The Finnish site, FINCENT, is situated in Tuusula, the home of a former air defence regiment just outside the Finnish capital Helsinki. FINCENT moved to this small town just a couple of months ago.
The site is laid out with the Site Exercise Centre in the School building. The officers who are acting as battalion commanders are working from an annexe just outside the School building while the training audience, the 2nd Multinational Brigade HQ, is located in one of the now empty barracks in the area.
From the start of the exercise the military and civil sides have been working very closely together. It has been agreed that everything we inject into this exercise should affect both the civil side and the military units. We have a considerable number of roleplayers capable of acting as the various individuals and bodies that the brigade needs too interact with. Our main objective is to focus on the interaction between the civil organisations and military units.
As from next week we are going to have both a military and a civilian training audience. That will lift this exercise to another level.