Frederik and Joachim visited the military training grounds at Oksbøl on Wednesday the 23 June.
Article:
Royalt besøg
HQ pics:
Royalt besøg - Hærens Operative Kommando - Army Operational Command - Denmark
Frederik and Joachim visited the military training grounds at Oksbøl, where the battallion that will go to Afghanistan in August, has by now just completed the final training.
It was actually mostly Frederik who was visiting. Joachim is a staff officer of the reserves in the Jutland Dragoon Regiment and he dealt with more or less what he would deal with anyway: staffwork and logistics.
Frederik on the other hand got a more varied tour. Field treatment of wounded, searching for mines and IED's, chatting with the soldiers, tactical fire support and ROV's.
At the end he went inside a Leopard main battle tank and took part in an attack. The tank would incidentally have come from Joachim's regiment.
He and Joachim also had a meal of fieldrations. New fieldrations are currently being tested, partly to better suit the climate in Afghanistan but also the palate of the soldiers, who have until now used British and American field rations.
Let's have a breakdown of the HighRes pics:
#1: Frederik is here studying the injuries of what appears to be to the results of a crude anti-personell mine, which has shredded the foot and legs of the soldier.
There are mineplates inside some combat boots, but usually the mines are so powerful they offer no protection at all, and as such the plates protect against against stepping on pointed objects, like a safety-shoe.
In contrast to regular mines, the improvised mines in Afghanistan are more crude in the sense that that take off a leg or two and that's it. Some regular footmines are designed to direct a fairly limited charge upwards, with the preferred result achieved when the victim step on the mine with the front half of his foot. The foot is shattered and as you tend to lean forward in the motion, a shower of fragments, bones and pieces of the boot fly upwards hitting the victim in the face and groin. A frightningly large percentage of Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan became blind or had their genitals mutilated that way.
#2: Frederik being presented to a patrol kit. Notice the safety goggles. Frederik is wearing the insignia of the Guards Hussars.
Also notice that the soldiers have started to grow beards. Danish soldiers are encouraged to grow a beard as a beard is seen as sign of maturity in rural Afghanistan.
#3: A minesweeper. A very useful tool. Modern military anti-personel mines however consists of plastic or ceramics, making them very difficult if not impossible to detect with mine detectors. Instead you "sniff" for the explosives. Some mines are also encased in porpose build plastic fragments or flechettes, making them very difficult to see on normal X-ray machines. Fortunately Taliban don't seem to pocess many of such mines. - They are a plaque elsewhere in the world however.
#4: Joachim and Frederik having a field lunch, with a field Coca Cola? And Field paper plates?
Joachim is a major, Frederik a lieutenant colonel.
#5: Frederik and Joachim disembarking from a helicopter, an EH-101, with a full colonel behind them.
#6: Frederik being demonstrated tactical firesupport, in the shape a 60 mm mortar, in DK also known as a bette-morter. A very useful weapon, that can be transported and supplied by a squad.
#7: Frederik being presented to what looks like the new M10, assault rifle. Being introduced this year, based on the expriences of the current assault rifles M95 & M96. It's Canadian produced and not even the Canadian army has adopted it yet.
(You may remember a previous post where I explained why the Danish army often get the very latest weapons and equipment ahead of much larger armies. - In short: it's basically field testing on behalf of larger countries and not least the manufactures).
