Marchwood Regiment in Albania for large military exercises

More than 5,000 square metres of military equipment including Foxhound armoured vehicles were loaded onto MV Hartland Point, a roll-on roll-off cargo ship, at Marchwood Military Port last week, and have made the nine-day journey by sea to Albania.

Under the umbrella of Operation Chelonia, British Army troops from Marchwood's 17 Port and Maritime Regiment will take part in a "challenging and complex" mission to test and prove their world-leading capabilities.

Vehicle Support Specialists have to use every inch of space effectively as they park hundreds of vehicles aboard (Image: Alfie House)

Exercise Austere Wolf will see the regiment work alongside logistics units to perform a ship-to-shore landing of equipment which, if laid out in single file, would stretch for 2.6 kilometres, in a manner only a few NATO countries can.

And the Echo has travelled with the Army to the front lines, 200 kilometres from the Albanian capital Tirana, to witness the work continue first-hand.

Transferring equipment from ship to shore

Ordinarily, the armoured vehicles and equipment would be off-loaded from the vessel into a fully functioning seaport. But the British Army are using the exercise to test - and prove - their capabilities to project significant force elements without the need for established infrastructure.

The vessel has anchored just off the Adriatic coast in Vlore Bay and awaits logistics troops to establish a beachhead in the Pasha Liman area of the Balkan country so servicemen and women of the 17 Port and Maritime Regiment and the 165 Port and Maritime Regiment can ferry the equipment from ship to shore using a Mexefloat platform.

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The Mexefloat will have to be built on the water and ensures the British Army can transfer the equipment from the ship to a small beach without the need for a port or pier - with the British among the very few NATO allies boasting this capability.

Foxhound armoured vehicles that had originally been planned to drive through Albania and Macedonia to reach Kosovo before a change in the Army's schedule (Image: Alfie House)

Capt Elliott Jordan of the Royal Logistics Corp, who helped oversee the loading at Marchwood's Sea Mounting Centre before travelling to Albania, said: “It is quite a challenging and complex exercise but exciting at the same time.”

The Mexefloat is deemed a virtually unsinkable powered landing raft, consisting of a bow, stern, and centre which can be fitted together, that is operated by twin engines at the back of the structure and has been serving the British Army since the 1960s.

They delivered around 80 per cent of the vehicles and equipment used in the Falklands War, where they were sometimes ‘triple-loaded’ with up to 300 tonnes worth of equipment - causing the raft to sink knee-deep into the water but remain afloat.

The Mexefloat will ferry equipment from ship to shore without the need for a port (Image: Alfie House)

An 'exciting' operation

Having begun on Sunday and set to continue on Monday, Exercise Austere Wolf will involve the 104 Theatre Sustainment Brigade establishing the beachhead, with the help of wide-ranging trades such as diving teams made up of British and Albanian troops and the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, so a force could deploy effectively via the beach landing.

Army reservist Hal Gamble, of 165 Regiment, said: “I know that one of the things the diving ops team will be doing is cutting up a massive propeller shaft of a boat that stretches across the section of the naval base where the Mexefloat came in tonight.”

Ahead of the Ro-Ro vessel’s journey, the Echo was invited to Marchwood Sea Mounting Centre to watch as the masses of armoured vehicles and support equipment, which had been growing harbour-side over the period of a few days, was loaded in a meticulous order by Port Operators and Vehicle Support Specialists.

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Private Bertram Gordon explained: “There are so many different vehicles, if you don’t focus you can easily do the wrong thing. It is full of small spaces, loading the ship is the biggest challenge. This is my first operation and it is an exciting one.”

Private Bertram Gordon is a Port Operator helping to loads the Ro-Ro vessel (Image: Alfie House)

With only one way on and off the boat, the vehicles and equipment are loaded mindful of what goes in first comes out last. A crane onboard lifts the Mexefloat itself to and from the top deck.

With every metre of the Ro-Ro’s usable space filled, each inch and gram is strictly monitored. The armoured vehicles onboard are loaded with no more than three-quarters of a tank of fuel.

Instructors tutored new recruits on how to operate the Mexefloat during our visit, performing a mock landing on a Marchwood jetty built for D-Day in 1944. A lot of current Mexefloat operations occur in Belize, while rehearsals are done in Southampton and Gosport.

The operation is a crucial demonstration of the British Army's commitment to its political allies. Tension in the Balkans has been growing since a series of conflicts in the former Yugoslavian states across the 1990s, which required UN and NATO intervention.