Taking part U.S. and Bulgarian personnel will work alongside allies and companions Albania, Belgium, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Turkey, and the UK in quite a lot of maritime warfare situations, all designed to boost interoperability and reveal solidarity amongst collaborating nations.
Breeze is an annual train hosted by the Bulgarian Navy and usually takes place within the Black Sea area round Bulgaria each July. The train dates again to 1996, and this 12 months marks the twenty sixth iteration of the train. The train highlights allies and companions’ dedication to bettering their mixed functionality and capability within the Black Sea area.
“Exercising with our NATO allies and companions is important to making sure safety within the Black Sea area,” mentioned Rear Adm. Oliver Lewis, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet’s Director of Maritime Operations (DMO). “The ironclad dedication of the U.S. to NATO extends to each area and specifically to the worldwide maritime commons that the world depends upon for the secure transportation of meals, power, and commerce.”
Breeze 2022, which takes locations in and round Burgas and Varna, Bulgaria over the following two weeks, will emphasize anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasure, search and rescue, power safety/anti-terrorism operations, maritime interdiction operations, and anti-piracy mission areas, amongst different mission units and warfare areas. The U.S. contingent is well-equipped to help allies and companions in every of those mission areas.
P-8A Poseidon plane from U.S. Sixth Fleet’s Activity Power 67 will present maritime area consciousness within the area and can take part in a number of train serials. The P-8A is the U.S. Navy’s multi-mission maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane. The plane and its crew effectively conduct anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and humanitarian response
Expeditionary items from Activity Power 68, together with Explosive Ordnance Disposal Cell Unit (EODMU) 12, are additionally scheduled to coach alongside their counterparts in quite a lot of train occasions. These embrace mine response, remote-operated car looking methods, limpet response and handheld SONAR search, underwater looking methods, and underwater ordnance reconnaissance.
“I’m excited for the chance to enhance our readiness and interoperability throughout Train Breeze,” mentioned Capt. Cameron Chen, Commander, Activity Power 68. “Bulgaria has an extremely skilled navy and we stay up for the information and expertise we are going to acquire from working alongside the Bulgarians and our NATO companions within the Black Sea.”
For over 80 years, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-U.S. Naval Forces Africa (NAVEUR-NAVAF) has solid strategic relationships with allies and companions, leveraging a basis of shared values to protect safety and stability.
Headquartered in Naples, Italy, NAVEUR-NAVAF operates U.S. naval forces within the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) areas of duty. U.S. Sixth Fleet is completely assigned to NAVEUR-NAVAF, and employs maritime forces by the complete spectrum of joint and naval operations.
