Norway

Russian Northern Fleet Sails 36 Ships in No-Notice Exercise

Russia’s Northern Fleet has released a statement that they’ve departed the port in their largest exercise in the past 10 years. The purpose of this large unplanned, no-notice exercise was to counter a large enemy attack.

A total of 36 warships and support vessels are currently on their way out to the Barents Sea. Also, about 20 aircraft are in the air. Along the coast of the Kola Peninsula, more than 150 different rocket- and artillery weapon systems and special equipment are deployed.

Larger areas in the Barents Sea are now closed off for civilian shipping and overflights by civilian passenger aircraft. The drill will last until the end of next week.
The press-service of the Northern Fleet explains the exercise to be a full-range defensive-aimed drill to combat a massive enemy attack. The fleet will carry out shootings with different naval weapons, including launching of cruise-missiles, mines and torpedoes and other missiles.
Among the warships are the missile cruiser «Marshal Ustinov,» anti-submarine ship «Severomorsk», the destroyer «Admiral Ushakov», the large landing ships «Kondapoga», «Georgy Pobedonosets» and «Aleksandr Obrakovsky».
Without specifying classes or names, the Northern Fleet says both nuclear-powered and diesel submarines participate.
Press-spokesman at Norway’s military Joint Head Quarters, Major Brynjar Stordal, says to the Barents Observer that Norway was not informed about the naval drill.
Russian forces in the north has over time had a relatively high level of activities in different fields, something they have all rights to do within own territory and in international waters and airspace

The Norwegians have an understanding with the Russians that any large exercises outside of each nation’s territorial waters is normally shared as to keep the other side abreast and understanding of the current situation.

Russia’s Northern Fleet, headquartered in Severomorsk north of Murmansk, is the largest of Russia’s four fleets.

To read the entire article from the Barents Observer, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

OSS Dons Chutes and Skis for a Dangerous Norway Mission

The CIA and the US Army Special Forces’ heritage is linked directly from the World War II OSS (Office of Strategic Services). Many of the operators who pulled classified missions for the OSS later became intelligence professionals or the original Special Forces troops. One such operator was William Colby who commanded Jedburgh teams in France and later would join the CIA, rising through the ranks to become the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence).

Colby later during World War II would be tasked to head an Operational Team to go into Norway to blow a key bridge, the Grana, on the Nordland railway during “Operation Rype.” The Norwegian Special Operations Group which was part of the OSS was tasked with the mission with Colby as the commander. In Colby’s narrative released after the war, he said it was the only mission that the US Army ran in WWII that the men used both parachutes and skis.

Near the end of 1944, the Soviets had overrun Finland and the German survivors from that campaign, some 150,000 ski and mountain troops were streaming into Norway. Colby and the Norwegian SOG’s mission was to blow the bridge between Narvik and Trondheim carrying thousands of troops back into Germany each day. The roads were frozen and impassable and Royal Navy was blocking the sea routes. Stopping the Germans from getting down from Finland was left to the OSS.

Colby’s men were bundled into eight B-24 Liberator bombers, specially configured to drop parachutists behind enemy lines. The team numbered 35 men. They were an eclectic lot, their expertise each ranged into different life paths that all led them this mission.

Things began to go wrong immediately. Of the eight aircraft taking off from Scotland, only four made their air drops. One group of a SSG and four CPLs was dropped in Sweden and were picked up by Swedish authorities and interned.

The transports that succeeded in dropping material at the frozen Jaevsjo Lake also succeeded in spreading the party and material over a 36-square-mile area, with some of the bundles landing kilometers into the surrounding woods. Colby reported that “many packages had no static cords attached and plummeted to Earth without chutes, burying themselves in the snow.”

Colby needed at least 35 men to do take out the bridge at Grana, but he only had 20 OSS men plus four more from the Norwegian underground who met them on the drop zones. They gathered the equipment that was dropped and waited for more men to be dropped.

Six days later, three planes appeared. The lake was shrouded in mist and the planes were unable to drop. Two of the aircraft got back and a third, with six more OSS commandos crashed in the Orkney Islands killing all 13 on board.

Another six days passed and the Air Corps tried again with four more planes, again in heavy bad weather. A plane with a Lt. and three noncoms crashed and exploded, again killing all onboard.

Colby had lost valuable time as more and more Germans were streaming down the railway each day. He decided to scrap the original plan and improvise. His plan from his notebook was the stuff of legend.

“Our plan was lifted bodily from the history of the West. We would seize a train, board it, throw her into reverse and blow up every tunnel and bridge we could until ammunition had run out; then drive the train into a ditch. We hoped to succeed by sheer bravado. Farnsworth, the demolition expert, was in seventh heaven. The others smiled again–this was the kind of direct American action they’d heard about, read about, knew went on all the time.”

Colby’s group set out on cross-country skis and in two days despite bad weather had made 40 miles. They finally arrived at the peaks overlooking the Tangen bridge, somewhere north of Tangen, where the railroad skirts Oiingen Lake. The terrain was extremely hazardous.

The men had to reach the bottom and were loaded down with Tommy guns (Thompson Submachine guns), M-1 Garand rifles, Bren MGs, 180 pounds of TNT plus other equipment on a big sled. They made it, none the worse for wear and were waiting for the train while another group of five men went north snipping wires and smashing telephones.

Changing their plans again after learning that they missed the train, the OSS men decided to blow the bridge immediately. The men set the charges under the long, I-girder bridge. The 180 pounds of explosives were enough to blow four bridges of the same size.

The bridge vanished in a deafening explosion that was so large, the ice-covered lake leaped briefly and cracked. The railway for the Germans was cut. Now Colby and his men had to reach their base, another 30-mile ski trip away. The Germans were looking for the raiders both with ground troops and in the air with spotter aircraft.

But immediately upon arriving, one of the men reported that a 50-man German patrol was hot on their heels. The OSS men had to keep going. Colby aimed for Sweden which was 40 miles ahead. Fresh of a 30-mile hike, they hiked and skied the next 40 in 56 hours, with Germans behind them, overhead in spotter aircraft and patrolling the terrain in front.

The men took Benzedrine, the little white tablets that kept them going, the pharmaceutical speed issued for just such an emergency. But they made it, and collapsed exhausted in the huts on top of a huge steep hill, that Colby nicknamed “Sugar Top” because of the tablets. The men finally rested after being on the move for over 72 hours.

Four days later, a Liberator appeared low over Jaevsjo Lake and dropped the supplies needed for the team: food, K-rations, cigarettes, soap, one-pound rail bombs, noncom’s outfits for five, lieutenant’s bars–and a case of canned Hawaiian pineapple which one of the group had specifically requested.

The team’s morale was sky-high after the successful operation. They rested, refitted, and planned follow-on operations. Their plan, after consulting with high-level members of the Norse underground was to seize the county of Lierne and form guerrilla units from the men inside the area.

All of Colby’s men had the OSS operational experience of doing the same thing in France, either with the Jedburgh teams or the Operational Groups. Normally a unit such as OSS or Special Forces would have to prove their worth militarily before the resistance groups would trust them enough to place their lives in OSS hands.

But the word in Norway was spreading like wildfire and the Norwegians, anxious to rid themselves of the oppressive Nazi yoke after five years were eager to join the fight. But with few spare arms and not enough equipment, those plans would have to wait. They skied back to the railway on the Swedish border and despite heavy German patrols in the area, blew the railway in four different spots.

They had a 50-mile trip back to their hut where all of the Norwegians were ordered elsewhere. With their food running out and the German noose tightening, one five-man enemy patrol stumbled on the camp. They were armed with MP-40s. Colby tried to talk them into surrendering, but all hell broke loose. The Germans were eliminated but one Norwegian courier was wounded. The OSS men improvised a litter and skied and dragged him 50 miles into Sweden.

Colby’s men then began recruiting a guerrilla force to conduct the Lierne operation and to protect the OSS men. The Germans were hot after them, especially as a result of the rail line blowing mission. But before Colby and the OSS men were able to put their plan into operation, the war ended. Everywhere the men went, they were treated like heroes and in each town, bands would play the Star Spangled Banner, which deeply touched the Americans. Colby’s after-action report reflected how quickly things changed.

“But the rest of this story is routine. We supervised the surrender and policed 10,000 Germans at Namsos, and we acted as honor guard for Crown Prince Olaf on his return to Trondheim and accompanied him in the parade in his honor on 10 June.”

Colby’s men were decorated for their valor on the mission and went on about their lives. He would leave the service briefly working as a lawyer for William Donovan’s (Commander and founder of the OSS), firm before getting bored with it and joining the CIA. He quickly rose through the ranks and was the Station Chief in Saigon during the Vietnam conflict and ran the controversial Phoenix Program. He eventually became the DCI as head of the agency under President Nixon.

Photo courtesy of US Army

Norway’s “Hunter Troop” All-Women Special Operations Unit Breaking Barriers

Norway is breaking down barriers by creating their own Jegertroppen or “Hunter Troop”, a Special Operations unit comprised completely of women soldiers.

Norwegian military leaders saw that the war in Afghanistan showed an operational need for highly-trained female soldiers who could gather intelligence and interact with women and children during deployments in conservative societies. If this sounds like the Cultural Support Teams (CST) programs that the US fielded, you would be correct.

But the Norwegians took it a step farther and created a Selection Course for the women troopers that is very tough, demanding and has a very high failure rate.

What began as a kind of experimental programme is now seen as a major success. More than 300 women applied in the first year, and about a dozen recruits are now passing the gruelling training annually, providing a pipeline of elite women soldiers that can be deployed at home or abroad.
The hardest part so far has been “hell week”, says Jannike, a test of mental and physical strength involving long marches over several days with little time for rest, and minimum amounts of food and water.
“They just see if you can handle the pressure when you’re down,” she says.
The young women are today practising fighting their way out of an urban ambush. They work in teams of two: taking cover behind burned-out tanks, providing suppressive fire with their H&K MP7 sub-machine guns and throwing smoke grenades so the team can get out safely.
Every time they hit one of the metal targets in the snow-covered expanse ahead, a clear “ding” rings out, to the approval of Captain Ole Vidar Krogsaeter, who oversees their training.
“To prepare them we try to give them the best training possible, as realistic as possible,” the veteran special forces operator says. “We have them go through the exercises so many times that they are comfortable with it.”

The women haven’t been deployed yet but the Norwegian’s thought process is to prepare them to handle the rigors of combat operations on their own when the time comes for them to be used.

While US soldiers were adamantly against women being allowed in Special Operations Units, the Norwegians, who have stationed men and women together in their military, don’t have that issue. But the real issue will come down to when the women deploy to combat. Currently, Norway has troops in Jordan, training troops to fight in Syria.

To read the entire article from the BBC, click here:

Photo courtesy Norwegian Armed Forces

Worlds’ Special Operations Commanders Meet in US For Global Symposium

Tampa Bay was recently the host of many of the world’s Special Operations commanders as they visited the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM). They were there to share ideas and coordination, as they want to emulate the success the US has had in the Special Operations field.

The Global Special Operations Symposium was created by retired LTC Stu Bradin and he put together the meeting and the organization in Tampa that integrates the Special Ops units from the US with our allies.

Bradin, a former 7^th Special Forces Group officer worked directly under former SOCOM commander and Navy SEAL Admiral William McRaven. McRaven launched a hub for all Special Operations forces called J3I which integrated all foreign and US operators in a single hub. The goal was to ensure that regional issues don’t snowball into larger ones.

Romanian Col. Claudio “CD” Dobocan, his nation’s representative to the J3I for 18 months, explained the value.
“Sometimes the distance between Rome and Madrid is shorter here than in Europe,” he said.
Being ensconced inside SOCom headquarters gives Romania’s commando force access to Thomas and to leaders at U.S. Central Command, which also has its headquarters at MacDill, while allowing for increased Romanian input, Dobocan said.
“We contribute to forward planning,” he said. Representation in J3I also provides a “tool for rapid reaction in case of a crisis.”

The meeting between the commanders on allies and US SOCOM is invaluable. They can share ideas and training. They can work out coordination in advance of sensitive operations that will cut down on any potential problems the operators would face.

And most importantly, the commanders may share their thoughts on potential hotspots and problem areas in the world. The increasing Russian aggressiveness in the world in the past few years was not lost on the attendees.

“The next fight, which is staring us right in the face . . . is Russia,” said Army Maj. Gen. William Hix, the Army’s director of strategy, plans and policy, speaking at the symposium about a range of potential challenges.
“They study our playbook,” said Hix, adding that the Russians have made investments “to challenge us in a number of areas. Look at Ukraine and actions in Syria. We see harbingers of future war there in the speed of violence and lethality they bring to the battlefield.”

To read the entire article from Tampa Bay Times, click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

Norway’s Forsvarets Spesialkommando

FSK (Forsvarets Spesialkommando) is a special forces unit of the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. The unit was established in 1982 due to the increased risk of terrorist activity against Norwegian interests, including the oil platforms in the North Sea.

In peacetime, they are a support element to the Norwegian Police force and law enforcement agencies in allied nations, acting when requested in serious incidents like hostage situations and aircraft hijacking.

During counter-terrorist operations, the commandos are trained to kill their opponents, rather than trying to arrest them.