BEMOWO PISKIE, POLAND • When ground troops, artillery and aircraft gather to show off their firepower, as troops from five nations did in Poland last week, it’s an intricately planned dance to ensure everyone arrives and no one gets hurt in the blasts.

Colorado soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division based at Fort Carson and Colorado natives currently living in Germany as members of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment helped to pull off the exercise, called Griffin Shock, that brought together more than 3,000 soldiers and an international set of military weaponry, including Romanian Gepards, anti-aircraft tanks, U.S. Strykers and Howitzers and Croatian Panzers. Even career soldiers were seeing some vehicles and weapons for the first time, like an impromptu international military convention.

The soldiers converged for the exercise required by NATO in the northeastern Polish countryside that the average traveler from Warsaw reached by numerous narrow country lanes that passed through villages, farmland and woods.

About 2,000 U.S. soldiers with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment made the trip from southern Germany over about 700 miles over three days in 25 separate convoys. It’s a trip that would normally take 12 hours by car.

Scheduling such a trip on a short time schedule presented challenges at the heart of the exercise, said Colorado Springs native Maj. Adam David, an operations officer with the regiment

“The whole point of this exercise was rapid — to demonstrate the capability to deploy rapidly and fight essentially on demand,” said David, who made the trip in the back of a Stryker as a vehicle commander while also tracking a squadron spread across three of the 25 convoys.

He explained his experience as he stood in front of a line of 36-ton Dragoon Strykers, eightwheeled armored vehicles. It was one of the many rows of military vehicles parked around an observation tower as they came and went from various training grounds. Extensive sets of tents were also set up in the same area for the 2nd Cavalry Division and NATO’s Multinational Division Northeast, which was running the exercise.

On the way to the training ground one of the regiment’s Strykers broke down. But, fortunately, each convoy travels with a recovery vehicle that can move the enormous trucks off commercial roads if they obstruct traffic, David said.

Once in Poland,

U.S. troops used a tactical voice bridge to share radio traffic with soldiers from other countries. The exercise included troops from Croatia, Romania, the United Kingdom and Poland, in addition to the large contingent of U.S. soldiers.

To overcome language barriers, human translators are preferred, but in a pinch, David said, soldiers use Google Translate, a live free translation service, just like tourists.

Prepping for the impressive live-fire displays also takes extensive mapping that includes how the ammunition is expected to behave.

Each unit turned in a detailed plan of where it is shooting and what