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Continuing our NATO Exercise TRIDENT JUNCTURE 2018 (TRJE18) coverage we are now focussing on individual nation’s contributions, starting with Italian armour, writes Bob Morrison.
TRJE18, as we have seen from previous ‘big picture‘ articles, was the largest NATO Field Training Exercise (FTX) held since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union split and the Warsaw Pact collapsed.
Although we, i.e. Carl Schulze and myself, each spent the best part of two weeks in Norway covering the exercise, mostly working apart to try to achieve as much coverage as feasible, due to the massive troop dispersals over a vast area of mainly public access territory riven by high mountain ranges between the four opposing pairs of brigade-strength multinational formations on each side, we were only able to scratch the surface. Rather than producing four long and comparatively sparsely illustrated articles covering each of the North versus South, or Red versus Blue, manoeuvres we have elected to produce a series of illustrated articles focussing on the at times very different vehicles and equipment used by the various multinational brigades.
Italy, which provided the lead for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force or VJTF in 2018, was the lead nation for the westernmost South (Blue) Force multinational brigade and it is her equipment that we focus on first. Spain, Slovenia and France were the other three major contributors to this brigade, and we will cover their armour next, plus Albania also contributed a company but unfortunately we did not manage to track them down in the time available. The Italian-led brigade was defending its sector against Canadian Mechanised Infantry and a USMC Marine Expeditionary Unit, and we will also cover these in due course.
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Another command role LINCE spotted near the Tac Main HQ at Folldal – rear antennae are clearer in this shot [©BM]
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Two LINCE bracketing a French Engineer VAB – note Remote Weapon Station (no machine gun) on CZ191 [©BM]
The second armoured, protected in modern parlance, vehicle fielded by the Italian Paras on TRJE18 was the Hägglunds Bv206S tracked over-snow vehicle. At first when I spotted these articulated tracked vehicles in the field I presumed their occupants must be Alpini, but a few days later when I had the opportunity to briefly speak to their commander he explained that they had borrowed them from their Mountain Infantry colleagues to ensure they had well heated and highly capable vehicles for mid-Norway in early winter; half of their British infantry colleagues fighting in support to the east, where temperatures are lower as further from the sea, were sent into exercise battles in the sleet and snow in just canvas backed cargo trucks!
Produced by the Swedish manufacturer Hägglunds, now part of BAE Systems, the Bandvagn 206S is the armoured version of the all-terrain tracked articulated personnel carrier designed specifically for over-snow operations and widely used throughout NATO. The S-model, which tips the scales at around seven tonnes, is able to transport up to a dozen combat troops with driver plus four in the front module and eight more in the rear; compared to a maximum 16 in the original softskin vehicle. Although similar to the BvS10 VIKING used by the Royal Marines, the Bv206S is both smaller and lighter.
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The articulated armoured Bv206S is currently used by France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden [©BM]
Finally, although we tried hard to find the Paracadutisti during their battles with Canada’s R22R, the elite Van Doos, as they were defending mountainous terrain high above the roads on the valley floors and we did not have a Bv206S at our disposal we never got any closer to them than a couple of kilometres.
Footnote: For 1:35 scale military modellers*, Italeri produce a nice model of the LINCE and TAKOM produce a detailed Bv 202S model. Hopefully these images will come in handy for reference.
{ images © Bob Morrison unless noted }
*If you came to this page from Facebook please Share so other military modellers can find it. Thanks
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This Alpha Company LINCE has no front winch – a Remote weapon Station is under the canvas cover [©BM]
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As the medics here were on real-time standby, and also seemingly spoke no English, I was unable to persuade them to let me check inside for layout [©BM]
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This Bv206S was being used by a medical unit – it would have ferried casualties down the mountain to the LINCE ambulance seen above [©BM]
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The 620mm wide endless band rubber tracks exert less ground pressure than a soldier’s boot and give excellent performance on snow and ice [©BM]
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