Royal Dragon
The month-long Combined Joint Task Force '96 exercise, called Royal Dragon by XVIII Airborne Corps and Purple Star by British forces, focused on force integration, rapid deployability, combined and joint operations in a crisis, and opposed entry operations. The exercise brought together the U.S. Army's 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division, the British army's 5 Airborne Brigade, the U.S. Air Force, the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Marines and 3 Commando Brigade -- the Royal Marines. The Norfolk-based Atlantic Command was in charge of the entire exercise. Exercise Purple Star of May 1996 saw the deployment of 5 Airborne Brigade to the American east coast State of North Carolina in the largest Anglo-American exercise for twenty three years. The aim of the operation was to practise a joint UK force in combined maneuvers in an overseas theatre. This was designed to test strategic deployment and command and control of the new Joint Rapid Deployment Force (JRDF) which formed on the 1st August 1996.
More than 38,000 Americans from all services and 15,600 British troops were scattered across the Carolinas and along the Eastern Seaboard for training. For British soldiers working with the 82nd Airborne Division, the prelude to Royal Dragon included jump exchanges, live-fire weapons training, basic airborne refresher training and exercises in parachute rigging.
The exercise involved a combined force of 45,000 United States troops and 12,000 British forces from all three Services, the largest deployment of American and British forces together since the Gulf crisis. It was designed to provide a challenging and testing environment for all those taking part. The scenario envisages a Combined Joint Task Force being deployed to provide assistance to a fictitious country invaded by a neighbouring aggressor. With forces operating as if under a United Nations mandate and appropriate United Nations Security Council Resolutions, the exercise included amphibious and airborne assaults culminating in land operations on training areas in North Carolina, with supporting maritime and air operations in adjoining waters and airspace. One aspect of the exercise was the integration of American and British headquarters staffs aboard a United States' command ship, and the placing of elements of United States' and British forces under each other's control.
Big Drop Three brought together 144 C-130 aircraft from 28 U.S. Air Force active duty, reserve, Air National Guard units and from the Royal Air Force. About 5,000 American and British paratroops descended through cold Carolina rain and London-like fog May 15 in one of the largest joint airborne operations since the World War II D-Day invasion of Normandy. The formation of 163 Air Force transports carrying troops and equipment to four drop zones at Fort Bragg, N.C., stretched 22 miles.
Exercise Royal Dragon dropped about 5,000 American and British troops onto four drop zones at Fort Bragg. About 1,880 paratroopers jumped at the Sicily landing zone, about 1,660 jumped at the Netherlands and about 840 jumped at Normandy. More than 300 soldiers didn't jump at Normandy because clouds were too low. Eighteen C-141 Starlifter cargo jets dropped 59 heavy loads onto Sicily, according to the 82nd. Twenty-one heavy drops were made onto Netherlands, but all the equipment drops on Normandy were canceled. The Air Force released preliminary statistics showing that about 92 percent of the paratroopers jumped. Thirty-five of the 57 planned heavy loads, or 61 percent, dropped, according to the Air Force. All but one of the 133 planes taking part in the operation took off.
During the exercise, nearly all of the United Kingdom's 1,500-man parachute force jumped with the 82nd. The massive airborne operation lasted a few hours, but the post-jump clean up lasted days. More than 100 soldiers were injured as about 4,350 British and American paratroopers jumped onto Fort Bragg drop zones. The injuries probably were lighter than expected, considering the number of people jumping at night in rainy, foggy weather.
In XVIII Airborne Corps JTF Exercise Royal Dragon in May 1996, the Corps intelligence team incorporated live sensor feeds for the first time. Air Force U2-R and Army Guardrail Common Sensor and OV-1D Mohawk aerial sensors down-linked through their preprocessors to the BV system. The long-range surveillance unit teams passed spot reports via satellite communications into the ABCS architecture which fed the BV system. Additionally, Grenadier beyond line-of-sight reporting (BRAT) emitters provided real-time updates of friendly force locations. The real-time overlay of red and blue data in a 3D view of the battlespace provided Royal Dragon warfighters with a high-fidelity, virtual view of their fight.
Managing military convoys in the continental United States (CONUS) in the late 1970's and early 1980's was cumbersome and inefficient. To improve the performance of this essential task, the Army initiated the mobilization movement control (MOBCON) program in 1985. The system played an important supporting role during Joint Exercise Royal Dragon in and around Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in May 1996. In that exercise, some 38,000 American military personnel from all services and approximately 1,500 British troops convened for live-firing, parachute rigging, and airborne refresher training. Members of the North Carolina state movement control center, operating as part of the joint movement control center, worked out of a shop van for 45 days, providing on-the-spot permits, convoy clearances, and convoy deconfliction support to Army units from the XVIII Airborne Corps, Marine Corps forces, and the British Royal Air Force.
Following a joint training exercise at Ft Bragg (Operation "Purple Star") and Camp Lejeune (Operation "Royal Dragon"), twenty-eight British paratroopers from a unit of 400 (7%) developed a rash illness of unknown etiology. The total contingency involved in the joint exercise, which took place between 25 April and 20 May 1996, included approximately 10,000 soldiers. Only one British unit developed symptoms; there were no reported cases among U.S. soldiers who participated in the exercise.
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