MANNHEIM, Germany (Sept. 8, 2015) — Key leaders from U.S. Army Europe, or USAREUR, and NATO partners began a three-day sustainment terrain walk with a visit to the European Activity Set located on the Coleman Worksite here, Sept. 1.
The sustainment terrain walk provides an opportunity for the leadership of USAREUR, as well as NATO countries and other regional partners, to assess the capabilities of several key logistics nodes throughout Europe, which may be used to support future NATO and partner nation operations.
The European Activity Set at Coleman Worksite is a brigade combat team’s worth of equipment, pre-staged and maintained at the worksite for rotational forces. Regionally-aligned forces rotate from stateside-based organizations into the European theater through the Coleman Worksite, draw the equipment, mobilize and train throughout Europe, and then return the equipment for maintenance at the end of the rotation.
There is also an activity set at Grafenwoehr Training Area.
These pre-staged sets enable the U.S. Army’s regionally-aligned forces concept, which supports NATO and partner nations. Having equipment pre-staged in Europe allows incoming troops to quickly and effectively complete their training without going through the great effort and expense of shipping equipment for each rotation.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, USAREUR commanding general, said the intent of the rotational forces concept, the activity set and other efforts throughout the theater is to accomplish with limited resources the same mission that massive formations of troops accomplished in years past.
“Years ago, the United States had 300 thousand troops in Europe,” Hodges said. “Our mission was to deter aggression. Now we have 30,000. Our mission is still to deter aggression. Our task now is to take the 30,000 and make them act like we still have 300,000.”