Tested new defense technology during Arctic Strike 2024
The armed forces cannot spend years acquiring and putting into use new equipment in the current situation, says Chief of the Norwegian Army, Lars Lervik. He wants less talk and more action.
– What you will see today is not a demonstration. It's an experiment. It's okay if everything doesn't work today.
Chief of the Norwegian Army, Lars Lervik stands in the welfare building at Porsangmoen and looks out over a hall of defense personnel from the Nordics, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States.
It is only a few hours since Sweden became a member of NATO. The major exercise Nordic Response, with 20,000 NATO soldiers, has just finished. But some have stayed behind for some more training.
Testing unmanned systems
It was the Swedish army that took the initiative for Arctic Strike. The technology experiment took place in the Halkavarre firing range at Porsangmoen, the headquarters of Finnmark Land Defence, in March.
– We did this to test ideas. We will find out what can work, and what we should do more of. This is our version of "talk less, do more", says Lervik.
In addition to Swedish and Norwegian artillery and intelligence soldiers, the Finnmark Land Defence, The Future Combat Unit from the Norwegian Army's weapons school, the Norwegian Armed Forces' special forces and several research projects from FFI participated.
– This is a "dugnad" where we combine experimental technology with existing operational capabilities. We do it in the winter, in Finnmark, to check if it works, says Lieutenant-Colonel Sven Bjerke at FFI's Defense Systems department.
Rapid prototyping
Mikkel Gorsetbakk leads The Future Combat Unit. The department was started in the autumn of 2023. It is a technical unit at the Army Weapons School with soldiers who are dedicated to developing, testing and adopting new technology. By 2028, they must deliver "new operational capability" to the Norwegian Armed Forces.
– We work with both autonomy, artificial intelligence and unmanned platforms. The main focus now is how soldiers using unmanned systems can operate together with existing systems.
One of the first things The Future Combat Unit did was acquire FFI's drone swarm for surveillance. Then they set about building a control station inside a CV90 and building antennas and other necessary technical solutions.
During Nordic Response, they showed that it is possible to monitor an area continuously for 10 hours with the swarm, which until recently was used for autonomy research.