Coordinated, precise, international

Also present on the DV Day of the exercise were the commanders of territorial defence forces of the Visegrád Four (V4) countries. Speaking about Exercise Moonstar 2025, Brigadier General Dr. László Drót, Commander, HDF Territorial Defence and Military Augmentation Command said that in contrast with earlier years, this year they deployed territorial defence reservists under multinational command in multinational subunits, and in addition to target practices, the modern military assets of the Hungarian Defence Forces were also involved in the operations. “Besides the H225M helicopter, the reservists used drones during task execution, and had operational units available to them in the role of fire support teams” – said the brigadier general.

The two-week international environment made it possible to involve territorial defence reservists in platoon-level training exercises following the earlier individual- and squad-level ones. Talking about the emerging challenges, Lieutenant Colonel Antal Orosz, Commander, HDF 2nd Territorial Defence Regiment pointed out the importance of English-language communication, which caused less and less difficulties to the soldiers as time went by.

“It’s a great pleasure to be the commander of such a good team, because, as leader of the organizing unit, I think that our reservists were well-prepared and carried out their tasks in multinational subunits with excellent attitude, so they are now able to perform professionally in international environments as well” – this was how Lieutenant Colonel Orosz summed up the exercise from the organizers’ point of view.

Liaison NCOs play a key role in the success of multinational tasks. Warrant Officer Patrik Ardelean, a soldier of the HDF 2nd Territorial Defence Regiment liaised with the Hungarian company commander and the Polish deputy company commander, so the exercise brought him especially many novelties.

“I’ve learned a lot about the Polish way of task execution, and also about how to quickly cope with differences and difficulties of the two kinds of procedures. We are nearing the end of the exercise, but I saw along that the soldiers of the two nations were doing their best in the interest of joint success” – said WO Patrik Ardelean.

Besides the executing countries, observers from Slovenia and Croatia also arrived to attend the exercise. They were introduced to the structure of the Hungarian system of reserve, as well as the reservists’ role in territorial defence.