A Royal Navy amphibious task force has anchored in Stockholm, following a display of defence tactics against a fictitious invasion of Sweden’s intricate coastal terrain.
The amphibious flagship, HMS Albion, headed the Littoral Response Group (North) (LRG) on a journey into the Baltic Sea as part of Exercise Aurora – marking the most substantial Swedish national defence exercise in over twenty-five years.
The Royal Marines left an indelible mark during three amphibious assaults on Sweden’s complex coastline. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson expressed his deep admiration for the commandos, stating that he would like the troops to participate in exercises in the country ‘next year and every year’.
In total, the LRG collaborated with their hosts’ military forces and those from Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania. HMS Albion also served as the temporary home to several US Marines for the duration of the exercise.
Marines from 45 Commando made a formidable entrance on the shores of Gotland, a strategically significant island in the heart of the Baltic. They also stormed the Stockholm archipelago, a labyrinthine network of approximately 30,000 islands leading to Sweden’s capital.
In the presence of the Swedish premier, Defence Minister Paul Jonsson and key military figures, the Royal Marines performed a dramatic landing on the island of Korso, located on the eastern edge of the archipelago. This display showcased the allies’ ability to thwart an enemy invasion.
The political and military delegation also made a visit to Albion at sea, highlighting the deepening ties between the UK and Sweden.
You can read more on this here.
Hi folks hope all is well. Great stuff, once more we see our magnificent military in operation, not sure how many European militaries have the capability of carring out a similar deployment? You experts can advise me on this. My concern is; as we all know is the lack of numbers, no doubt we can take and hold ground for a while, however, numbers are instrumental in holding onto for example a bridge -head. Also I’m sure over the last couple days in the media reports of Ben Wallace still going ahead with army cuts? Despite Ukraine! A bit depressing… Read more »
IT is hard to take in really ,a cut of 10.000 troops specially when there used for home land Emergency floods ,outbreaks ect never mind the Battlefield 🙏
It’s not 10k troops, as the army has around 75K at the moment, so in reality around 3 000, achieved by not recruiting replacements for those leaving voluntarily. It’s establishment is set for 82K, which it can not reach.
HI Andrew.. As Daniele said. There are over 75,000 Trade trained personnel in the army, if you add personnel that are trained but not trade trained to that figure the numbers reach over 79,000.
The total number of trained regulars and army reserves is probably somewhere around 104,000.
So when it comes to trade trained regulars and trade trained reservists, probably looking at a figure just under 100,000.
The original figure of 82,000 army trade trained personnel was never met. There are also around 6,500 Marines in the Royal Navy including reserves.
Don’t worry, I’m sure Rishi Sunak will come along soon and tell us how we are punching above our weight.
🤗
How realistic is this exercise? In a real conflict situation would you take a capital ship into the Baltic?
SR wrote:
That’s a very interesting question, no doubt the many fjords (Do the Swedes call them fjords?) and small inlets around the Baltics would afford some protection in allowing such a ship to play hide and seek and should such a ship see an increase in defensive weaponry in which to be able to better defend itself (Looks back at Bluff Cove in 1982, which is currently a hot topic at the moment with the media regards finding somebody to blame)
A good question but the Baltic is over 630,000 sq miles of water and a ship can move. So if it is vulnerable and I agree it is. How about all those airfields and other fixed military facilities. Surely guided missiles makes those untenable in a real conflict so how how do we make those exercises with aircraft based from fixed airfields realistic ?
It seems to many on here and in the media warships particularly our carriers are toast in a peer type conflict but never mention fixed land bases.
I hope we never find out.
That’s why the Swedes disperse their air force to their motorway system. And I’m not suggesting for a moment that large ships are vulnerable per se. Yes they can move. But in the Falklands we kept the carriers always outside the range of Argentine aircraft. If Argentina had had a decent submarine force the conflict would have been entirely different. It might not even been attempted. I’m just asking the question, that’s all
The image is not from Sweden, possibly Norway. “Same-same but different….
Fingers crossed Erdogan loses today’s election and the new Turkish president gets behind approving Sweden’s application for NATO membership.
I was thinking just the same thing. Would be wonderful for Sweden to join NATO this year, as Finland did.
We can’t even defend our own borders let alone Swedens.
Is there another Armada on the way we haven’t spotted yet?🙄
Kai wrote: “”We can’t even defend our own borders let alone Swedens.”” Since Moscow invasion of the Ukraine, I have often wondered how would the Uk react if say it was invaded (hypothetically by the EU simply as it is the political block next door) I feel there would be mass acts of sabotage across the Uk by the pro EU crowd. Of course, they would be supported by mass strikes by the unions demanding the right to be rid of a far right fascist government, then there would be mass peace protests by the “Not in my name”… Read more »
That Beer:
https://i.postimg.cc/vTLVgjR9/beer.jpg
No issues from me mate, both the post and the beer!
Totally agree with you mate.
Still, at least they are all neuro surgeons (according the the liberal crowd).
As it’s Sunday I’ll rise to the bait. Why not? The EU has no military worth speaking about, nor do the next door Irish. I imagine if the French invaded we would assume it was an exercise by a close ally, thank them kindly for their visit, and ply them with warm beer and fry ups until they went home in disgust clutching their “I went to London and all I got was this lousy Tee Shirt” tee shirts. (Or beer and popcorn if you happen to be there, Farouk.) Suella Braverman would insist they were sent to Rwanda if… Read more »
How long before this thread gets taken down, I wonder?
I should add for completeness that my Abbott Ale, brewed in Bury St Edmunds by Greene King, is actually owned by a Hong Kong conglomerate and distributed by Swedes. Maybe we already have been invaded.
Not really any answer to that👍
As usual, depressingly spot on.
I may also get blasted for this but my angle is that as a country we have simply become too democratic. Everyone gets a voice and so many individuals and organisations are allowed to work at cross purposes to a unified country and elected government. Every prolonged legal challenge sucks up billions and pandering to professional anarchist protesters who consider it their paid career to travel the country protesting any cause whether they care about it or not (yes they do exist as a community). Our forefathers fought for democracy and i have served and would do so again to… Read more »
BigH1979….. the silent majority don’t get a voice….the shout loudest minority get a voice…
Starmer wants 16 year olds to vote and TicTok will tell them where to put their cross
Blimey that was good!
In what way, exactly?
Impressive, and a good show of force with respect to Gotland. An appropriate warning to Russia as well.
So no air defence for Hms Albion again? MoD took that same risk a few years ago, by sending her straight through the S.C.S full of RM!
For goodness sake, attach some Sea Ceptor boxed cells along the side of the ship!
That would mean HMG doing something sensible 🙄
If you want to burn and then drown after that’s a great way to do it. There are a million different weapons that will accomplish that in that neighborhood. For the love of God how about some air defense. The crappiest Turkish drone will…. Figure it out.
Referring to the photo at the top of this piece:
For a flagship, HMS Albion is not displaying very visible flags!
Flying the flag would give the game away to the Russians old chap 🙂
It was an exercise and apart from training personnel etc. you find and weedout problems that arise and can then correct them for the future. Quantity is important but quality even more so.