Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1) and Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 (SNMCMG1) joined 12 nations for Finnish Navy exercise Freezing Winds in the Baltic Sea, say the Alliance.
NATO say that as one of NATO partner nation Finland’s largest maritime exercises, Freezing Winds offered both the Finnish Navy, as well as participating nations and NATO, valuable training opportunities that contribute to increased maritime safety and security in the Baltic Sea region.
The exercise focused on interoperability between the multinational joint forces.
“Cooperation with the Finnish Navy remains strong,” Royal Netherlands Navy Commodore Jeanette Morang, commander SNMG1 said.
“Of course there are always challenges when it comes to communication, but that is exactly why we train – to improve. From our perspective, we wanted not only to contribute, but we also wanted to learn in this exercise to develop a deeper understanding of regional maritime issues specific to Finland.”
Twenty-three vessels and nearly 5,000 troops participated in different scenarios throughout the exercise in the Gulf of Finland and Archipelago Sea areas.
“This provided participants a challenging program in a broad range of maritime warfare skillsets from air defense to mine countermeasures, and submarine warfare to counter-surface measures. Regional topography and seasonal weather conditions also provided intense training opportunities from a maritime navigational perspective.”
Participating nations, including observers, were Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Bloody hell Geoge you’re on a roll today with new articles. I can’t keep up 🙂
I sometimes wonder if NATO should change its naval standing forces to three, possibly four. SNMG1 formed around a carrier for the North Atlantic-Northern Norway, SNMG2 based around the Italian Trieste- Spanish Juan Carlos for the Med and SNMG 3 based on corvettes-fast attack boats for the Baltic. SNMG4 would be a ASW/convoy escort force for the North Atlantic for the GIUK Gap and or the first emergancy troop convoys from the USA. People forget that a convoy escort need to be worked together for some time before it is effective. With the RN having two carriers and France one… Read more »
Brilliant idea but very few of those have traction in the MOD.
Wolf dont know if that is a compliment or insult. I will take the former. However, I do fight with HM Government I have given evidence both written and verbal before defence committees and write articles for naval journals. As for 4 LHDs I agree I wish it was possible but thats pushing it. I would love to see two LHDs per carrier for an attack group. Do I think three possible, yes. The overall construction cost of three Juan Carlos type LHDs with F35B capable landing would be £2 billion. Or put it a diffrent way if each LHD… Read more »
Thanks Wolf, no offence taken.
Hallelujah, amen! Someone else believes that practicing convoy escort duty during peacetime, is not only rational and intelligent, but will also reduce the body count otherwise generated when learning under wartime conditions.
Nice vision, but through-deck MRSS is the best I think we can hope for, doubling as escort/drone carriers.
I’ve not seen the spreadsheets for the latest procurement plan, but as of last year there wasn’t enough money allocated to the surface fleet to do what we’ve aready said we would, nevermind adding proper LHDs.
Is this just preparation/demonstration or is there a concern Russia might be up to some mischief? American sub-activity has been stepped up around European waters according to recent sightings in Scotland, which also begs the same question.
I think the USN is sadly having to make up for NATO/ UK lack of SSNs. That’s why there are more attacks subs visible.
Purely speculation but I strongly doubt the Northern Fleet is being idle while all these other shenanigans are going on, and these activities are being conducted part in response. But I think we’ll never really know the details.
Has the RN effectively gapped its minehunting capability? Or at least drawn it down significantly?