UK Joint HQs complete command post exercise

ST Engineering Antycip and MAK Technologies' VR-Forces platform was used for the first time as the main constructive simulation in Exercise ‘Joint Venture 25'. (ST Engineering Antycip)

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) completed Exercise ‘Joint Venture 25' (JV25) in November, a major joint headquarters (HQ) command post exercise (CPX). The exercise was delivered by the UK's Integrated Warfare Centre (IWC) in concert with a consortium led by defence and training support company MASS, part of Cohort Group.

According to a release from MASS, JV25 “tested all components of the Standing Joint Force Headquarters Group (SJFHQ Gp), including the SJFHQ, JFHQ, and Joint Force Logistics Component (JFLogC), across the full cycle of planning, deployment, and execution of UK sovereign tasks in a broader NATO context”.

The exercise involved up to 200 military personnel deployed across two fixed locations, the UK's Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) at Northwood and the Battle Labs at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham, and several remote nodes in the Baltic states and Scandinavia. For the first time exercise control (EXCON) was split between the two fixed locations, while the principal training audience was located at the remote sites.

The Joint Force Training department of the IWC used MASS to design, prepare, deliver, and analyse the exercise under its Joint Command and Staff Training (JCAST) contract from the MoD's Cyber & Specialist Operations Command (CSOC), which was extended for two years in March 2025.