Vantage Point North

Finnish soldier in the Cold Response 2022 exercise in Norway. Photo: Emil Biese FDF Combat Camera Team The Finnish Defense Forces have been almost unique in Europe as their primary objective has always been to stop and beat back a Russian peer level attack. Unlike most other countries this priority remained even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, focus was placed on readiness and the ability to also counter smaller scale hybrid operations that can occur with very little warning. This has been achieved with the creation of readiness units that are manned by a mix of conscripts and professional soldiers.  The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been very different than the 2014 one, with the whole operation opening up as large scale peer level war with all of the tools available in the Russian arsenal used. While this is exactly the premise Finnish defense is based on, the fact of a peer level warfare in Europe has caused the need t...

  Jehu-class boat and NH-90 helicopters. Photo: FDF The Finnish Defense Forces have been working hard with improving their readiness since 2014. The army has developed readiness units that are manned with conscripts serving 6 months of their 12-month conscription in a readiness role. The units are rather hard hitting, with usually a company of infantry augmented by organic artillery, anti-aircraft, and main battle tank detachments. While the Army readiness units have been operational for five years now, the first two Navy units reached operational status in December 2021. The unit is formed much in the same way as the army units, with a core of professional soldiers supported by the 12 month serving conscripts that make up the bulk of the unit. Navy readiness unit conducting CQB training. Note the blue version of the readiness unit patch.    Photo FDF What differentiates the Navy unit from their dry land counterparts, is their ability to be used also in internationa...

  Readiness battalion with their CV9030 (Photo: FDF) The Finnish Defense Forces have put an extra effort to increasing their readiness and capability to counter surprising threats after the Russian invasion of Crimea. This has been possible as the focus of the FDF has remained in the defense of the Finnish territory against the Russian threat and unlike the rest of the European armed forces it still maintains a reserve based army geared for high intensity warfare.   Note the environmentally friendly wooden bullets in use (Photo:FDF) Recent report from the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) suggests that Russia still has an edge over the NATO forces in Eastern Europe. The Russian forces have the advantage of better strategic mobility, faster chain of command and superior numbers in land combat. This disparity increases the risks of a military conflict in Northern Europe. The FOI estimates that the Finnish and Swedish effort in a fight against a Russian offensive in the ...

MSTA-S SPGs mobilizing near the Ukrainian border The Russian army loves it’s grandiose main exercises. Not only do they present a great venue for strategic signaling and shows of force, but they also allow Russia to test its mobilization, logistics, command and communication capabilities with a realistic amount of forces. The this years main exercise Tsentr 2019 ( Center 2019), was announced last December . The exercise will have foreign components from following countries : - China - India - Kazakhstan - Kyrgyzstan - Tajikistan - Pakistan - Uzbekistan The largest foreign participant will be China. The PLA will send over 1600 men into Russia. The Chinese force will consist of mechanized infantry and air-force units. During the previous similar exercise, the Vostok 2018, the Chinese mechanized units operated withing the Russian formations, but it’s unknown how well the integration actually works and whether or not these composite units are actually capable of conducting...

Chinese People's Armed Police Force on a drill The Beijing’s paramilitary arm Chinese People's Armed Police Force is concentrating its light mechanized infantry formations into the areas surrounding Hong Kong. The force is equipped with wheeled APCs and it’s supported by at least PLA combat engineers. The ongoing wave of protests in Hong Kong doesn’t seem to run out of steam and the city’s own police force seems to be unable to contain the protesters. The Hong Kong administration seems to be equally inept at resolving the underlying conflicts between Beijing and Hong Kong. PAP on the march. Source: Aurora Intel The Chinese communist regime will certainly not accept any solutions that would increase the freedoms or rights of the Hong Kong's citizens. The already huge disparity between the western styled society of Hong Kong and the developing dystopian police state in the mainland China is becoming a tough sale to the Chinese citizenson the mainland tryin...

After a flurry of rather disinformative “ Tank Carousel ” news from Russia the latest reportage from the Russian armed force tank exercise is much more interesting. At the beginning of August the handily named 90th Guards Vitebsk-Novgorod twice Red Banner Tank Division held it’s first divisional sized combat and live fire exercise at Cherbakul in the Chelyabinsk region. The 90th division, that is stationed in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, was founded in 2016 and is one of the heaviest hitting Russian formations around. It has a similar structure as the 4th Kantemirovskaya Tank Division that is part of the 1st Guards Tank Army. The 90th Tank Division consists of the following units: • Headquarters • 6th Guards Lvov Tank Regiment  • 80th Tank Regiment • 239th Guards Tank Regiment • 228th Motorized Rifle Regiment • 400th Transylvania Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment  • Anti-Aircraft Regiment • 30th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion...

The Russian media has published several articles about the latest round of live fire drills by the Russian tank forces. The first brief mentions caught my attention as they described a new tank tactic based on the experiences of the Russian expeditionary force in Syria.  T-72B1 at Pogonovo (Photo: © RIA Novosti / Andrey Stanavov) The details about the new tactic were scarce but there were mentions of continuous movement and a steady barrage of main gun fire. On 4th of July, the RIA published an in depth article about the 20th combined Arms Army’s field training of the new tactics (Translated to English by Sputnik ) The “Tank Carousel” is simply a drill in which a tanks of a formation, be it a platoon or a company, move around a set perimeter firing the from vantage points or openings in a berm and then move off to safety while another one moves in to the same spot to fire.  This does allow the unit to maintain sustained 125 mm tank gun fire at a target ...

NATO E3 AWACS (Photo: NATO) Sweden is preparing for a parliamentary election next fall. Security, both internal and external, will be a major issue that all parties must confront. Situation in the Baltic-Sea region is getting tenser by the day and there are serious security issues within the troubled immigrant neighborhoods of the Swedish cities. As the nation’s political elite, diplomats and military leaders gathered to a ski resort in Sälen to their traditional foreign and defense policy seminar, the leading opposition party, the Moderates, stated that their goal is a Sweden that is a NATO member. The party leader Ulf Kristersson is confident that the now ruling social democrats will change their minds and that Sweden will be a NATO member within the next decade. Kristersson’s comments sparked a furious response from the Swedish defense minister Peter Hultqvist. According to Hultqvist the Social Democrats will maintain the traditional neutrality and co-operation and r...

The light weight tracked IFV:s of the BMD-series have been the mainstay of the Russian airborne forces, the VDV, for decades. Several new BMD-variants are currently under development. But the vehicle that is going to be  introduced  to service first is breaking the pattern.  K-4386 Typhoon-VDV (Photo: Vitaly V, Kuzmin) The K-4386 Typhoon-VDV is a wheeled 4x4 armored car, that can be armed with a variety of weapon systems. The base model is a formidable IFV that will have a remote-controlled turret with a 30 mm 2A42 automatic cannon and a coaxial 7.62mm PKT machine gun. But what really sets the VDV variant apart from most of the other MRAP:s is its ability to be parachuted from Russian transport aircraft. Drivers station of the  K-4386 Typhoon-VDV (photo: Nikita Grigoriev, Mil.Today)  The Typhoon “ family ” of Russian mine resistant vehicles has been adopted by the various military branches and security services in Russia. The vehicles are ma...

The Finnish Air Force, Ilmavoimat, has begun it’s largest exercise of the year, the Ruska 17 , today. Exercise focuses on training an integrated air-defense force to fight against an unnamed peer-level adversary. It involves everything from base security and logistics to the advanced command centers and fighter jets. Finnish F/A-18C and Swedish JAS 39C (photo: Ilmavoimat) The Ruska 17 will include roughly 5100 conscripts, reservists and professional soldiers, 30 Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornet fighters, 14 BAE Hawk trainers, CASA C-295M transports, Pilatus PC-12NG and Learjet 35 A/S liaison aircrafts from the Finnish Air Force. Additionally the Finnish army will provide some troops and an unspecified number of the NH-90 helicopters. Most Air Force reservists don't actually fly (photo: Ilmavoimat) The Swedish Air Force is participating in the annual RUSKA-series of exercises for the second time. In 2016 Swedes operated as an aggressor unit and the two air forces fought each ...

TDA-3 Smoke screen vehicle (credit V.Kuzmin) There have been couple of new features present in Russian military exercises this year. The first is the return of the chemical warfare. Not in the form of poison gases, but as a mean to mask friendly movements and actions from surveillance. From the latest massive strategic nuclear forces drill in Kamchatka to the docks in the white sea and railway crossings in Ufa, the chemical warfare soldiers of the Russian army have been using their ARS-14 KM decontamination vehicles, that is based on the standard KAMAZ-43114 cross-country trucks, to lay thick screens of unspecified aerosols. These chemicals are designed to obscure western intelligence satellites and recon aircraft from observing the action below. ARS-14KM decontamination and aerosol spraying vehicle  (credit V.Kuzmin) When combined with properly enforced security perimeters and smoke screens, that can be laid by specialized vehicles like the similarly Kamaz ...

The Russian military modernization program has two superstars that have been grabbing the headlines, the T-50 Pak-Fa 5 th generation fighter and the T-14 Armata main battle tank. The Armata has been dubbed as a wonder weapon that will make all other main battle tanks obsolete. The published plan was to phase out all other tracked platforms and gradually replace them with Armata variants. The T-14 Armata was supposed to be produced in great numbers. The delayed development of the Armata platform has been evident, not only by it’s failure in the Victory Day parade at the Red Square, but also by the fact that the advanced T-72B3 variant has been produced in large numbers and an additional upgrade package has been applied to it in 2016. In addition to the T-72B3M, two other Russian main battle tank upgrade programs are currently underway and the overall number of the modernized tanks will rise to thousands. It is remarkable that the Russian armed forces are committing to four ...