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[PolarGamer]

Hey all. I don't know how many Nato soldiers are reading GAF, but I'm sure someone is interested.

This week (march 7 to 21) Cold Response 2014 kicks off in northern Norway with 16.000 troops from 16 nations. Living quite close to some of the forces, it's weird suddenly seeing convoys of military equipment making streets and houses shake. Makes me glad to live in a relatively peaceful country.

Anyways. Here's a link to more info on the exercise.

Here's a - not very steadily filmed - action packed video of a pre-exercise thing that happened this weekend with the british first sea lord (edit: corrected title, thanks Napoleonthechimp) and norwegian boss of the navy so they could see an exercise close up.

This is a pretty funny video of a journalist making a fool of himself going behind the scenes of said exercise (in Norwegian)

Cold Response is held on a regular basis, and is (probably) not anything done in relation to what's going on in the Ukraine.

Edit: Forgot to say that most troops in the videos are royal marines. A few are also dutch and norwegian.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Hey all. I don't know how many Nato soldiers are reading GAF, but I'm sure someone is interested.

This week (march 7 to 21) Cold Response 2014 kicks off in northern Norway with 16.000 troops from 16 nations. Living quite close to some of the forces, it's weird suddenly seeing convoys of military equipment making streets and houses shake. Makes me glad to live in a relatively peaceful country.

Anyways. Here's a link to more info on the exercise.

Here's a - not very steadily filmed - action packed video of a pre-exercise thing that happened this weekend with the british high sea lord (I think he was called) and norwegian boss of the navy so they could see an exercise close up.

This is a pretty funny video of a journalist making a fool of himself going behind the scenes of said exercise (in Norwegian)

Cold Response is held on a regular basis, and is (probably) not anything done in relation to what's going on in the Ukraine.

Edit: Forgot to say that most troops in the videos are royal marines. A few are also dutch and norwegian.

Apparently his title is the "First Sea Lord". It is kind of strange how they still give them such weird - and at the same time kinda cool - titles.

Anyway, what exactly is the purpose of these kind of exercises?

 

[FUBAR McDangles]

Apparently his title is the "FIrst Sea Lord". It is kind of strange how they still give them such weird - and at the same time kinda cool - titles.

Anyway, what exactly is the purpose of these kind of exercises?

Things like this are typically done so soldiers from some parts of the world have an avenue to learn in different environments that they would traditionally not be able to train in.

Also to strengthen bonds/comradery between some nations in case something comes up that needs the attention of more than one group/nation/army/whatever.

 

[PolarGamer]

Apparently his title is the "FIrst Sea Lord". It is kind of strange how they still give them such weird - and at the same time kinda cool - titles.

Anyway, what exactly is the purpose of these kind of exercises?

Thanks! Changed his title.

Things like this are typically done so soldiers from some parts of the world have an avenue to learn in different environments that they would traditionally not be able to train in.

Also to strengthen bonds/comradery between some nations in case something comes up that needs the attention of more than one group/nation/army/whatever.

The troops I talked to, some had been in most climates - most recently Afghanistan. Cold was new to many, and having to put on or off a layer of clothing when getting cold or sweaty is very important to learn for everyone working in the cold.

Learning to ski, move generally, camouflage and just coping with ice on planes, helicopters, armored vehicles and lots of other things are probably nice to learn in arctic conditions. Jehicles and weapons is a chapter of it's own. I remember trying to get underneath BVs (belted vehicles, dunno what you call them in english really) when I was in service trying to remove ice was quite challenging.