The Spanish Army's broad participation in a large military parade in Slovakia

@DefAviation ES 8·30·2024 · 21:48 0

On August 29, Slovakia celebrated the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising against Nazi Germany.

The Spanish fighters and ground forces in a military parade in Latvia
Spanish military participate in the parade of the Polish Armed Forces Day

The anniversary was celebrated with a parade in the town of Banská Bystrica, which was where the uprising began. This military parade is one of the largest to be organised in Slovakia in many years, with the participation of 3,000 soldiers and 260 vehicles and weapon systems belonging to the two branches of the Slovak Armed Forces: the Land Forces and the Air Force.

In addition to Slovak soldiers, delegations from allied countries also took part in the parade. The Spanish delegation was the largest of the foreign delegations, with troops from the 'Almogávares' VI Parachute Brigade (BRIPAC) of the Spanish Army who are currently deployed in the NATO Multinational Brigade in Slovakia.

In addition to the ladies and gentlemen parachute legionaries marching on foot (the largest non-Slovak infantry contingent taking part in this parade), there were also two VAMTAC ST-5 Uro tactical vehicles with M-2 Browning machine guns and two with LAG-40 grenade launchers, two VAMTAC ST-5 mortar carriers, two VAMTAC SK-95 towing 105 mm L-118 Light Gun howitzers and two Centauro cavalry reconnaissance vehicles.

It should be noted that, curiously, Spain was the only foreign country that contributed vehicles to this parade. You can see here a video published by the Defense Staff in which we see the Spanish participation in this military parade:

Below you can see a video of the full parade, published by Startitup. The Spanish soldiers marching on foot appear at point 46:29 and the vehicles at point 1:27:14:

You can see here some screenshots from this second video:

Spanish soldiers on foot parade, all of them members of the Parachute Brigade.

The two VAMTAC ST-5s were equipped with 40 mm LAG-40 grenade launchers. Behind them were two others with 12.7 mm Browning M-2 machine guns.

The two VAMTAC ST-5 mortar carriers.

The two VAMTAC SK-95 towing L-118 Light Gun howitzers.

The two Centauro cavalry reconnaissance vehicles.

On the other hand, the Slovak Ministry of Defence has published some photos from the parade, but without showing any of the foreign participants. In this series of photos we can see some of the Slovak weapon systems that took part in this military parade, such as these Soviet-made T-72M1 main battle tanks. The Slovak Land Forces have 30 of them.

On the left, a 155 mm SpGH Bia self-propelled howitzer, and on the right a 120 mm ZTS AM-120 mortar carrier. These are two of the current projects of the Slovak defence industry in the field of artillery systems.

Two BOV 8x8 Patria wheeled armoured vehicles, produced jointly by Finland and Slovakia. The Slovak Land Forces are planning to receive 75 of these vehicles, although there are plans to purchase a total of 500.

The first two F-16V Block 70 fighters of the Slovak Air Force were seen at the air parade, with the Slovak Air Force expecting to receive a total of 12 of these multi-purpose combat aircraft.

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Photos: Estado Mayor de la Defensa / NATO Multinational Brigade Task Force Slovakia / Ministerstvo Obrany Slovenskej Republiky.