The Baltops exercise has started

By: Kristina Swaan | Amphibious regiment – 14 June 2015 kl: 14.51
Archived news

Last weekend it was full show in Gdyna, Poland. Personnel who were going to participate in the recently started Baltops exercise had gathered for briefing.

Under förberedelserna inför BALTOPS besökte en reporter från Svenska dagbladet förbandet
Under förberedelserna inför BALTOPS besökte en reporter från Svenska dagbladet förbandet
During the preparations for Baltops, Jonas Gummesson, a reporter from the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, visited the division. He took the opportunity to feel the weight of the soldiers' equipment. Photo: Kristina Swaan/Swedish Armed Forces

After the briefing, which lasted two days, the units started to move towards the Swedish coast. It had previously been announced that around 4,500 men would take part, but a more correct figure is about 5,600. You can read about the exercise from different sources and they sometimes give different figures, depending a little on how they count, but in any case there were many participants.

During the next few days there will be separate exercises at sea, by the coast and at Ravlunda artillery range in Skåne. The purpose of the separate exercises is for the 17 nations involved to enhance their ability to work together prior to the larger operations to be carried out later during the exercise, such as the amphibious operation planned to take place on Saturday 13 June at Ravlunda. Exercises will proceed along the Swedish coast until Saturday 13 June, then continue down towards Poland, where the exercise will be concluded.
Sweden is contributing about 300 men with units from different divisions, and among other things there will be amphibious operations, aerial combat, submarine elements and many other exercises. The overall aim of Baltops is to train the performance of units in multinational force alliances.

Baltops 2015

Baltops is a multinational exercise with the primary aim of practising and training units' performance in the context of major multinational alliances.

This exercise is being carried out in the Baltic Sea, Sweden and Poland during the period 5-20 June. Baltops is taking place for the 43rd time, of which Sweden has participated on 23 previous occasions.

Participants

The exercise involves 17 nations, about 5,600 personnel, 50 ships, 50 fighter aircraft and helicopters, 1 Polish submarine, 10 combat boats and a large number of vehicles.

The nations participating are Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, France, Germany, Georgia, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Sweden is participating with an amphibious rifle company, a corvette, 8 JAS aircraft and aerial combat command from the 1st battle command battalion.

Media contact:

Major Kristina Swaan

Information Officer Amf 1

+46-70-5552137