NATO exercises in Norway revealed the fatal unpreparedness of the US Marine Corps for war in the polar seas.
The main event of NATO’s large-scale military exercises Trident Juncture-2018 was to be the landing of a naval assault force. Naturally – American. Because the European members of NATO were clearly unable to provide proper beauty. For what, because of America, the whole assault force sailed – the 24th MEU, as they called it, that is, the expeditionary compound of the marines.
However, two of the terrible assault warships of the three cash, as we assumed the day before, could not take part in this historic campaign of terminal intimidation of Russia. For the simple reason that on one of them – USS Gunston Hall, the unkind north wave smashed the landing deck with heavy self-propelled LCU transporters there. And one more – USS New York did not take risks and, out of harm’s way, also hid in a safe port.
As a result, conceived as an extremely ambitious, the American landing party consisting of four thousand “tanned scruffs”, even before approaching the landing area, almost six times sank down to 700 fighters.
If there was a war now, and the US Marines had lost, even before the landing operation, 3,300 of their own soldiers out of a total of four thousand, due to the banal autumn storm, this would be a complete disaster. After which one could simply forget about invading Norway from the sea. And the commanders responsible for this universal shame should be mopped up in the orderlies. And some people even shot for the edification of others.
One landing ship of the US Navy – “Ivojima” nevertheless sailed to the landing area and held the honor of the fallen American pants with a stormy simulation of the “mighty onslaught”. In the course of which it was landed on the shore, judging by the picture of the press service of the exercise, much less than 700 bayonets, as well as 12 amphibious armored vehicles, 6 light Stryker-type armored vehicles, and also, plus to this, the first love of splayed Moscow auto-jigits – SUV “Humvee” in the amount of as many as 21 pieces!
However, that would be half the trouble. Alas, America, but by the sum of the current adventures of its armies near the Arctic Circle, one can make even more depressing conclusion than the Americans themselves are able to realize today.
The fact is that the failure of the landing of an American assault force in Norway was the final act of this naval drama. And at first, the US amphibious group attempted to conduct a training landing in Iceland. But this idea completely failed. The landing exercises were postponed several times, and then completely canceled. As reported, due to the strong waves of the sea, in the area of the intended landing.
Two major failures in a row, which the amphibious forces of the United States suffered in the northern latitudes, cannot be a mere coincidence. And they give grounds for quite impartial system conclusions for them. Which, in short, boil down to the fact that the US Navy is clearly not ready to conduct large-scale amphibious assault operations in the northern regions of the planet. What sounds like a funeral march for American geopolitics, one of the most promising areas of which in Washington is considered the expansion of the United States to the polar regions, where giant deposits of energy resources are concentrated.
Today, after the double fiasco of the US Marine Corps at the “Trident Juncture-2018” exercises, it becomes clear that these US ambitions are not supported by real, capable force that can effectively advance them. And this news for America is even more distressing than just a failure in anti-Russian military maneuvers.
Along the way, I remembered that the American fleet had not historically been a walker to the northern seas, where it had never conducted serious landing operations. It is not necessary to consider such a landing in Normandy in the summer of 1944, since the warm water of the English Channel did not create any specific northern problems for US Navy. Everything else that the US Marine Corps has been doing throughout its history has been associated with operations in much more southerly seas that do not make such severe demands on the amphibious fleet.
Let us return to Norway, where the NATO festival of narcissism continues. In the course of which the local US allies in the military bloc launched their own naval landing. Probably, they decided to wipe the nose of disgraced Americans and show that they, too, were not stitched.
And here is another observation that struck me from the area of “euro-landing” in Norway. The fact is that the landing ships docks, Dutch and French, during the whole time of landing were completely hidden, even without a smoke curtain, at a distance of direct visibility – about a kilometer from the coast. It is likely that observers should be more comfortable with their binoculars pointing and impressing on the power of NATO.
And this is despite the fact that the Russian coastal anti-ship missile system “Bastion” is capable of turning such a careless vessel at a distance of not two, but two hundred kilometers into small pieces! Why are there “Bastions”! At these exemplary NATO exercises, it was possible to sink amphibious ships even with a good shot of an ordinary field gun.
There is no doubt, however, that in official reports and in the generously lured press there will be a full openwork about these exercises. Only now we know approximately what is actually behind this.
But, of course, we know far from everything. The NATO leadership, at least in one sense, prepared itself for these teachings in the best possible way. In the sense of hiding information that is unfavorable to it. The same shameful story was instantly hushed up, with the failure of two of the three key ships of the American landing force. Not a single photo of the damage on the Gunston Hall DKD appeared in the network.
No less quickly descends on the brakes and any information about the incidents at these exercises. It was only thanks to the Norwegian side that information about a grouping of American armored vehicles on one of the Norwegian roads was leaked to the press. And also that in another episode, an American armored car crashed into a local bus. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
By the way, mass collisions of American military vehicles during the movement as a part of columns on the roads of Europe have recently become a daily reality. One of the most recent was a white day in Lithuania. It seems that the drivers of these vehicles, as a rule, are Americans, have a very vague idea about the rules of making marches, intervals and speeds of movement. That is about those things that any military driver must know by heart. However, if they even missile destroyers regularly go to the ram, because of the complete insanity of the commanding staff, then what is the demand from a simple “carrier”?
Simultaneously with the start of exercises in Norway – October 25, in the state of North Carolina, where the “elite” 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army is deployed, its units are also preparing to “save Europe”, the landing of military equipment passed a minute before the estimated time. As a result, it landed a mile and a half from a given area. What in real combat conditions means that the enemy will continue to ride on it.
I, as an officer of the Soviet Army who took part in real military exercises, with thousands of soldiers and hundreds of combat vehicles, when the whole earth and sky from horizon to horizon buzzed and shook from their really awesome power, it is ridiculous and sad to watch this picture. This is to what extent it is necessary not to respect Russia, as a potential military adversary, in order to hope to intimidate her with such frank clownery? It seems that the current NATO has become decrepit not only with its military muscles, but also with its head, if it thinks that it is capable of scaring anyone with such cheap tricks.