special forces profiles, page 3

Throughout history one thing has proven time and time again it has the ablity to be more deadly then any enemy army Mother nature. Perhaps one of the most devastating weapons in her arsenal is the cold. Some of the most powerful armies in the world like those of Napoleon and Hitler have found the cold more deadly then the armies they faced.

Almost all other nations rangers are airborne, and are trained to operate in many different climates, such as desert and jungle. They are mainly used as a spearhead for other forces.

Swedish Arctic Rangers are very different from these other nations rangers. Arctic Rangers are only trained to operate in a sub-arctic forest/mountain environment, they are not airborne, and are not used as a spearhead for other forces. In fact, they are not used to fight the enemy’s main forces at all - they are used for guerilla warfare and intelligence gathering.

Arctic Rangers train at the 22nd Infantry Regiment (I22) in Kiruna, Sweden. Kiruna is located 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in Lappland, Sweden. This is one of the worlds most northern military training locations

In Kiruna the year-average temperature is -1° C (= 30° F), and winter temperatures average -20° C (= -5° F) with temperature extremes of as low as -45° C (= -50° F).

Tactics

All modern mechanized armies require great amounts of supplies (food, fuel, ammunition) in order to stay combat efficient. The bulk of these supplies is transported with trucks

The northern parts of Sweden are covered with dense forest and swamps, so all trucks must travel on roads. Since northern Sweden is very sparsely populated there are also very few roads. This makes the enemy’s supply lines very vulnerable.

They Artic Rangers are very specialized to take advantage of just this fact. Artic Rangers infiltrate deep into enemy territory 50 to 300 km behind the front lines. The method of insertion depends on the duration of the mission, time of year and distances involved. If the distances and duration are short, insertion is done on foot or skis. If they are long, insertion is done with ground vehicles or helicopters

The primary targets are the enemy’s supply convoys and engineer vehicles. To destroy these targets, ranger teams set up ambushes along the road. Typical weapons used in these ambushes are mines, sniper rifles, grenade launchers and machine guns.

Strategic parts of the road such as bridges and culverts are demolished with explosives. The road is also additionally blocked with land mines and anti-tank mines. Enemy engineers that attempt to clear mines or repair the road are ambushed with sniper rifles or mortars.

These guerilla warefare tactics destroy large amounts of enemy supplies and leave the road practically useless. The result is that few supplies (or none at all) reach the enemy’s fighting forces at the front line. Without continual supplies the enemy’s advance will come to a halt, due to a lack of food, fuel and ammunition

Equipment

Weapons

Assualt Rifle- AK5 (5.56 NATO) 30 rd mag often two taped together in a "ranger mag" can be fitted with the American made M203 grenade launcher.

Light machinegun-KSP90 (5.56 NATO) belt-fed, from a 200-round casette. Light compared to other machineguns (permits sking)

Sniper rifles- Light PSG90 AKA British L96A1 (7.62 NATO) 9rd mag 10x scope
Heavy-AG90 AKA US M82A1 (50cal) 10 shot mag

Anti-tank round- AT4 84mm HEAT rd

Also a wide range of grenades, mines and explosives. These weapons are very important to the tactics of the Artic Rangers.

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