The British and Norwegian navies have trained together on Exercise TAMBER SHIELD prior to the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group deployment.
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Press Release, Whale Island, 21 March 2025: Norway is one on the UK’s closest European defence partners and has been training Royal Navy sailors on their ships ahead of the biggest deployment of the year led by HMS Prince of Wales. Norway will commit frigate Roald Amundsen and tanker/support ship Maud to the UK’s upcoming Carrier Strike Group deployment.
Norwegian sailors and their British helicopter crews are now ready to join the UK’s premier naval mission of 2025 after a three-week of intensive training in the fjords. More than 200 Royal Navy personnel, four Wildcat helicopters and four fast attack craft have spent the past 20 days raging around the skies and waters near Bergen alongside Norwegian counterparts.
Instead of its usual NH90 helicopter, the Amundsen will operate a Royal Navy Wildcat – crewed and maintained by its personnel from 815 Naval Air Squadron. To help with integration, the Wildcats have been working with the Amundsen’s sister ship, HNoMS Otto Sverdrup, plus the Maud, while their crews have gone through damage-control training fighting fires, floods and mock crashes with the Norwegian Navy to understand their equipment and ways of working.
Exercise TAMBER SHIELD – now in its third year – has also helped develop tactics which will be employed to defend the carrier group if needed. The exercise builds on the UK and Norway’s ever closer relationship. In December, the Prime Minister travelled to meet his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Støre in Bergen to sign a historic new strategic partnership.
British P2000 fast patrol boats and Norwegian missile craft manoeuvred rapidly in the fjords, testing the ability of crews of the larger ships to fend them off – and the Wildcats to ‘target’ them with Martlet anti-ship missiles. And the workout in the challenging waters and inlets of western Norway also underscored the Wildcat’s wide-ranging abilities which will be exploited repeatedly during the carrier deploying: anti-submarine warfare, including dropping Sting Ray torpedoes, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, and search and rescue. All participants are delighted with the outcome of TAMBER SHIELD 2025.
Working with allies such as Norway, the UK is committed to stepping up our collective security. That is why the Prime Minister announced the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, protecting British people in new era for national security. This recent training exercise is an example of the UK and its allies stepping up security across the European continent. As members of the Northern Group, both countries are committed to protecting NATO’s northern flank.
“Previous iterations of the exercise laid the foundations with our Norwegian allies, rehearsing maritime strike tactics using the Wildcat’s Martlet missile in Norway’s congested archipelago,” said 815 Naval Air Squadron’s Senior Pilot, Lieutenant Commander Oliver Brooksbank.
“This year has built on those foundations and aims to ensure readiness to deploy alongside on operations in some of the most contested waters in the world, in the defence of the UK Carrier Strike Group.”
Commodore Kyrre Haugen, Norway’s Chief of the Naval Fleet, said the three-week-workout had provided “an exceptional arena for advanced integration training between the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy.
“It also gave us the opportunity to do the last preparations for the upcoming Carrier Strike Group deployment. TAMBER SHIELD clearly demonstrates the unique relationship between our navies.”
Lieutenant Jack Mason, Commanding Officer of Royal Navy fast patrol boat HMS Dasher, praised the hosts for the support at base – and the opportunities afforded the P2000 boats of the Royal Navy’s Coastal Forces Squadron at sea. “The hospitality and support from 334 Skvadron and Haakonsvern Naval Base has been superb, providing medical, engineering and logistical support as required,” he said.
“The P2000s have been able to develop advanced navigation techniques within the Norwegian fjords, whilst also developing standard operating procedures to destroy an air threat within a littoral environment.”
The training comes shortly after the Defence Secretary and his Norwegian counterpart agreed to start negotiations on a major new defence agreement. To help bolster security at home and on the European continent as well as deterring Russian aggression the agreement will bring the UK and Norway closer than ever.
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