JOINT-FORCES was privileged to be invited to attend the Nordic Arctic Summit in Sweden to learn more about the new Nordic Combat Uniform, writes Mike Gormley.
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Nordic Arctic Summit Day Two: Next morning saw an early start and of course we now looked like a proper team in our issued gear. Our first event was a visit to the factory of Woolpower, just outside Östersund. Woolpower was the joint organiser and co-host for this event alongside Gore-Tex.
[© Mike Gormley]
We were issued a number of garments by the Swedish manufacturer and after a very good presentation we were shown around the ultramodern factory, where they weave and knit the Merino wool mix, mostly with Merino sourced from South America. Garments are broadly knitted into various sized tubes which are then cut and sewn into legs, arms and body sections and then made into a range of garments with few and less intrusive seams as a special consideration to load-carrying. Woolpower also produce a lot of socks, hats and accessories. We all had a go on a sewing machine and made our very own neck tube or snood. It turned out that Woolpower is the same company group that make the renowned Gränsfors axes and I was pleased to be able to say I own one… and very good it is too, but I digress.
The Nordic Arctic Summit was all about experiencing the various garments and systems that had been evolved by the Nordic Combat Uniform multinational cooperation. So, following our morning inside in the warm with Woolpower, our next event was to get outside into the cold. We were taken the short distance to the Östersund Biathlon stadium. This will tell you something as it is a stadium specific to this sport. Here we were to experience the shooting discipline as it was really too complicated for us to all do the cross-country skiing part of this sport, but we were informed about this aspect of the sport by twice World Biathlon champion Helena Ekholm. To precede the shoot with ski would have been interesting as we would have become quite hot but time was short, as was daylight at this time of year.
[©NAS Photographer]
We assembled as the sun was setting and, now dressed in our multilayer kit, we were then standing around in the cold waiting for our turn to shoot. This was done lying prone on the firing point on the snow. We clearly had to concentrate to get our rounds away accurately and then stand back to await our next turn and reload our mags; pleased to say I returned a 100% hit score. Still got it! It was our first good and very practical test of the clothing we had been issued. We were all a bit chill (definitely Mike’s favourite word, Ed.)at the end of the shoot, ambient was probably around –20°C, and ready to load up into the warm coach to transit to our next venue some distance away to the north-west at Bydalen. Here we would be given some additional and more cold resilient clothing that would rectify the lower temperatures.
[©NAS Photographer]
As darkness fell we assembled at the base of the local ski run and were kitted out with snowshoes as well as being issued with Silva Free 1200 S head torches. We then headed off up the snowmobile tracks. Fairly soon we arrived at a hut with a log fire going, with great views of the evening sky and hills, and were treated to a bit of Swedish hospitality to warm us up on the inside. So, after exercise to warm us up we were now static in the cold again. All part of the plan.
Break over, we headed on up the hill and then into the woods for a bit of real ‘off-roading’ as we picked our way though dense trees which were growing on the steep slopes. This was quite tricky going in deep snow on snowshoes, so we were now getting warm again… especially when extricating ourselves from the snow as most of us had slid and fallen down some of the steep slopes! All good fun in the dark. We eventually regrouped to remove snowshoes, so it was back to being static again for a while before walking back to our accommodation. It was all classic military ‘hurry up and wait’, and for us an opportunity to see how our layering systems coped and kept us not too hot, and importantly not too sweaty, yet adequately warm when still. So far so good, for me at least.
At this point I was now wearing a Merino wool Aclima T-shirt as a base layer, and now we were into the clever stuff of Aclima Merino wool mesh top and long johns with Woolpower Merino Terry stitched long-johns with matching ¼-zip 200 top. To cap it all off we had uniform trousers and top from Siamidis. Importantly, to keep the extremities warm we had double socks from Woolpower and also their recycled felt insoles in our boots plus a Woolpower Rib Beanie and Neck Tube along with Aclima inner gloves and main cold weather gloves from Westram. I will get back to all this in more detail later.
[images © Mike Gormley or NAS Official Photographer]
To be continued…
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