In Which I Marvel at Proper Hard Special Forces

A very short article today due to apathy/time constraints.

*EDIT I liked what I was writing about, so I lost track of length- often a problem*

In fact, this article might owe a teensy debt to Wikipedia (other unreliable publicly edited encyclopaedic sources are available). So. The Norwegian special forces, or the Beredskapstroppen, Marinejegerkommandoen, Forsvarets Spesialkommando, Minedykkerkommandoen and the Hærens Jegerkommando, as you know of course know they're called.  They are proper hard- they train the SAS in Arctic warfare and are generally considered the best soldiers where it's a bit on the nippy side. They also venture south of the Arctic Circle to blow stuff up occasionally, despite the fact they're almost exclusively vampires and as such do not react well to the sun.  If you see some soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq who are inexplicably wearing skis and putting on the factor fifty, that'll be the Norwegians.

...going up hills is a bit of a bugger.

As I've said, they are proper hard. Granted, they were on their own turf, but in an international Special Force exercise in 2007, a single Norwegian Special Force unit destroyed the SAS, the Navy Seals and a French unit. One night they infiltrated the Navy Seal camp. The Navy Seals are the U.S's special forces, and they are whiny bitches. There shall be an example of this in tomorrow's blog. Now I should add some background here- to a Norwegian, a backpack is an icon. In fact it's a kind of portable shrine to the God of Useful Things, Stor Funksjonalitet-Ryggsekk. An Englishman's home is his castle, and a Norwegian's backpack is his spiritual portal to Valhalla or Fólkvangr. 

ANYWAY. These proper hard Norwegian special forces tippytoed into this Navy Seals camp and they did the equivalent of an Arab throwing their shoe at someone- they defiled the U.S rucksacks, and by defiled I mean put bricks in them so that the next day these Americans were exhausted and had broken backs. I love the idea of stealthing around just to dick with people. I suppose if I was in the SAS and wasn't allowed to capture Bin Laden, I'd have approached unnoticed at night and drawn a cock on his chin while he was asleep.  Also, when the Navy Seals were supposed to be guarding an American warship in another exercise, Norwegian frogmen swam under it and wrote "Greetings from Norway." The Americans were left with what was estimated to be a four egged omelette on their face. These Norwegians are ICE NINJAS.

 

Google image search says Hærens Jegerkommando= this

Did I mention that they're proper hard? One of the reasons that one of these units was set up is because Norway owns most of the North Sea oil and as such were mindful that oil rigs and platforms might be targets if Norway actually managed to annoy anyone in the international community. Actually, I seem to remember that there was a jihad declared on Norway, which they were most confused about. It may have been something to do with Denmark publishing that image of the Prophet Mohammed. In the Middle East, there were more than a few instances of muslims burning Norwegian flags by mistake, but hey, that's understandable. I'm sure if flag burning was one of my fetishes I could burn Yemen's flag when I meant to burn Syria's. Though I WOULD make sure that if I were to declare a holy war, it would be declared on the right country. Imagine the paperwork in trying to get that annulled.

Right. Got distracted. So. Norwegian Special Forces. Proper hard. One of their jobs is to be a rapid response unit in case of trouble on North Sea oil platforms. Now presumably one of the commandos tasked to do this thought he wasn't able paid enough Norsk Kroner to buy enough lutefisk (cod or ling soaked for days in a jus of kerosene) or designer rucksacks- this would explain why he broke ranks and testified in court that some of the training that they did was an ickle bit dangerous. Their training had previously included parachuting onto helicopter pads platforms at sea. Now here's a thing. Where these platforms are is not exactly windless, so the parachuting will be tricky. It's not exactly cloudless, so they'd often have to jump from a low height. And if they landed in the water, well, that's all she wrote. There is a reason that the SAS considered this a suicide mission. I've saved my favourite until last, and I'll just give you the direct quote from Wiki:

In the past, the training has included "sitting duck" exercises, where a soldier had to sit still while live rounds were fired, missing the soldier's head by only a few centimeters.[19][17] The stated purpose of the exercise, if any, is lacking from records.

Comments made about the exercise include "There probably is a reason why one does not conduct this exercise today."

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