An EUROMARFOR Task Group is activated from 15th to 26th of June 2015 to participate in the Portuguese Exercise “CONTEX/PHIBEX 2015 AND HARBOUR PROTECTION EXPERIMENTATION” (CT-PH15/HPX15). The exercise has been planned and is conducted by Portuguese Naval Command (COMNAV) to take place off the Portuguese western coast.

CT-PH15/HPX15 is a maritime exercise designed to enhance commands and units training and combat readiness level, force interoperability and cohesion while operating in littoral environment. For that, a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from a classical war fighting to Peace Support Operations (PSO), Maritime Security Operations (MSO), Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO) and Asymmetric Threats will be trained.

The exercise is programmed to start with a warming phase, focuses on interoperability training, then going through advanced disciplines comprising advanced maritime tactical exercises, culminating with readiness preparation of the units. The last phase of the exercise is focused on real time planning and execution of the full spectrum of operations in support of crisis management.

In this exercise are participating assets from Portuguese Armed Forces, from NATO SNMG1 and from EUROPEAN MARITIME FORCE (EUROMARFOR).

EUROMARFOR is participating with three frigates, ESPS Cristóbal Colón (Spanish), FS Courbet (French) and NRP Álvares Cabral (Portuguese). The commander of the group of ships is Captain (SPN) Domingo Gómez-Pamo Guerra, embarked on the flagship (ESPS Cristóbal Colón), and in his staff has officers from Portugal and Italy.

EUROMARFOR has created a gallery to save the best photos of the exercise on: http://www.euromarfor.org/gallery/13/1