Navy
NATO Exercise In The Baltic Sea
Igor Wołk w 2008 roku, fot. Claus Ableiter, Wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0
NORTHERN COASTS 2015 NATO exercise is scheduled to begin on the waters of the western part of the Baltic Sea, starting from 12th September. The exercise, which is planned to last for 2 weeks, is going to involve more than 4000 soldiers, 40 vessels and 10 aircraft, coming from 16 states.
The NORTHERN COASTS 2015 exercise is going to take place on the waters of the Western Baltic and the Baltic Straits. The scenario assumes that a training peacekeeping operation is going to be executed within that area. Besides the NATO member states (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Latvia, Netherlands, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Portugal, the USA, and the UK). Sweden and Finland are also going to be involved.
The international forces are going to be additionally bolstered by two NATO Naval Groups: SNMG 1 – with large surface vessels, and mine-defence group – SNMCMG 1.
Poland is going to be represented by seven ships (ORP “Gen. T. Kościuszko” Frigate, ORP “Grom” missile vessel, ORP “Kaszub” ASW corvette, ORP “Kontradmirał Xawery Czernicki” command ship, along with three minesweepers: ORP “Resko”, ORP “Bukowo” and ORP “Dąbie), SH-2G helicopter of the Naval Aviation Brigade, and the Centre for the Maritime Operations – Maritime Component Command.
German and Danish Navies are going to be the main organizers of this year’s edition of the NORTHERN COASTS 2015 exercise, due to the area of operations. The exercise is going to start at the Danish Frederikshavn port, where the harbour phase of the operation is planned to be executed between 12th and 13th September. Maritime phase is going to start on 14th September this year, and at the initial stage it is going to cover “perfecting of the naval warfare and cooperation in the international teams”
The third phase of the exercise is going to start on 21st September – and this is going to be a “large scale international peacekeeping exercise, involving sea, air and land operations”.