British commandos were spotted on a submarine carrying out a daring operation. They emerged from the depths of the North Atlantic as they carried out the new exercise as part of the largest test of any British commando weapon in 15 years.
The Royal Navy stated that the submarine operation demonstrated the powerful combination of bringing allies together: the German submarine was tasked with identifying targets, commandos landed discreetly ashore, and the Portuguese brought firepower to the target.
On board an attack submarine as part of Exercise Strike Warrior
“This level of sophistication and coordination of living resources has not been achieved by 148 Battery for almost 30 years. We wanted to demonstrate to our partners across the United Kingdom Commando Force, the wider UK Defense Forces community and the NATO Special Operations Force what type of missions we are prepared to undertake against future threats,” said 148 Battery Operations Officer, who cannot be named for operational reasons.
“Our focus is on warfare and we are prepared to deploy special forces to conduct multi-domain fire and targeting.”
Green Berets appeared at Cape Wrath, the northwesternmost point of mainland Britain, aboard an attack submarine as part of exercise Strike Warrior. This is the first time since the war in Afghanistan that all specialist elements of Britain’s elite commando formation have worked together, a press release said.
Eight warships and 19 aircraft are involved in Strike Warrior
At the beginning of the exercise, Battery 148 controlled the gunfire of the warships of the main NATO task force in northern European waters, Standing NATO Maritime Group One. The Dutch frigate HNLMS Van Amstel and the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS St. John’s both joined forces with the commandos at their observation posts to fire shots at “enemy” positions. A total of eight warships and 19 aircraft are involved in Strike Warrior, which began on September 28th and is scheduled to end on October 9th, according to the press release.
The Royal Navy also announced that more than 2,000 troops from six nations (UK, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Norway, USA) are deployed across Scotland, including the Western Isles, North-West Approaches, Galloway, the Border Region and the North Sea, for the command-led training, which will rehearse Allied crisis response operations in the High North and North Atlantic regions.
Experienced Marine and Army commandos from the 148 Battery Commando Forward Observation Battery – part of special forces trained to conduct reconnaissance and direct naval fire behind enemy lines – sneaked away silently on inflatable assault boats to set up an observation post on the cliffs, from which they trained the guns of the Portuguese warship NRP Dom Francisco de Almeida on “enemy” positions.
The scale of Strike Warrior underlines the growing importance of Britain and its allies to a joint operation in the strategically important Far North and North Atlantic. The exercise is designed not only to test individual units, but also to examine how ships, aircraft, submarines, commandos and special forces can operate as a coordinated multinational force.
