ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (BulgarianMilitary.com) – The United States Air Force announced yesterday, 25 September 2018, that the U.S. military forces from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command successfully completed the exercise Valiant Shield 2018 (VS-18), 16-23 September, around the Marianas Island Range Complex and on Guam, learned BulgarianMilitary.com

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, fifteen surface ships, more than 160 aircraft, as well as about 15,000 personnel from the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps were among the participants in the exercise.

Read more: The First of Four Red Flag-Alaska Exercises Scheduled for 2018 Was Held

The exercise director Rear Adm. Daniel Dwyer commented, “The Marianas Island Range Complex is a premier training environment that allows the joint force a unique opportunity to come together and train side-by-side at the high end in an at-sea environment. It’s extremely important. In any future conflict, no service will go alone. Any opportunity that we can come together to train as a joint force, makes us that much more lethal and capable.”

Read more: The Largest Training “Spring Storm 18” in the Black Sea with Bulgarian Participation

The U.S. forces were able to exercise a wide range of capabilities such as amphibious operations, maritime security operations, anti-submarine and air-defense exercises. At VS-18 it was also demonstrated the joint forces flexibility.

Valiant Shield is a U.S.-only biennial field-training exercise, the major goal of which is ensuring that the joint force is ready to conduct a wide range of combat operations.

Read more: The Multinational Joint Exercise “Platinium Lion 18” Begins

This year’s exercise, which is the 7th exercise in the Valiant Shield series started twelve years ago, in 2006, was postponed due to Typhoon Mangkhut.

At the end of Valiant Shield 2018 a sink exercise (SINKEX) was performed. It provided the opportunity for finding, fixing, tracking, and finishing a target at sea.

“SINKEX gives us that opportunity to do an end-to-end test of our joint capabilities,” explained Rear Adm. Daniel Dwyer. “It’s been incredible to watch the teams come together to become more capable and more lethal.”

Follow us everywhere and at any time. BulgarianMilitary.com has responsive design and you can open the page from any computer, mobile devices or web browsers. For more up-to-date news from us, follow our Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages. Do not miss the chance to subscribe to our newsletter.

BulgarianMilitary.com

Source: www.af.mil