Exercise Trident Jaguar 2014 (TRJR14) has been recently conducted at several locations with the main Exercise Control (EXCON) location at JWC in Stavanger, Norway. There, NCI Agency Squadron Stavanger (NCST) supported more than 400 military and civilian personnel from 29 countries.
TRJR14 marked a milestone for JWC as the first exercise to train two Joint Task Force (JTF) Headquarters simultaneously, with land and maritime expeditionary aspects, under a single EXCON organization, scenario and MEL/MIL script. Despite this, NCST successfully supported the event with CIS, including the deployment of some 535 end user devices. These were almost exclusively thin clients with desktop images virtually provided.
The current PE fill – as well as the future PE size – does not allow for full local exercise support without augmentation. The US Navy Reserve (USNR) yet again provided support; augmenting NCST with three individuals for the build/preparation phase, and another three for the execution phase. Despite long hours, NCST seems to be a popular destination for USNR IT deployment, as several of the Reservists have been there on recurring occasions, and promised to volunteer at next opportunity.
During TRJR14, NCST was not the only CIS unit in place in Stavanger. A total of 27 CIS personnel from NATO Rapid Deployable Corps – Spain (NRDC-ESP) and 21st Spanish Signal Regiment deployed to JWC. The regiment's primary responsibility is to provide national CIS support to NRDC-ESP. They brought with them two vehicle mounted satellite terminals, server infrastructure, and close to 100 laptops for their C2 system SIMACET, deployed alongside the NATO thin client infrastructure. The SIMACET network was distributed using the NCST provided fibre network and intelligent patching system. Cooperation between NCST and the Spanish CIS staff was exemplary.