The Israel Defense Forces and approximately 75 Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe's 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, based out of Kaiserslautern, Germany, will conduct combined missile intercept training operations the evening of March 19-20, in Israel.
"The purpose of this live fire exercise is to practice and hone air defense capabilities, while improving our interoperability with the IDF," said Col. David E. Shank, 10th AAMDC commander.
The live-fire, which falls at the tail-end of exercise Juniper Cobra 2018, practices some of the computer-simulated events that occurred during the previous weeks of the exercise. JC18 occurred formally from March 4-15, with activities associated with the exercise starting in late January and ending in late-March.
JC18 is a ballistic missile defense joint U.S.-Israel exercise that uses computer simulations to train U.S. and Israeli military and civilian personnel. Planning for JC18 began in late 2016 as part of regularly scheduled training between U.S. European Command and the IDF. The exercise involves more than 2,500 U.S. participants, and approximately 2,000 IDF participants.