Far-off northern lands: 2nd Supply Bn. begins Norway operations

Photo By Cpl. Sullivan Laramie | Lance Cpl. Michael A. Martincek (left), a distribution management specialist, and Lance Cpl. Joshua W. Maxton, an embarkation specialist with 2nd Supply Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 25, 2nd Marine Logistics Group track vehicles and equipment with the Marine Air Ground Task Force Deployment Support System, Version 2 at Frigaard, Norway, Feb. 21, 2014. 2nd Supply Battalion was split into several areas where service members with different specialties worked together to make sure the equipment was in working order and ready for use when additional forces arrived.  

VAERNES, 2, NORWAY

02.28.2014

Story by Lance Cpl. Sullivan Laramie 

U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Europe and Africa     

VAERNES, Norway - The Marines have landed.

In the cold of Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle, service members with the reduced and reinforced 2nd Supply Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 25, 2nd Marine Logistics group arrived in a land unfamiliar to most of today’s Marine Corps.

Marines began training with NATO forces in Norway in 1982 with Exercise Northern Wedding/Bold Guard. Since then, vehicles and equipment staged in storage caves, which comprise the Marine Corps Prepositioning Program - Norway, or MCPP-N, have not been taken out by active duty Marines on the current scale since exercise Battle Griffin in 1999.

Service members from around 2nd MLG attached to 2nd Supply Bn. began to conduct arrival and assembly operations in order to exercise the reception, staging, onward-movement and integration, or RSO&I of Marine Corps forces, in support of NATO exercise Cold Response 2014 using MCPP-N equipment.

Cold Response 2014 is a multi-national invitational exercise sponsored by Norway providing an opportunity for Marine forces to conduct amphibious operations, operate in a cold-weather environment, and work closely with our NATO allies. The Marines with Norwegian support are exercising the RSO&I of forces that include falling in on MCPP-N equipment and supplies as a prelude to the actual exercise.

“We’ve put together a specific set of military occupational specialty capabilities in order to plan for the RSO&I [in support of] Cold Response 2014,” said Chief Warrant Officer John J. Kellam. “How this plan is different from the past is to not only test our capabilities that provide support to the Norwegians, but to test our capabilities to establish arrival and assembly nodes and establish arrival and assembly operation elements.”

Arrival and assembly operations serve as the foundation for all RSO&I operations, which is the primary training objective for 2nd Supply Bn. during Cold Response. The battalion is also testing the Norwegian infrastructure such as roads, bridges and designated staging areas during RSO&I by transporting heavy and oversized equipment from three cave sites within central Norway to designated staging areas in preparation for Cold Response.

Marines with the battalion are also exercising deployable computer systems designed to maintain total equipment accountability and track vehicles and equipment as they move from the caves to assembly areas where Cold Response operations are scheduled to take place. Two critical capabilities used to do this are the Marine Air Ground Task force Deployment Support System II (MDSS II), and the Global Combat Support System – Marine Corps (GCSS-MC).

"How this differs from previous exercises is that the Marine Forces Reserve would come out here, grab their own equipment and move themselves,” said Kellam. “There was no force in place to conduct RSO&I the way doctrine shows we would close a force. We’ve brought to MCPP-N the actual procedures that would take place in RSO&I in force closure.”

In addition to conducting RSO&I operations, the battalion is scheduled to provide direct logistics support 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division throughout Exercise Cold Response including during amphibious operations being conducted as far north as the Arctic Circle. Overall, 2nd Supply Battalion is processing and removing 2,484 equipment items from three MCPP-N caves; 2,425 of those equipment items will be employed by exercising forces during Cold Response. The remaining 59 items are designated as throughput test equipment which is deliberately-selected heavy and over-sized items including the Marine Corps’ 50-ton all-terrain crane, meant to add stressful test elements to the RSO&I process and Norway’s National Defense Plan.

“Once we have accomplished force closure of Marine forces in Harstad, Norway, thoroughly tested and evaluated the infrastructure and supportability of the Norwegian National Defense Plan, conducted reconstitution of all equipment and redeployed all Marine forces, we will be mission complete,” said Kellam.

• Date Taken: 02.28.2014
• Date Posted: 02.28.2014 07:56
• Story ID: 121309
• Location: VAERNES, 2, NO