Our North - SSE Policy Update Megathread

[McG]

Who actually controls infrastructure? Who can actually approve a new armoury or on-base barracks block for example?

Base commander? Div commander? CDS? Political?

ADM(IE) & RP Ops

 

[dapaterson]

ADM(IE) & RP Ops

In theory based on a prioritization model with input from all Level 1 organizations.

In practice, it's prayer until something goes badly wrong, then people scrounge money to preserve heritage buildings unfit for purpose.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The latest: "public engagement sessions" set for Kawartha Lakes, Clearview Township on upcoming OTH infrastructure

National Defence to hold public engagement sessions in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario - Canada.ca

The Department of National Defence (DND) will host public engagement sessions to answer questions and provide details about the upcoming construction of the Arctic Over-The-Horizon (A-OTHR) Transmit Site at 0 Thistle Trail, Kawartha Lakes.

www.canada.ca

National Defence to hold public engagement sessions in Clearview Township, Ontario - Canada.ca

The Department of National Defence (DND) will host public engagement sessions to answer questions and provide details about the upcoming construction of a preliminary Arctic Over-The-Horizon (A-OTHR) Receive Site at 2225 Sideroad 15 and 16, Clearview Township.

www.canada.ca

 

[PrairieFella]

As an aside, when was the last time the CAF actually expanded its footprint in Canada. Normally you hear about places closing, not often we add. CFS Kawartha Lakes has a nice ring to it.

 

[RangerBrian]

The story behind opting for the laminated stock is rooted in 1CRPG (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut) members recommending them because they thought the composite version would break in the severe cold.
In our patrol (Bella Coola/Chilcotin) the first stock to crack was down on the coast, so we thought it was caused by the extreme humidity. The next ones happened up here in the Chilcotin, so that blew our theory out of the water.
Whatever the source, it’s frustrating because we all treat these weapons are if they were our own. We’ve tried tung oil and talked about sealing them with urethane.
The really discouraging thing is this isn’t the only problem with them: if the 2 bolts connecting the stock to the barrel assembly are too tight, it somehow jams the cocking handle, too loose and everything rattles around - I’m not talking about wild fluctuations rather 1/16th of a turn either way and you’re in trouble. Next is the mag issue. Not all rifles but 1-4 in our patrol the mags fall out after 1 or 2 rounds. We’ve looked from all (safe) angles while firing, different mags, etc to see what’s causing this and can’t figure out what’s causing it. Again, we all maintain these like we were on a recruit course.
Jeez, I originally was just going to post a pic of the new stock (read it’s an entirely new weapon reminiscent of the C7s disappearing only to reappear with a C79 where the carrying handle was)

 

[YZT580]

As an aside, when was the last time the CAF actually expanded its footprint in Canada. Normally you hear about places closing, not often we add. CFS Kawartha Lakes has a nice ring to it.

SeaDoo in summer, SkiDoo in winter, and as long as you don't want waterfront, housing is a reasonable price.

 

[KevinB]

The story behind opting for the laminated stock is rooted in 1CRPG (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut) members recommending them because they thought the composite version would break in the severe cold.

The fact that many composite stock weapons have past Arctic trials for years being the grounding logic for that fucking idiotic thought?

 

[RangerBrian]

That’s exactly what we think “south of sixty”

 

[Kirkhill]

A tale of arctic warfare ---​

Skinny folks die.

​

Very Cold War: Brutal Arctic Conditions Are Testing U.S. and Allied Forces​

Story by Sune Engel Rasmussen
• 1w•
6 min read

Elite combat troops shred their physiques to look like Hollywood hunks. In the Arctic, that can kill you.

The cold eats away at soldiers, who lose on average 3,000 calories a day while on exercises in the Arctic Circle—even while eating full rations and before they have taken part in any strenuous activity.


“The modern soldier goes to the gym, likes to look lean with washboard abs, so they don’t have any fat on their muscles,” said Swedish Army Sgt. Maj. Fredrik Flink, who leads winter-warfare courses for U.S. Marines and other forces in northern Sweden.

“After three days here, they are really worn down. That is the biggest problem we have,” he said. “Basic things aren’t sexy nowadays.”

U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops are flocking to the European Arctic, where international tensions are simmering. Militaries haven’t clashed in the high north in generations, and defense planners are puzzling through what war there would look like.

It is ugly.

“We are writing the book as it happens, based on almost zero experience,” said Troy Bouffard, director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska. “This is a very strange set of circumstances.”


The war in Ukraine has given the world a glimpse of future armed conflict. The Arctic is different. In Ukraine, killer drones swarm the skies and dominate the front line. In the Arctic, fuels freeze and batteries die suddenly. Drones in the high north run on jet fuel or diesel, and are equipped with deicing systems and robust propulsion to withstand Arctic winds. As a result, they are usually so large they need a trailer or a runway to launch.

Ships and aircraft require special lubricants and hardened exteriors. The ice provides cover for submarines but also poses operational challenges for navigation and communication. It is an area where Russia, with stealthy, ice-breaking submarines with long-range missile capabilities, has an advantage.

The northern lights—a stunning natural phenomenon and Instagrammable tourist attraction—interfere with radio signals, as charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere.


Defending the high north relies largely on old-school methods: infantry in white uniforms, on skis and snowmobiles.

“Technology is picking up, and we’re all learning quicker, but still, if you wanna hold ground, and if you wanna defend ground, you will rely on boots on the ground and your overwhites,” said Swedish Army Chief Maj. Gen. Jonny Lindfors.

One of the greatest challenges is also the most basic: how to sustain troops in the harsh Arctic climate for weeks at a time.

As a young sergeant, Vegard Flom once led a reconnaissance patrol on exercise in northern Norway. Temperatures in March fluctuated from just above freezing during the day to well below at night. He went to bed one night, socks soaked from the marshes, and woke up to find them frozen. He still feels the effects of frostbite nearly three decades later. Even in the blazing summer sun, his feet are always cold.



“I view myself as a cold-weather warrior,” said Flom, who is now a colonel in the Norwegian Army and leads the NATO Centre of Excellence—Cold Weather Operations. “Throughout the years, I have found that I can master some of it, but not all of it.”

No one can predict how the cold will hit them until they are in it. Flink, the Swedish instructor, once led soldiers through a “lone wolf” exercise, teaching them to camp alone in subzero temperatures. One night, he approached a soldier who was walking in circles, stomping his feet, saying it was too cold to light a fire. He had forgotten how to use his army-issued, three-layer Swedish sleeping bags, two of which were still in his rucksack.

“We call it cold shock,” Flink said. “They are not receptive to information.”

U.S. Marines are taught how to camp in the snow and hide without the cover of trees.© Agence France-Presse/Getty ImageS
Military experts and commanders believe Russia is unlikely to attack a NATO country while embroiled in the war in Ukraine, or in its immediate aftermath. Moscow, however, could be ready to attack a NATO country within five years, according to the alliance’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte.


Because Russia dominates the Arctic, the West can use the region to deter Russian aggression by implicitly threatening its interests, such as shipping lanes and infrastructure, said Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

“There’s an asymmetry there the West can take advantage of,” he said.

The Arctic has rarely seen combat. Western troops supported anti-Bolshevik forces against the Red Army in the Northern Front of the Russian Civil War from 1918. Finland fought the brutal Winter War with the Soviet Union for approximately 100 days beginning in late 1939. Arctic Norway and Finland were the scene of a three-week Soviet operation to drive German troops out in 1944.

After Nazi Germany invaded the northern Norwegian port of Narvik in 1940, British, French and Polish troops intervened in support of the Norwegians. Even the French legionnaires—considered some of the world’s toughest soldiers—struggled in the cold.


Today, most of NATO’s Arctic territory is in North America, but its land borders with Russia are in Northern Europe. Sweden and Finland, in particular, have spent decades training for potential conflict with Russia.

The West is worried that Moscow could use the Arctic to launch an incursion into the Baltic region or Finland. It could attempt a limited land grab of the eastern Estonian border city of Narva, the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, or the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Gotland, said Lindfors. A larger-scale campaign could seize a swath of territory known as the Cap of the North, comprising northernmost Norway, Sweden and Finland, allowing Russia to dominate the northern seaway.

In the event of a Russian offensive, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish troops would likely be backfilled by NATO forces flowing into the Arctic, including Americans based in Germany and Poland.


Key to NATO’s war efforts will be Norway’s Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, an elite force trained to operate deep behind enemy lines in units of half a dozen soldiers. They dig snowcaves large enough to conceal snowmobiles and skin reindeer to cook over an open fire. During a recent 100-day exercise, the unit’s soldiers traveled over 1,500 miles and resupplied only once, one of its members said.

Nordic instructors teach NATO allies, including U.S. Marines, how to camp in the snow and hide without the cover of trees. They show them how to slaughter reindeer, catch fish to eat raw and adjust themselves to constant daylight in the summer, which can rob soldiers of sleep and a sense of time.

Newcomers to the Arctic need about a month to overcome the initial shock and to thrive in the cold, said Brig. Terje Bruøygard, commander of Norway’s Brigade North, a 4,500-strong unit based north of the Arctic Circle. The trick to coping with the cold, he said, is to accept you can’t fight it. A dozen U.S. Marines were once medevaced back to the U.S. from training in northern Norway, after their commander told them to “toughen up, Marines.” They suffered frostbite so severe that they required surgical attention, Bruøygard remembered.

A cold injury requires you to change what you’re doing, he said. “If you toughen up, you will have a second or third degree injury. You can lose your flesh, you can die.”

A French frigate during NATO exercises in a Norwegian fjord.© Thibault Camus/Associated Press

Swedish, Finnish, Italian and French troops taking part in an amphibious assault demonstration.© JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Bruøygard speaks from experience. At 24, he fell through the ice on a small lake during an exercise. His training kicked in. He fluttered his legs and tried to drag himself up, but repeatedly slipped back into the cold water. In a final attempt before his strength sapped, he clawed his nails into the ice and pulled himself up. He crawled away on all fours to avoid breaking through the ice again.


By the time he returned to his platoon, his weapon and equipment had frozen to his body. He passed out and woke up in his sleeping bag, undressed by his conscripts, who had put him in a sleeping bag and lit a fire.

Not everyone survives a cold brush with death. A Norwegian battle tank capsized during an exercise years later and crashed through the ice, killing two soldiers.

Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]

 

[PrairieFella]

The big takeaway is winter warfare fucking sucks. A lot of it trying to outlast the poor buggers on the other side of the line.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

The big takeaway is winter warfare fucking sucks. A lot of it trying to outlast the poor buggers on the other side of the line.

And the Arctic will try to kill you 9 ways to sunday…

 

[rmc_wannabe]

And the Arctic will try to kill you 9 ways to sunday…

"Acorn, can you explain what this symbol is? I have never seen this red, bear shaped one before..."

"Those ARE bears, Sir.... we started tracking them after they ate 3 Platoon on Tuesday...."

"Right. Solid plan.... continue"

 

[daftandbarmy]

The big takeaway is winter warfare fucking sucks. A lot of it trying to outlast the poor buggers on the other side of the line.

I loved it. Best sleeps ever (exhausted, in a snowhole)

 

[CBH99]

I loved it. Best sleeps ever (exhausted, in a snowhole)

Psycho...

 

[daftandbarmy]

Psycho...

 

[Halifax Tar]

I loved it. Best sleeps ever (exhausted, in a snowhole)

At sea a constant gentle roll puts you right out, its like being rocked to sleep.

 

[GK .Dundas]

Stewart Brand the guy who edited The Whole Earth Catalog . Went through the US Army's Ranger course and did the winter warfare school.. He made the comment.
That one day they let him thaw out and he swore that he'd never be that cold again.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Stewart Brand the guy who edited The Whole Earth Catalog . Went through the US Army's Ranger course and did the winter warfare school.. He made the comment.
That one day they let him thaw out and he swore that he'd never be that cold again.

Norwegian Instructor on their Winter Warfare course, dead pan: "If you are cold, ski faster"

 

[Underway]

Norwegians asking one of our local reservists

"How cold have you operated in"

"Um about -40 Cs"

"The arctic gets really cold doesn't it"

"That was in Meaford, Ontario, we were no where near the arctic"

Norway gets winter, they don't get Arctic. Their Arctic has trees.

 

[MacNav63]

Norwegians asking one of our local reservists

"How cold have you operated in"

"Um about -40 Cs"

"The arctic gets really cold doesn't it"

"That was in Meaford, Ontario, we were no where near the arctic"

Norway gets winter, they don't get Arctic. Their Arctic has trees.

It's that Norwegian Current that keeps them warm.