HMS Albion and RFA Mounts Bay are in the Baltic Sea as part of the Littoral Response Group (North) deployment where they linked up with the 1st Marine Regiment of the Swedish Amphibious Corps.
Albion tweeted about the ocassion, as you can see below.
🇸🇪🇬🇧 It was fantastic to work alongside our partners in the Swedish Navy 🤝, demonstrating our diverse capability and interoperability. #UkResponseGroup @RoyalNavy @RoyalMarines pic.twitter.com/fqpHGVGq9B
— HMS Albion (@hms_albion) May 31, 2021
According to a Royal Navy news release here:
“The UK-led JEF Maritime Task Group – consisting of Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and the UK – is poised to respond to crises whenever and wherever they unfold, so training like this is important to keep personnel ready for any missions.
The ships – both of which are equipped and designed to support Royal Marines on amphibious operations – worked with Swedish CB90-class fast assault craft and amphibious hovercraft (LCAC(M)), the largest such craft to embark in Albion, on docking operations in Mysingen fjord (in the southern part of the Stockholm Archipelago).
Royal Marines landing craft and Offshore Raiding Craft joined the CB90s on navigation exercises through the complex archipelago – which is a cluster of some 30,000 islands, skerries and rocks and the second-largest archipelago in the Baltic Sea – refreshing their ability to work together.”
The Royal Navy say that the the Littoral Response Group (North) Task Group now prepares to participate in Baltops 50; the largest multinational exercise taking place in the Baltic Sea.
Describing the deployment, the Royal Navy said previously:
“More than 1,000 sailors and Royal Marines are heading on a three-month mission to the North Atlantic and Baltic at the beginning of a new era of commando operations. This is the first deployment of the Littoral Response Group (North) task group, which is the first of two forces – centred around Royal Marines and amphibious ships – that will regularly carry out operations in areas of interest to the UK, providing reassurance to allies and deter potential adversaries.
In the coming months they will be involved in US-led exercises in Norway and participate in NATO’s Baltops, the largest multinational exercise in the Baltic Sea. This task group is made up of amphibious assault ship HMS Albion and landing dock RFA Mounts Bay, plus Type 23 frigate HMS Lancaster, Wildcat helicopters from 847 Naval Air Squadron, and Royal Marines from 45 and 30 Commando.”
Interesting mix of EU/non EU,NATO/ non NATO countries working together in an area where Britain can make a real difference.
LCAC(M), whats this?
RMs operate LCAC(L), but is this a medium?
Not seen any sign of that but am out of date!
theirs
In that context yes, but not the original.
Might be pedantry, but accuracy is important especially in this forum.
One “s” too many and short of a comma.
Yep, no way that photo shows one of our 4 LCAC ( L ) looks far too big.
Seems Sweden has 3x Griffon 8100TD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WDdbfojBHY
Edited to provide better link
Awful lot going on with our Armed forces and other nations at the moment ,plus CSG do there know something we don’t 🤔
Well done. More of this.
Would be really interesting to know what the RN/RM really think of LCAC and CB90 as for me this is the combination we should have,
CB90’s seem great for inshore patrol and raiding and LCAC or S2S connectors are good for the heavy lift.. both can be delivered via the Karel doorman platform which the RN would be wise to adopt IMO.
surely a CB90 is better than an ORC?
CB 90s where trialled well over 15 years ago…The RN/RM havent got them so you can draw your own conclusions why they didn’t bother with them…(cost wasn’t one of the issues either). They are far heavier than the LCVP and some extremely intrusive and major redesign work would have been required on the upper deck area and the davits to accommodate them ( LPDs and Ocean at that time). They also don’t carry vehicles so they are no good for dropping the ramp and putting something onto the shoreline like a BV or LR. I worked on repairing and overhauling… Read more »
Correction to a typo…I really need to proofread before submitting comments…….the A&A was in 2010 when we refitted Bulwark. I left her in the first quarter of 2011.
thanks Gunbuster, so the new BMT Caiman 60 /90 and Orcs/other is the way to go.. by the sound of it. for the new ships coming on line, I just think we need to decide how we will deliver this amphibious piece, if that is indeed what we are going to do (not sure we have enough people to do it) I think Albion and Bulwark are probably the most under rated ships in the fleet, but when we replace them I do hope that we think all these things through, including your crane design etc.. I do often wonder… Read more »
Just looked at the twitter picture . They did the crane mod by the looks of it. The Overhead rail is there over the dock….which is nice!
Yet again, as the advert says “priceless”….
I am sure the Russian have been busy monitoring all the joint ops and the CSG
reckon ? 😄
So is Sweden is going to join NATO, not too long?
Not gonna join but they know who their enemies are and that we aren’t.
Probably no more than normal, but given more publicity on purpose.