Commander, Submarine Forces (COMSUBFOR) formally kicked off Ice Train (ICEX) 2022 within the Arctic Ocean on Friday, March 4, after the constructing of Ice Camp Queenfish and the arrival of two U.S. Navy fast-attack submarines. ICEX 2022 is a three-week train designed to analysis, check, and consider operational capabilities within the Arctic area. The Arctic is experiencing a development of diminishing sea ice extent and thickness creating the probability of elevated maritime exercise within the area, together with trans-oceanic transport and useful resource extraction. The U.S. Navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory (ASL), primarily based in San Diego, serves because the lead group for coordinating, planning, and executing the train involving representatives from 4 nations and greater than 200 individuals over the 5 weeks of operations.
“Any alternatives we will get to supply our personnel entry to expertise in extraordinarily chilly situations will probably be pressure multipliers to our establishment and in the end to the Marine Corps. We are going to come again among the many coldest weather-experienced personnel on the base” mentioned Swensen, who added that 5 of the middle’s personnel collaborating in ICEX are instructors on the Bridgeport, California, chilly climate heart for excellence.
Commercial
“The Arctic area may be unforgiving and difficult like no different place on Earth. It’s additionally altering and changing into extra energetic with maritime exercise. ICEX 2022 offers the Navy a possibility to extend functionality and readiness on this distinctive setting, and to proceed establishing greatest practices we will share with companions and allies who share the U.S.’s objective of a free and peaceable Arctic,” mentioned Rear Adm. Richard Seif, commander of the Navy’s Undersea Warfighting Improvement Middle in Groton, Connecticut, and the rating officer of ICEX 2022.
Along with the U.S. Navy, Military, Air Power, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard personnel who’re collaborating within the train, personnel from the Royal Canadian Air Power, Royal Canadian Navy, and United Kingdom Royal Navy are collaborating. U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Dave Swensen is main a group of six from the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Middle to help in ICEX 2022. A short lived ice camp is being established on a sheet of ice within the Arctic Ocean, generally known as an ice floe, to assist testing submarine programs and different arctic analysis initiatives. The camp, named Ice Camp Queenfish, will function a brief command heart for conducting operations and analysis within the Arctic area. The camp consists of shelters, a command heart, and infrastructure to soundly home and assist greater than 60 personnel at anyone time.
The camp will get its namesake from USS Queenfish (SSN 651), the primary Sturgeon-class submarine to function underneath ice and the fourth submarine to achieve the North Pole when it surfaced there on Aug. 6, 1970. Submarines have performed under-ice operations within the Arctic areas in assist of inter-fleet transit, coaching, cooperative allied engagements, and operations for greater than 60 years. USS Nautilus (SSN 571) made the primary transit in 1958. USS Skate (SSN 578) was the primary U.S. submarine to floor by arctic ice on the North Pole in March 1959. Since these occasions, the U.S. Submarine Power has accomplished 97 Ice Workout routines – ICEX 2022 is the 98th – the final being performed in 2020. A giant a part of that is constructing on the submarine group’s historical past, going again to the Nineteen Forties, working within the Arctic. ICEX 2022 is an thrilling alternative for the junior personnel to participate in that historical past and keep on that custom.
