The Air Force’s commandos learn to fight in the Swedish cold, where “nothing works”
The air force’s special operators are some of the toughest in the world: their training pipeline is about two years long and it historically washes away 70 to 80% of the candidates. But even these top commands were humble over the deep snow and minus degrees in a Swedish winter, where several of them trained for two weeks earlier this year.
Starting in January, 15 pilots from the Kentucky Air National Guards’ 123rd Special Tactics Squadron learned to survive and fight at the Swedish Subarctic Warfare Center in Grubbnäsudden, near the country’s northern border with Finland and a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle.
The course was “one of the most challenging and useful trainings I have done in decades, to be honest”, said Senior Master Sgt. Sascha Kvale, a combat controller flight commander for the 123rd, in a recent press release.
The group of pilots who appeared in January included combat commanders, air traffic control experts deploying with Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces to call in air support; pararescue jumpers (PJs), combat medicine specialists who find and evacuate wounded troops behind enemy lines; and special reconnaissance pilots, a new career field specializing in electronic warfare and unmanned aerial vehicles. The group also included support troops and specialists for survival, escape, resistance and flight, who teach other pilots how to stay alive if they are isolated in enemy territory. Their mission in Sweden: conquer the cold.
“I think we have a good partnership going on,” said Sgt. 1st class Frederick Ragnarsson, the main instructor at the warfare center, in a recent press release. The 123 has visited the center for the past two years and worked with Swedish special forces there. “We try to facilitate good training for the boys and make them better warriors in this type of environment.”
One of the most important lessons from working in the cold and snow is that nothing works as it should.
“Nothing works here like it does in Central Command, Afghanistan and Iraq,” Kvale said. “Sometimes the batteries of our GPS devices die within an hour. All our batteries get cold wet, so when you insert a new battery it still does not work. In addition, if you do not maintain weapon systems properly, they can freeze completely.
“Sometimes it’s just the old, simple things that work best here,” he added.
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This can be a particularly difficult problem for combat commanders and special reconnaissance pilots, who rely on sophisticated electronics to do their job. But gadgets are not the only thing that is challenged by the cold and the snow, where even the basic tasks with small band tactics and setting up patrol bases become much more difficult. Due to the snow, many of those tasks have to be done on skis, which some members of the 123 have never used before.
“Just moving from point A to point B in this environment is so much more complicated than anything we’ve done before,” Kvale said. “Here we carried out ambushes with rockets and machine guns, things we have been doing for several years, but just because of the environment it became much more complicated.”
There is no way to learn these skills from a textbook, the pilot explained.
“[U]”Before you come out here and experience it, there is no way to explain it to anyone,” he said. “Just the simple process of staying warm enough not to die is weeks and weeks of training in itself.”
Knowing what to wear also becomes more difficult when you get wet from snow or sweat can lead to fatal hypothermia.
“It’s tough to start cold, but it’s one of the things they really teach here,” said Staff Sgt. Keith Schneider, a battle controller with the 123. “But once you start working and moving, you start warming up. The biggest challenge for me is just the clothes – what to wear and when to wear it, and how to keep everything dry. “
As uncomfortable as school can be, it’s better than learning these lessons under fire. The training takes place as the air force, and the US military in general, prepares for a possible battle for Arctic resources as climate change cuts new trade routes out of the ice.
“When you look at the Arctic, if you’re late moving there, opportunities can be lost,” said Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “CQ” Brown Air Force Journal in April 2020. Brown also indicated that the military may need to prepare to fight Russia and China in Antarctica as well.
Although they were new to subarctic life, the pilots did an outstanding job of adapting to their new environment.
“There are a good bunch of guys and they pushed themselves and had great progress from day one and up,” said Ragnarsson. “I mean, it’s a really steep learning curve. Some of the guys have never skied, and now they can ski, bring their stuff, webbing, weapons and all the team equipment.”
It can be both a blessing and a curse: Ragnarsson said he looked forward to seeing the 123rd again next year to learn even more “tasks and challenges.” Kvale is looking forward to that too.
– The Swedes run an extremely professional course here, he said. “I would recommend it to any special operating unit or anyone who can come out here and do this training … If you can do tactics at the subarctic training facility, you can do that tactics anywhere in the world.”
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