U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers perform a preflight inspection on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter as part of staging and onward movement at the port of Kalundborg, Denmark, on April, 16, 2024. STAFF SGT. THOMAS MORT/U.S. ARMY RESERVES
THE WATCH STAFF
In a show of NATO unity and collaboration, hundreds of pieces of U.S. Army equipment arrived in Danish and Norwegian ports in April 2024 in advance of a U.S.-led NATO exercise, Immediate Response 24. The exercise included a massive road convoy of U.S. troops and equipment from Norway to Finland, which covers 885 kilometers and demonstrates the ability of NATO to quickly defend and resupply its Nordic northern and eastern flanks.
A U.S. supply ship arrived April 24, 2024, in Narvik Harbour in northern Norway carrying equipment for the NATO exercise, reported the Barents Independent Observer, a Norwegian newspaper. The gear belongs to the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and was placed on trains and transported across Norway, Sweden and Finland. Norway “practice[d] its role as transit country for allied troops that are heading to Sweden and Finland,” Norwegian military officials told the newspaper. Once the convoy crossed into Sweden, the Swedish military took over the transit operations. “During Immediate Response, American units will, under guidance of the Swedish Armed Forces, move from the border to Norway, through Norbotten and to Borden. Thereafter, the transport proceeded to Finland via Haparanda and Pello,” Swedish military officials told the newspaper. The logistics operation was expected to last about a week.
The Immediate Response exercise began April 21, 2024, and continued through May 31, 2024, involving more than 10,400 U.S. personnel and about 12,750 NATO member country troops from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The exercise was part of U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s Defender 24 series, according to an Army news release.
As their counterparts collaborated with Nordic allies to the north, U.S. Army Reserve troops coordinated with their Danish counterparts to unload and direct thousands of pieces of equipment for Immediate Response in the Danish port of Kalundborg, strategically located between the North and Baltic seas. Soldiers from the 793rd Movement Control Team, 510th Regional Support Group (RSG), performed reception, staging and onward movement operations from mid-April 2024 through the beginning of May 2024. The unit can unload about 80 pieces of equipment per hour, according to the release, after performing safety and agricultural checks. The equipment is then sent throughout the European theater on “long-haul movements” to showcase the logistical collaboration and interoperability of NATO forces.
The port, which is about three years old, proved capable of supplying the Arctic and northern reaches of NATO territory, the Army determined, “in the first U.S.-led exercise that has utilized this seaport for theater opening and port operations, making a new logistical pathway that enhances U.S. strategic flexibility and reach to the High North in order to defend NATO Allies and partners. Military exercises involving NATO nations in the European theater remain an integral part of demonstrating our capability, readiness, and interoperability,” the release stated.
In another Immediate Response prelude, about 1,000 U.S. Soldiers began a “tactical road march” on May 1, 2024, moving 1,600 Soldiers and 200 vehicles from the 3rd Infantry Brigade more than 885 kilometers across northern Scandinavia. Their destination was a Finnish artillery range for drills “showcasing stepped-up efforts to defend NATO’s new Arctic border with Russia,” according to Stars and Stripes, a newspaper partially funded by the U.S. government. The exercise serves as “a milestone moment” for NATO, the newspaper reported, as the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO in the past year has broadened NATO’s efforts to move troops and equipment across NATO territory to its eastern and Arctic flanks.