Prague, May 2 (CTK) – Ales Opata, the new chief-of-staff of the Czech military, who takes up the post on Wednesday, wants to reinforce the fighting capabilities of the infantry, in particular through the modernisation and rearming of the 7th mechanised brigade, he told CTK on Wednesday.
Specifically, the 43rd parachute battalion should be expanded within the next years to a regiment. At the same time, a command of cyber and informational operations and a logistics support battalion should be established in Rakovnik, central Bohemia, he said.
“The ground forces represent the core of the Czech Republic’s military and our security is based on them,” Opata said.
The 7th mechanised brigade should receive new infantry fighting vehicles, he detailed.
The Defence Ministry previously said the acquisition of more than 200 tracked vehicles would cost about 53 billion crowns.
Opata also said he wanted to continue the already running projects of air force modernisation, particularly the purchase of multipurpose helicopters. He said he would work on changing the system of military command and management, too.
He wants to focus on every soldier being equipped with the basic tactical weapons. He also wants to top up staff numbers. Some 2,000 new soldiers should continue to be recruited annually. By 2025, there should be around 25,000 soldiers in the military, a number adequate to the demographic development of the country and to the capacity of the army’s current immovable infrastructure, he said.
The organisational cores of three units should emerge soon, that is of the command of cyber and informational operations, a logistics support battalion and of “a third manoeuvring element,” which is to complement the 4th rapid deployment brigade and which would be created through the expansion of the current 43rd parachute battalion into a regiment, Opata outlined.
Opata would like these units to have their organisational cores established between 2020 and 2022 and to achieve their initial operational capability.
Opata further said he wanted to continue working with the team of his predecessor Josef Becvar and complement it with new people in the future. He stressed that he wanted the General Staff to be stable, however.
Opata mentioned he planned to appoint the new deputy chief-of-staff, who is to take up the deputy role after him, in the course of May, without discussing any names yet.
