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Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
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Mar 14 • 5 tweets • 6 min read
Some shots from the bridge of @RoyalNavy amphibious ship @HMS_Albion of some of the @NATO naval fleet assembling off Norway🇳🇴 for Exercise Cold Response 22 including:
@ItalianNavy🇮🇹 Giuseppe Garibaldi
@RoyalNavy🇬🇧 @HMSPWLS
@MarineNationale🇫🇷 Dixmude
@Kon_Marine 🇳🇱HNLMS Rotterdam
Not to mention, of course @RoyalNavy Type 45 destroyer @HMSDefender (added to the #thread🧵 because frankly, that's just a damned fine photo📷😉)
While a P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft of @Forsvaret_no tracks the Russian Navy Northern Fleet, including the big, nuclear-powered battlecruiser Peter the Great, as it deploys to intercept & observe #ColdResponse22
The @RoyalNavy is also busy on the other side of the Scandinavian Peninsula, incidentally, with Type 23 frigate @HMS_Richmond back operating in the Baltic Sea with @forsvaretdk frigate HDMS Niels Juel
As well as @Poland_MOD frigate ORP Generał Kazimierz Pułaski (formerly the @USNavy's USS Clark)

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More from @navalhistorian

Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Mar 8
1) An excellent #thread🧵 by @WarintheFuture on the oft neglected southern front in the #UkraineWar & its importance, covering many aspects ashore, so here's a little additional #thread🧵 looking into some of the naval & maritime aspects that hopefully further enrich the picture.
2) As @WarintheFuture points out Ukraine's maritime south is economically vital to the country, handling 60% of its exports & 50% of its imports while containing a number of very large & important industrial centres, not least its 3rd largest city - Odesa.
3) So what has happened to this vital, maritime trade since the start of the #UkraineWar? Well, put bluntly - as @MarineTraffic demonstrates here - it has stopped. Nothing is coming out to help Ukraine's economy, & nothing is coming in to aid the fight.
Read 33 tweets
Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Mar 6
1) Okay, since there seems to be something of an interest Russian military logistics at the moment, to the usual lack of public demand, a little #thread🧵 on why Russia's naval logistics, particularly in the Mediterranean, have always been a critical time limit on the #UkraineWar
2) An absolutely critical part of Russia's military buildup to its current #UkraineWar was & remains a series of very visible signals, from the High North to the Pacific, to @NATO & others, to not interfere.
3) The most visible of these tended to be at sea most notably with the massive reinforcement of the Mediterranean with two Slava Class cruisers - the Pacific Fleet's flagship Varyag & the Northern Fleet's flagship Marshal Ustinov. It is also by far the most logistically exposed.
Read 15 tweets
Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Mar 5
I must confess, I've been wondering for a while how sustainable Russia's significantly reinforced fleet in the Mediterranean was going to be (niche, I know🙄). The scrapping of the 2015 access agreement with Cyprus would certainly make it harder... knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/news/cyprus…
This logistical limitation, along with the creation of a defensive bastion for the base itself, may well be one of the reasons behind the concentration of the fleet around the Syrian base at Tartus, rather than following @French_CSG & @USSHARRYSTRUMAN
Interestingly (& entirely coincidentally it must be emphasised!) @French_CSG ran an exercise last year practising operations against just such an overseas naval base at Djibouti
Read 4 tweets
Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Dec 11, 2021
1) Okay, an interesting proposal that obviously one has to caveat with the obligatory point that the @RoyalNavy & @RoyalMarines particularly, have, in fact, been training annually in the Arctic for years.*
*Okay, one doesn't actually *have* to, but I'm going to do it anyway😂
2) However, it's not just the @RoyalNavy & @RoyalMarines who can & do operate there, indeed the @RoyalAirForce is already busy lifting & shifting @BritishArmy @ArmyAirCorps Apache gunships (among much else), to Norway for the annual Exercise Clockwork 2022.
3) While, earlier this year, the @RoyalAirForce were testing new tactical refuelling capabilities to enable rapid deployment of Typhoon strike fighters to Norway.
Read 12 tweets
Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Aug 20, 2021
@Phillip_Blond @RoryStewartUK @PatPorter76 Okay, if I may have a go at breaking down @RoryStewartUK's account in the piece there:
1) He is absolutely correct in his assertion that the rapid departure of US air power and technical support has had a catastrophic effect. I don't think anybody sensible is questioning that.
@Phillip_Blond @RoryStewartUK @PatPorter76 2) Likewise I don't think anybody would particularly quibble with the fact that this was a comparatively small commitment with few (as @PatPorter76 correctly points out, injuries do still count) casualties, & under little domestic political pressure *at current levels* (& this...
@Phillip_Blond @RoryStewartUK @PatPorter76 bit is critical).
3) The point at which his account runs into a fatal problem is the following, & that is that the war is considerably wider than the West's current military commitment. He correctly asks "who exactly, who is President Biden asking to fight?" & then unfortunately
Read 16 tweets
Dr Phil Weir Profile picture
Mar 21, 2021
A point from the Integrated Review that seems to have attracted little attention, but *might* be one of the most interesting moves of all is the "strategic hubs", which will be key to being "persistently engaged worldwide through forward deployment" (p. 73)gov.uk/government/pub…
For any talk of agility/mobility/etc., these hubs & whatever they comprise will form the "foundations" - the geography of any overseas strategy. Some of these hubs appear, in some respects, obvious & are based on pre-existing facilities.
For example, although the bulk of British forces left Germany in February 2020, the remnants at @BritishArmyDEU would seem a solid place to start with what is likely to be a predominantly land-based, continued commitment to @NATO & the defence of continental Europe.
Read 15 tweets

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