by Training Centre Lest. The site used to be the home of the soviet 1st armoured brigade, is 56.4sq miles (146sq km) of Slovak hill country and comprises three separate training areas. One of these is the dedicated CBRN area, which represents approximately 15% of the space, but the Slovak CBRN troops are not constrained to only train in this area. They can also train in the rubble pile and Jakub village. Much of the Lest site retains infrastructure from its recent past, and this is of massive benefit to the centre. As well as the mundane elements, such as lots of tank sheds, there are massive blocks of flats, once occupied by thousands of soldiers, which are now empty. This allows a range of scenarios to be played, everything from clandestine labs through to storming opposed residential apartment blocks. A short distance from these blocks is Jakub village which has been turned into a site for tactical officers, tactical medics and CBRN officers. In addition to the Afghan village and the train station (which is cleared for live rounds and chemical simulants) there is an extensive rubble pile and tunnel complex which the CBRN soldiers use as part of their contaminated urban search and rescue (USAR). Despite the prevalence of fire, health and law enforcement units at the site there is little mixing between civil and military units, of which more later. The Slovak armed forces number approximately 15,000 (slightly below the 21,000 in the Czech forces), but that is mainly army, since the country has no navy and a very small air force. Despite recent improvements in Slovak CBRN, such as the Aligator recce vehicle and the multi-role decon capability, there is still a lot of legacy equipment about, including various BTRs and decon tenders. Indeed when I get there an operational rehearsal for the EU battlegroup (EU BG) is underway and looming through the fog are a number of number of vehicles that used to belong to the baddies. The EU BG is a rapid reaction force and is much the same, in terms of mission and composition, as the Nato response force (NRF). Slovakia is the lead nation in the Visergrad four EU BG in the first half of 2016 and provides a CBRN multifunctional Coy for this battalion of around 1,500 troops. The misty hills of Lest abounded with a mechanised infantry unit preparing itself for decontamination. As regards the CBRN element this was classic Nato doctrine, providing decontamination to armoured units to enable them to continue their mission. Lt Col Oliver Toderiska, CBRN battalion commander, explained that the exercise had been created to ensure close collaboration between CBRN units and infantry and to ensure that commanders understood the time constraints a decon mission could impose. We are exercising core skills, but it is also about cooperation between our CBRN units and our infantry. Without us being here the unit would go through a decon line and say it is fine. Only with real people and vehicles can we find out that this works in the real world or that works or this needs to be built up. Other recce elements were out in the mist providing detection support to infantry units and acting as CBRN support to the commanders. Slovakia will be the president of Council of the European Union for six months from July 2016, and as such there is a lot of political focus on the role of the Slovak armed forces in the EU battlegroup, but this is not the only exercise that is running. In another part of Lest the Indiana national guard is preparing for an exercise. In 1994 Indiana was lucky enough to get Slovakia as its partner in the US European command state partnership programme and the units regularly train together. For Indiana this means that its national guard units get to train at Europe s premier military live agent training facility, Zemianske Kostrolany. Unlike the better known Stone Cottage, in the Czech republic, Zemianske Kostrolany can only train government forces. The unit only charges the direct costs in terms of the production/handling of the agent and the clean-up of the site, which makes it hugely cost effective. Not surprisingly the facility is massively oversubscribed. As well as Indiana and national/local forces the site also manages most of the European Nato nations live agent training (LAT) including that of the Czechs, French, Belgium and Austrians. Of the 30 training weeks available this year, just under a third of the LAT time was recently was taken by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is busy preparing its inspectors for whatever might happen in Syria. (The centre is constrained by meteorological matters as it can get 60 CBRNe WORLD April

2 too hot or cold.) Civilian forces are still a novelty; this is only the second time the counter narcotics team have trained there (see page 65), but more are expected thanks to the success of Toxic Valley (more later). Much like other LAT centres the danger zone is split into five sites, covering sample preparation, detection and decontamination exercises and personal/equipment decontamination areas. The various stations are not much to look at, and while teams can bring their own equipment they have to be prepared for its likely destruction post training. The site can train up to 100 people a day, but the training team feel more comfortable with 60. The Indiana national guard units will get a chance to do real sampling and decontamination missions using VX, sarin and CBRNe World April 2016 CBRNe WORLD 61

3 mustard agents. Lt Col Toderiska was keen to point out that the benefits are not one way. While the national guard gets live agent training, in return the Slovaks get to assess its standard operating procedures and assess them for their own use, should they ever get a similar mission. The latter is a long topic of conversation within the Slovak armed forces. Currently their mission set is 90% military, and they have strict limitations on what they can and can t do. Lt Col Toderiska explained: We have almost the same crisis management legislation as the Czechs [Laws 239 and 240 see CBRNe World June 2012 Ed.]. As a battalion commander I have the power in crisis situations to deploy my soldiers with two vehicles plus any logistics support The Slovak CBRN forces practice contaminated USAR in this rubble pile they might need. If it is necessary for saving lives I can do more. Lt Col Peter Koska, J3 plans at the Slovak general staff, went into detail: In Slovakia we have a strict law in terms of deployment of our forces, we can only deploy in extraordinary situations, a disaster. You spoke about the development of the forces; we would like to change the ratio between civil and military capability. Currently our forces are 90% usable for warfighting and 10% for civilian but we would prefer CBRN troops tend to be force enablers, and as such have a wide variety of skills available to them. These can range from dealing with emerging infectious diseases, as we saw with Ebola, through to flooding, as seen in the Danube area and pretty much every CBRNe World year in the UK. When the Slovak forces look at expanding this mission set where would it be? Lt Cols Toderiska and Koska felt that it would most likely be in the traditional CBRN space, hazmat and high visibility events (HVE). In my opinion, said Lt Col Toderiska, it would be toxic and industrial matters, working together with the ministry of interior. We currently focus on military chemical warfare agents (CWA), but we could work closely with the interior on things like search and rescue in contaminated areas and dealing with mass casualties. Lots of traffic passes through Slovakia, and there could be an accident where something is released on the road with a lot of people affected, so we would need to help them and increase our skills to respond faster if something 62 CBRNe WORLD April

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5 happens. The military is currently a tertiary responder, an additional resource; we need to move from that into an element of integrated rescue, this is my point of view. Lt Col Koska outlined his vision: We could increase cooperation with sampling and identification of biological, chemical and radiological agents (SIBCRA) in support of police investigations, and we could help with the transport of dangerous materials between state authorities. In terms of flooding, we have pumping capabilities and could increase and modify this capability. When it comes to the bio aspect, no-one else in the state can do bio detection, so in the case of HVE like the 2011 ice hockey championship or the Bush Putin summit, these CBRN aspects were covered by the armed forces. To evolve the current practices would take a change in the law, and no matter how passionate the team is about allowing their CBRN skills to be used in support of civilian authorities, neither saw it as likely in the short term. Regarding the traditional mission, the warfighting function, the team also have plans for continuing improvement of the system. Much of this is along the same lines as the national piece, in terms of military assistance to a civilian power (MACP), albeit when on operations. So the team is keen to see the improvement in toxic industrial sensing in their Alligator along with the ability to decontaminate civilian vehicles, not just military ones, without destroying them in the process. The other element they want to work on is improved deployability, as Lt Col Koska explained: We need to look at our deployability. Much of our equipment is really heavy, which is a problem in terms of the expeditionary concept. We need to develop or modify our decon and recce assets so they are more deployable, and heavy decon will only be used in limited cases. My opinion is that we need smaller gadgets that can do a couple of vehicles, rather than a battalion. We shouldn t just focus on the decon of hundreds of kilometres but also be prepared to decon one building with a small team. Regarding detection we are quite happy with IMS. If you look at the cost of procurement for GCMS there really is a huge difference, so considering the cost benefit analysis we are not going to change. Currently CBRN is mostly based in the CBRN battalion, and the operational decon is done by the affected units. There is some thought that we should move more decon to these units, so they should be able to do their own complete decon, with CBRN units as a special reserve rather than the primary decon resource. This won t be easy given the vehicles we use and we need to change the concept of the older vehicles and then establish a new concept. We are not, however, going to develop any special forensic capability or weapons intelligence unit. We have no institution that can provide the knowledge and spending a lot of time and effort to build it doesn t make sense. The next big event the Slovaks are looking forward to is Toxic Valley. This is scenario based exercise for sampling and identification of chemical agents (SICA) that takes place in the autumn. Last year produced approximately 100 participants from Austria, Belgium, the Czech republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and France as well as military and law enforcement units from the host nation. This brought everyone s sampling teams together to attempt to take a CWA sample in a range of environments, with the samples being tested later in the lab for accuracy and concentration. Last year s Toxic Valley was a massive success, a great chance for all participating nations to examine their SOPs and see how their skills and tactics differ from those of their law enforcement cousins. Lt Col Koska stated that further operational forces and units that want to take part should contact him via cbrn@mil.sk but space is limited The team seemed to be looking forward to the EU battlegroup with relish. While part of this is clearly about national prestige, some of the desire did seem to be about being the international centre of things. What then is the end result from leading the CBRN element of the battlegroup, what do the Slovak CBRN forces want to get from it? Lt Col Toderiska was quick to respond: It is interoperability. That is what we want - to be able to work, deploy, cooperate and run a mission with different nations. It was the same with the NRF, in 2014 we had one company and for us the outcome was to be challenged and to cooperate. You can have excellent SOPs, but if they don t align with your peers SOPs you cannot operate. We can t forget that preparing the units for international deployment means lots of paperwork and that is good, too. It is important to put them in this position once every five years, to refresh all the measures needed for international deployment, all the customs staff, transportation staff, calculations and every aspect that needs to be covered. With so few real CBRN operations it is difficult to judge any CBRN soldiers on merit, they all tend to look good on paper. It s fair to suggest that you train hard to fight easy, however, and if that is the benchmark you d have to put the Slovaks in the top tier. Lest is an amazing facility, used by a wide variety of conventional and special military forces, and the same applies to the civilian side. When I was there the queue of police cars outside the gate betokened either a police conference or a buy one get one free at Krispy Kremes. Admittedly the competition for live agent training facilities in Europe is not huge, but the fact that it is constantly busy training the best CBRN units in the world would suggest an active approach to capturing and implementing SOPs and TTPs. It will be interesting to see, if and when the civilian mission expands, what difference it makes. CBRN always needs to be in the commander s eye, lest he think it a luxury he can do without, and ensuring that they are busy in MACP missions, if not warfighting ones is a good way to do this. Being able to take lessons from the home mission and apply them away (and vice versa) is a required skill in 21st century CBRN. Once the political will catches up with the military appetite it is fair to say that Slovakia has a couple of first rate training institutions that will help them master the skill set. 64 CBRNe WORLD April