Finland and Sweden held a combined maritime-surveillance-cooperation exercise at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland 8–9 December 2020. The bilateral exercise developed interoperability between the Finnish and Swedish navies in the areas of maritime surveillance and sharing Recognised Maritime Picture.
In addition to a Finnish and a Swedish vessel, Operations Centres and Maritime Operations Centres from both countries participated in the exercise.
The exercise trained in, among other things, transferring control of vessels between different command echelons. It developed the operational requirements for the use of combined resources in the areas of territorial surveillance and command and control. In the exercise a Swedish maritime surveillance unit, in this case the HSWMS Härnösand was placed temporarily under the command of the Finnish Navy, and it operated together with the Finnish fast attack missile craft, FNS Porvoo.
The territorial surveillance cooperation and training is based on the maritime surveillance cooperation between Finland and Sweden, which started already in 2006.
Cross Border Training is Low-Threshold Cooperation
Regular CBT (Cross Border Training) exercises are bilateral, low-threshold exercises that are conducted together with the Royal Swedish Navy. The exercises cover a wide variety of naval activities and are based on a cooperation plan that is approved annually. This exercise was part of the Navy’s Cross Border Training (CBT) activities, that has been approved in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) as one of the Finnish Defence Forces’ international exercises for 2020.
The Swedish and the Finnish Navies work closely together and exchange information, and automatically exchange systems-level situation picture. As a result of this cooperation both countries receive a more comprehensive and detailed situation picture from their neighbouring areas.
