CORMORAN 2021: French Navy, French Army conduct "an exercise with ambition"

French Navy's amphibious helicopter carrier "Mistral" during CORMORAN 2021 exercise.
Photo by Joris van Boven

In 2021, the French Navy (la Marine Nationale) and the French Army (l'Armée de Terre) organized the exercise CORMORAN 21. The subtitle for this exercise is “an exercise with ambition”. Previous CORMORAN exercises were using only one helicopter-carrier “porte-hélicoptères amphibie” (PHA) of the amphibious Mistral class of helicopter carriers. In the 2021 edition, two PHA’s were involved: the PHA Tonnerre and the name-giver of the class, the PHA Mistral. This gave the exercise planners an ‘ambitious’ task, which was heard often during the interviews.

Two amphibious helicopter carriers will give double striking power, but also a double ‘planning burden’ to get all ships and helicopters at the right place at the right time. More planning,more communication and more synchronisation were needed by the French Navy (Marine Nationale), the French Army (l'Armée de Terre) and the boarded Army helicopters of the ALAT (Aviation Légère de l'Armée de Terre).

From September 27 until October 15, 2021, the Naval Air Mobile Group (Groupe Naval AéroMobile, GNAM) conducted Exercise CORMORAN 21 in the Mediterranean Sea. This is an exercise in projecting power from the sea to the land. Some 1,500 soldiers from the French Navy and the Army are engaged in this high-intensity exercise. For the first time, a GNAM consisting of two amphibious helicopter carriers, the PHA Tonnerre and PHA Mistral, deployed with two airmobile groups with a total of 24 combat helicopters, as well as a support group.

Each amphibious helicopter carrier carried 12 helicopters onboard, the PHA Tonnerre carried the helicopters of the 1RHC, the PHA Mistral carried a mix of 3RHC and 5RHC helicopters.

The exercise is commanded by a joint staff, deployed aboard the PHA Tonnerre. The staff is made up half of soldiers from the ‘Force Aéromaritime Française de Réaction Rapide’ (FRMARFOR, the Aeromaritime Rapid Reaction Force) and half of soldiers of the the 4e Brigade d'AéroCombat (4e BAC, 4th Air Combat Brigade, based at Clermont-Ferrand (FR)).

The helicopter carriers were escorted by a number of battleships that would protect the ships from air and sea threats.

CORMORAN leadership

The GNAM (Groupe Naval Aéromobile) command is currently under command of Marine Admiral Christophe Cluzel, and its deputy commander is Armée de Terre General Frédéric Barbry. GNAM is responsible for the CORMORAN exercise and both Admiral Cluzel and General Barbry were present onboard of the PHA Tonnerre and during a press meeting, both officers mentioned the unique challenges, opportunities and ambitions to work with 2 helicopter carriers at the same time, during the whole 3 weeks of the exercise.

CORMORAN exercise planning

Colonel Hubert is the CORMORAN exercise director and he explained how the GNAM (Groupe Naval AéroMobile) prepared for and executed this exercise. More than a year was used to plan all aspects of the exercise. With a fictitious country that was invaded by another fictitious country (both countries were very conveniently located in southern France). The GNAM role was to intervene and to remove the invader.

The first ten days of the exercise were used for familiarisation and integration, to learn to operate from the amphibious carriers by day and by night in large helicopter formations.Three raids were planned involving the two carriers, with increasing difficulties.The first two raids were into the mainland of France, while the third and last raid would be a night raid into the Solenzara airbase (Base Aerienne 126 “Solenzara”, ICAO code LFKS) at Corsica.

Colonel Hubert was very honest on the media day during the interview in the middle of the exercise. He said that the third and final raid was a very ambitious goal. And he was not sure if this raid would be successful or not.