Two Norwegian soldiers confirmed dead in NATO exercise

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Source: Norwaypost.com

A Norwegian soldier lost his life when a tank from the Telemark Batallion broke through the ice and sank on a lake west of Bjerkvik in Nordland late Thursday evening, during a military exercise. A second soldier was critically injured and taken to hospital in Tromsoe. Two escaped without injury.

The Norwegian Leopard-2 tank broke through the ice on a frozen bog and sank within seconds. The four soldiers were brought up from the water, two of them without injury.

No other vehicles were involved in the accident.

Norwegian and NATO Response Forces as well as units from nations belonging to Partnership for Peace (PfP) are participating in the exersice Cold Response which began on March 10th and will last till March 22nd.
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:salute2: RIP

This is my former unit and I have many friends on active duty in the battalion. A very sad day.
 
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RIP Troopers. My friend who was a Captain in the NG was on maneuvers at Ft. Hood when one of his men was killed by a sliver of steel from a tank track pin that he was hammering on went straight through his heart. All service life can be dangerous.
 
RIP...

I dont wish to sound disrespectful as this is indeed a sad day. My parents had a summer place in Vermont, anyone whose ever lived in New England knows winter is pretty serious up North. I used to see ice fisherman drive 4x4 on the the lakes during January and Febuary and every once and a while a car would break through. Global Warming made this occurence more frequent in later years...

Anyway, the point being, is driving a 62T tank (plus the weight of the other Tanks and stuff) on a frozen lake that smart an idea? Espically when you consider that this is late March and things are being to thaw?

Again, no disrespect intended...
 
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mmarsh said:
RIP...

I dont wish to sound disrespectful as this is indeed a sad day. My parents had a summer place in Vermont, anyone whose ever lived in New England knows winter is pretty serious up North. I used to see ice fisherman drive 4x4 on the the lakes during January and Febuary and every once and a while a car would break through. Global Warming made this occurence more frequent in later years...

Anyway, the point being, is driving a 62T tank on a frozen lake that smart an idea? Espically when you consider that this is late march and things are being to thaw?

Again, no disrespect intended...
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The bog/lake was not on the map issued to the unit. When the army contacted the local sports club (after the accident) they received maps where this bog/lake is marked as dangerous area. So it is fair to say that if the tank crews had maps of a smaller scale they would have known where they were driving.

As the picture shows it is not much of the MBT that is above water, picture released by Nor Army.

http://www.hsty.no/CR06/bilder/ulykke/ppages/ppage11.htm
 
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The bog/marsh was also very small, so the locals was actually a bit surprised that a Leopard 2 could "fit" in there...

Both the Army and the Police are investigating this accident now, so we'll hopefully find out why and how this tragedy could happen soon.
 
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