A few weeks ago, Greece sent a tank platoon of Leopard 1A5 tanks, TOMA Marder infantry fighting vehicles and support vehicles to Champagne, northern France, now part of the consolidated Grand Est region.
This force was deployed as part of the Orion-26 exercise gaming an invasion by Russian or other hostile forces, with allies coming to the support of the French.
As usually happens in these cases, the exercise was pronounced a success. But, not for the first time, problems of transporting forces from one country to another were evident: It took a whole week for the Greek armored force to reach Champagne. Under actual war conditions, the battle would have been decided in that time.
The Leopard tanks left their units in Thrace, northeastern Greece, and embarked in a Landing Ship, Tank (LST) in the northern port of Kavala. The ship made a one-day stopover to plan for the next phase of deployment; it sailed to the French port of Toulon and the force made it to the “front” by special rail.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made clear the need for fast shifting of forces from West to East and from South to North. But shifting forces in peacetime is especially difficult.
