Northern exercise problems

Still some way to go:

Recent military operations in the Arctic have exposed weaknesses in how the navy, army and air force work together and suggest the military is still only equipped to fight a Cold War that ended years ago, top officers acknowledge.

A problem-plagued landing of soldiers on a remote northern coastline from a navy frigate showed that the goal of the three services being able to operate seamlessly is still a ways off.

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of defence staff, has said he wants to reshape the Forces so that all branches are able to operate together smoothly and effectively.

"This is a new sort of operation for the navy," said Col. Chris Whitecross, commander of the military in the Arctic. "We don’t necessarily do it all that often in terms of taking folks off the ship and inserting them onto the land."

As part of Operation Lancaster, the largest naval operation in the Northwest Passage in a generation, soldiers from the Quebec-based Van Doos regiment were to be deployed from the frigate HMCS Montreal. They were to set up an observation post on the Borden Peninsula on the south shore of the eastern gate of the passage.

However, getting the soldiers onto a small Zodiac by dangling them from a rope ladder over the side of the ship took hours longer than scheduled.

As well, heavy surf swamped the small boat when it landed on a steep, rocky coastline. The soldiers were forced to bail out with their helmets and stand waist- and chest-deep in the freezing water to push the craft back out to sea and cut loose ropes that had become entangled in the propeller.

"It was very, very cold," recalled Capt. Jonathan Hubble.

After climbing up a 20-metre headwall, the soldiers were then forced to set up their post kilometres from where they had planned. They were moved to the original post by Twin Otter, but the plane’s landing gear got stuck nearly half a metre deep in unexpected mud.

The Twin Otter remains at the observation post and won’t be able to move for weeks until the ground freezes up.

A helicopter finally picked up the soldiers from the peninsula...

More here.