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 if the US could deploy three, six carriers over a three year period. That would mean in a three year period one carrier from one of these three nations would be the flagship on a six month rotation. I suspect the USN would prefer their carrier escort to be US however it is my opinion that the escort should be a mix of the nations with carrier strike capability. Nothing better to work up carrier escorts than having a carrier and their supply ships to work with. The nation supplying the flagship to the SNMG would supply also the SSN/SSK.
Then there should be three Standing Naval Assault Groups, two for the Atlantic and one in the Med. For the Atlantic one could be purely USMC and the second UK/French/Dutch. For the Med it could be Italian/Spanish/Turkish led. However the RN is weak in this area compared to the US/France and even Spain or Italy.
I really do wish that the HM Government would approve two/three LHDs for the RN. They could operate in several roles, the amphibious role, the baby carrier role, the escort carrier role, the ASW helicopter carrier role and the heavy humanitarian role. Building three of this type of ship would also give the UK more political clout in the political/NATO world. At a build cost of £2 billion for the three and up to a 40% return in tax/vat/benifit savings etc over an expected life span of 30 years I think its a good up front investment. Yes I know I did not include running cost manpower etc. Manpower is the smaller issue, if the navy has more ships and more advanced ships more people will want to stay in as there is better chances of promotion, shorter deployments etc. The troops for the LHDs would not be Royal Marines but British Army Sea Assault Battle Groups, call it a British Army equivlant of the USMC. The RMs would be in the MRSS and or the T32s that I think about which would be based on either the AbSalon class or the Damen Crossover type.
If we could build the LHD then I would build two T32s for every LHD. That means if we could build three as the replacements for Albion, Bulwark and Ocean then I would build six T32s as the escorts. My prefrence would be the Crossover however with the knowledge of the T31, AbSalon would be more cost effective.
It would mean that NATO would have at its command a carrier group (Atlantic), a baby carrier group (Med), three assault groups (one heavy USMC, one light RM type), a ASW/Escort group (GIUK Gap), one Baltic (frigate flagship, corvettes, FAMBs and SSKs) and two mine countermeasure groups. If NATO funds could build three squadrons of fast attack missile boats for the Baltic States say four boats each that would be a useful addition. It would free up the larger combat ships of Germany, Poland, Denmark for blue water operations. Yes I have taken into account of Sweden and Finland in NATO. Combine the two N.Atlantic Assault Groups with the Carrier Group and now you have an Amphibious Task Force. With one SNMG group active and one on high readyness SNMGs would be able to deal with the Russian navy before the rest of the NATO fleet is deployed.
So without to much extra investment NATO at sea is in a good place if we use the resources correctly. The USN would need only two carrier groups, possibly only one is needed unless the ship is in refit allocated to the Atlantic and three Amphib groups, again two with one in refit. By rethinking we could also free up the US Navy to have more resources in the Pacific Ocean. However the US groups would need to be based in European waters for the six month period.
People also need to understand NATO might be at war before nations agree or nations might go to war but it does not involve NATO, the Falklands being an example of the latter. NORTHAG-2ATAF was a NATO command with allocated troops, 1Br Corp was a British Command. 28 Br Sig Regt was when I was there commanded by a British Lt-Col, overall command of the Sig Brigade was a German Col, even our uniform had a few extras such as sqn coloured neck scarfs, 1 sqn was light blue (my neck scarf), 2 sqn was red, hq sqn was I think black, 13 TTR (Belgian)was green, Apolo troop (Dutch) gold (I think) etc. God that caused an issue playing rugby in Bielefeld, I was in uniform and a rupert told me to remove my scarf and shoulder flash. I tried to explain but to no avail. Thankfully the OC 2 Sqn was there and told him that I am in uniform. I still carry my button fob with pride.
Then again it is only me thinking out loud.
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 was to be used in the baby carrier role each with 18 F35Bs then we could get 54 F35Bs at sea at 60% of the price of a QE coming in from three diffrent directrions. We could have one LHD at sea, one in work up and one in stand down/refit repair. We could get away with two but again thats pushing the resource. Three LHDs would also give the British Army something to work on for a potential European conflict. Poland, the US and Germany would have the mass armour formations and the Brits the flanking movement with smaller fast forces that can get in behind or from the side. reinforce Northern Norway in force or retake the Falklands. Three LHDs, three MRSS and six T32s could land a bigger force in a first wave then the complete Falkland Task Force with its intergrated aircover. Say per LHD 8 F35Bs, 4 Apache’s and 10 Merlins, 6 CB90s, 1 LCAC and 3 LCVP Mk5s or 2 LCU Mk10s.
It would give the Army a goal to work to, land three armoured battlegroups ashore and into the flank of a potential enemy. It gives the RN a goal, protect Norway, convoy escort, land the Army, GIUK Gap and long range strike and it gives the RAF/FAA more mobile airfields to take off and land on and it gives the RM a goal small raids and flank the Army Battle Groups going ashore. Also in times of conflict if a carrier is paired with an LHD and one of the flat tops is damaged they could land on the other, £100 million saved in plane and pilot.
Again as I said that is my thinking, will I fight for it yes, can I win I will try, but at least I tried.
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?