Keep it in personal union with Denmark, and let there be an Icelandic Regiment, similar to the British Bermuda or Royal Gibraltar regiments. You might pull of a battalion or two that way.
 
Did you know-

that Iceland has deployed personnel to Afghanistan to support the International Security Assistance Force? There were several Provincial Reconstruction Teams from Iceland at Kabul IAP when I was there in 2005-6. They had the most tricked out Toyota Land Cruisers that I have ever seen. Monster Mudder tires, chrome diamond plate bumpers and skid plates, tinted armor glass, winches that could move a tank, and IED jammers front and rear. They carried M4s and some kind of sidearm.

I couldn't understand a word they said, but they seemed like serious troops. At that time there were 31 different national sign in sheets at the mess hall at KAIA, so it was easy to get confused about where people were from at times, but I'll never forget those Land Cruisers.
 
that Iceland has deployed personnel to Afghanistan to support the International Security Assistance Force? There were several Provincial Reconstruction Teams from Iceland at Kabul IAP when I was there in 2005-6. They had the most tricked out Toyota Land Cruisers that I have ever seen. Monster Mudder tires, chrome diamond plate bumpers and skid plates, tinted armor glass, winches that could move a tank, and IED jammers front and rear. They carried M4s and some kind of sidearm.

I couldn't understand a word they said, but they seemed like serious troops. At that time there were 31 different national sign in sheets at the mess hall at KAIA, so it was easy to get confused about where people were from at times, but I'll never forget those Land Cruisers.
No I didn't. Wow!
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I agree a few brigades seems too large for Iceland to man/equip/train. I was thinking a reinforced battalion is about as larger as a can see.

A small HQ/Support company, 3 small infantry companies, a weapons company (.50 cal and 40mm MGs and 81mm mortars). Maybe a light armored company based around a wheel vehicle of some sort and a small artillery battery of 105mm guns.

Iceland would have been a good nation to sell F5s too. Would the F5 work in that type of climate?

I like your structure, but i see more a light regiment or really heavy battalion.

1st Battalion - Yours is good, 3 line companies, weapons/scout company, HQ company with 3 support Platoons (supply, transport, signal, etc)

2nd Battalion - (Support combat) - 1 company 105 or 155 towed, 1 company helicopter (to move infantry and most importantly to setup fire bases in rough terrain), 1 light armor company, 1 engineer company.

HQ Battalion - You have no divisional support above, so you need a lot of things here that higher units normally supply. small Hospital, anti-air platoon, Military Police unit, some marines (light infantry used to working on boats), a forward air controllers, etc.

If for man power reason, i have to go down to say 800 men, I go two light infantry company each with weapon platoon. Misc combat company with 1 platoon armor, 1 platoon mortars heavy, 1 platoon engineer, 1 platoon anti-tank. HQ will be same as 1st battalion, but with anti-air platoon, doctor + nurse, squad of MP's, etc. HQ will be 200 or so personnel. I thinks some things such as doctors, NBC officer, FAO, and MP you just have to have a few of them in any independent command.
 
that Iceland has deployed personnel to Afghanistan to support the International Security Assistance Force? There were several Provincial Reconstruction Teams from Iceland at Kabul IAP when I was there in 2005-6. They had the most tricked out Toyota Land Cruisers that I have ever seen. Monster Mudder tires, chrome diamond plate bumpers and skid plates, tinted armor glass, winches that could move a tank, and IED jammers front and rear. They carried M4s and some kind of sidearm.

I couldn't understand a word they said, but they seemed like serious troops. At that time there were 31 different national sign in sheets at the mess hall at KAIA, so it was easy to get confused about where people were from at times, but I'll never forget those Land Cruisers.

I actually knew of this, that's why I mentioned the peacekeeping aspect of the OTL defence force in the OP. My idea is basically making the defence forces into a true little army, rather than a law enforcement and rescue organization with some basic military tech.
 
I actually knew of this, that's why I mentioned the peacekeeping aspect of the OTL defence force in the OP. My idea is basically making the defence forces into a true little army, rather than a law enforcement and rescue organization with some basic military tech.

Just out of curiosity, what would you say the difference between the two would be in that case? I mean Iceland is unlikely to start on an expeditionary and militaristic foreign policy even if they're more heavily armed... so given their strategic situation, what difference would it make?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Just out of curiosity, what would you say the difference between the two would be in that case? I mean Iceland is unlikely to start on an expeditionary and militaristic foreign policy even if they're more heavily armed... so given their strategic situation, what difference would it make?

I would say mainly the heavy, specialized military equipment such as a batter of 155 artillery, tanks, and IFV. Also, some of the very specialized military personnel such as Forward Air Controllers and Fire Direction Officer. I am basing this on the unit I listed out.

As to having an effective light infantry battalion that is partially motorized and has a few helicopters, I would wager that the Iceland police have the personnel and equipment to field out of the existing police force. Given a two months train at a Nato base, and this ad hoc unit could probably function decently in combat.
 
I would say mainly the heavy, specialized military equipment such as a batter of 155 artillery, tanks, and IFV. Also, some of the very specialized military personnel such as Forward Air Controllers and Fire Direction Officer. I am basing this on the unit I listed out.

As to having an effective light infantry battalion that is partially motorized and has a few helicopters, I would wager that the Iceland police have the personnel and equipment to field out of the existing police force. Given a two months train at a Nato base, and this ad hoc unit could probably function decently in combat.

I see it similarly.
 
I would say mainly the heavy, specialized military equipment such as a batter of 155 artillery, tanks, and IFV. Also, some of the very specialized military personnel such as Forward Air Controllers and Fire Direction Officer. I am basing this on the unit I listed out.

As to having an effective light infantry battalion that is partially motorized and has a few helicopters, I would wager that the Iceland police have the personnel and equipment to field out of the existing police force. Given a two months train at a Nato base, and this ad hoc unit could probably function decently in combat.

The type of equipment you're describing would let them operate in a higher intensity type of combat - it increases their firepower and protection, primarily. But someone is going to ask the question, so it may as well be me: why is this desirable? Are you also proposing a change in Icelandic foreign policy so those qualities are needed? And, if Iceland is conducting those sorts of operations, under what circumstances would they be doing so in the absence of allies or coalition partners who can supply those capabilities more effectively? Defence spending, if it's done intelligently, is aimed at acquiring and maintaining a set of capabilities which the state needs, and I don't think the Icelandic economy could tolerate a lot of wasted expenditure in this field.
I mean, we're talking about a substantial commitment to the military here. Iceland is a state with less than 400,000 people in it, with a huge EEZ to patrol and no neighbours of any sort (much less hostile ones). Expanding their maritime surveillance capabilities might make sense, but the rationale for ground forces like this is less clear. What makes them suddenly decide to commit to what proportionately is a huge and expensive standing army? A battalion plus the support units and hangers-on is going to be almost 0.5% of their population (about 1500 personnel all up, I'm estimating) - that's a massive amount for a country in a situation like this, and we're not even talking about air and naval components either. For comparison the US, with a lot of international and military commitments, has an army of less than 0.3% including reservists (about 1.1 million all up, excluding other armed services).
Basically the question that we have to look it is "why are they doing this"?
 
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BlondieBC

Banned
The type of equipment you're describing would let them operate in a higher intensity type of combat - it increases their firepower and protection, primarily. But someone is going to ask the question, so it may as well be me: why is this desirable? Are you also proposing a change in Icelandic foreign policy so those qualities are needed? And, if Iceland is conducting those sorts of operations, under what circumstances would they be doing so in the absence of allies or coalition partners who can supply those capabilities more effectively? Defence spending, if it's done intelligently, is aimed at acquiring and maintaining a set of capabilities which the state needs, and I don't think the Icelandic economy could tolerate a lot of wasted expenditure in this field.
I mean, we're talking about a substantial commitment to the military here. Iceland is a state with less than 400,000 people in it, with a huge EEZ to patrol and no neighbours of any sort (much less hostile ones). Expanding their maritime surveillance capabilities might make sense, but the rationale for ground forces like this is less clear. What makes them suddenly decide to commit to what proportionately is a huge and expensive standing army? A battalion plus the support units and hangers-on is going to be almost 0.5% of their population (about 1500 personnel all up, I'm estimating) - that's a massive amount for a country in a situation like this, and we're not even talking about air and naval components either. For comparison the US, with a lot of international and military commitments, has an army of less than 0.3% including reservists (about 1.1 million all up, excluding other armed services).
Basically the question that we have to look it is "why are they doing this"?

Well, the poster wanted a real military unit, and it just seemed too hard to have a credible one at the battalion size unit, it is just so hard to get all the needed components. A few brigades sound just too big, at approaching 5 to 10K soldiers. Iceland is 1/1000 the population of the USA, so they get a unit 1/1000 the size of the USA active military. Using the 20% rule of thumb, Iceland has 100K men of military age. I would expect maybe a 25% active component and 75% reserve with most of the training done in winter so as to lessen the economic impact on the economy. Also, I am from Arkansas, and this is about the same ratio as the Arkansas national Guard at 10K personnel for 2.5 million people (cold war strength). This is also how I got the unit, i took the 39th Separate Infantry Brigade, made it regimental size, and made a few adjustments for Iceland, which i will go over next.

1) One of the 39th infantry battalion. I gave a real TOE. The 39th was set to fight in the mountains of Germany on between week 6 and 12 of REFORGER. We had 3 battalions like this, so i cut out 2 of them. This unit alone is probably 700 men. It is easy to move up or down some by the number of riflemen per squad. This type of unit will perform well in rough landscapes or in Urban environments, so should be good for Iceland.

2) Arkansas had 8 inch motorized artillery which would not be so good for mountainous areas. Not sure where this one was supposed to go in real life but it was not the mountains. I battery of 155 or 105 towed can be moved to hilltops by helicopters can control a circle of a radius of 25 km, which should be much of Iceland. I need helicopters to move the artillery to the fire bases and provide mobility for the artillery. One company combat engineers to 1 battalion infantry is a healthy ratio. The artillery and combat engineers are also from the TOE as I remember them, scaled down from a battalion to a company. The helicopters were not scaled down due to usefulness. A unit capable of scouting and also providing mobility and firepower is useful. Some nice wheel or tracked IFV or APC fits the role nicely. This was added because of perceived need by me, and i like 4 line companies in each of my battalions. This would probably be 600 men.

3) At some level in an army, there a just a lot of extra things you have to have that are not in say the classical infantry or armor regiment. You need some doctors that can do surgery. You need some anti-air firepower (say a stinger platoon), You need some MP and at least one military judge. You need some NBC experience personnel. Iceland needs some marines (people used to working on ships). This unit also has all platoon or smaller combat units. In reality this is probably a half battalion, so 300 men.

So your 1500 men estimate is about right. If the unit gets below this size, it will be hard for it to operate independently, so then why bother. Since the local police probably have the fire power of a light battalion, so if Iceland does not get a unit that can defend itself, why bother really. It is hard to be half pregnant.

Ok, to lower costs. Most of this is reserves, so probably 40 days a year is enough to keep them in reasonable combat form. It can be less if they want to save more money. The equipment does not have to be super new. Good old fashion towed artillery still works quite well. The helicopters are quite useful in emergencies, and can double up as the countries fisherman rescue service. I also listed a 800 man unit. 200 to 400 active duty land soldiers does not seem extreme to me.

As to Iceland policy, they would likely want to be a very active part of NATO or have a defensive mindset like the Swiss. I came at this from a more technical perspective, what would Iceland need to have a credible military force capable of defending the main city. As to what I expect IRL, Iceland will basically freeload off the protection the US Navy provides.
 
Requirement...

Since this is Iceland, they didn't want an Army if they couldn't power it with Geothermal Energy. :)
 
Thanks for explaining all that, I appreciate you taking the time to make all that clear.

I came at this from a more technical perspective, what would Iceland need to have a credible military force capable of defending the main city. As to what I expect IRL, Iceland will basically freeload off the protection the US Navy provides.

I agree with the IRL expectations, because as far as I can tell they have no rational reason to do otherwise.
But I'm curious about the first sentence I quoted - defending the city from what/who? Anyone capable of mounting an invasion of Iceland can bring a lot more combat power to bear than a single battalion can cope with, I'd have thought, and any invading force that a single battalion could beat probably can't make it there in the first place. I'm having trouble working out what sort of defensive situations this force would be useful in.
 
I'm having trouble working out what sort of defensive situations this force would be useful in.

Also, I know I'm getting my history from Tom Clancy, but isn't Iceland a wonderful example of where you *wouldn't* want to try to have a resistance movement/Guerilla war?
 
Also, I know I'm getting my history from Tom Clancy, but isn't Iceland a wonderful example of where you *wouldn't* want to try to have a resistance movement/Guerilla war?

A national defence policy based on the idea of guerilla resistance would have some problems in Iceland, it's true. A large, fairly desolate area, without much in the way of population to shelter and aid them. I think the idea of having a regular formation as described is to avoid that scenario developing, by defeating any invaders as they arrive. But as I said, I'm struggling to come up with plausible cicumstances under which that would happen.
 

Devvy

Donor
The only people I could ever see being interested in it is the Soviets as a submarine/naval base.

But them invading a NATO country, even if it is lightly defended, is somewhat logically questionable.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Thanks for explaining all that, I appreciate you taking the time to make all that clear.



I agree with the IRL expectations, because as far as I can tell they have no rational reason to do otherwise.
But I'm curious about the first sentence I quoted - defending the city from what/who? Anyone capable of mounting an invasion of Iceland can bring a lot more combat power to bear than a single battalion can cope with, I'd have thought, and any invading force that a single battalion could beat probably can't make it there in the first place. I'm having trouble working out what sort of defensive situations this force would be useful in.

Well, having the capability do defend has value from my perspective. The same can be said about Arkansas, who were we defending it from? I have the perspective of an American reservists, and perspectives matter. I tend to assume countries sometimes help friends.

As to potential/actual uses, this unit broadly fits into Nato as a mountain/cold warfare unit. It would have been useful to do the following:

1) Defend Iceland v. Soviets. What if only some of the assault units get through?
2) Falkland War. Light and mobile, yet adequate firepower.
3) In second Korean War, most useful in east of country or in Urban combat.
4) Afghanistan: Setup fire bases on high ground, it could dominate a large valley with little outside support. So for example, the Khyber Pass.
5) Iraq: Urban areas. There is a documentary on the 39th in Iraq. The unit held north Baghdad.
6) Boxing day tsumani. Leave the armor unit and artillery behind, attach civilian medical personnel and fly down ad hoc hospital to Indonesia. This type of unit is real light and flexible, so it can fit on a few cargo planes and be on the other side of the world in a day or two.
7) Haiti Earthquake. Same as above, and don't underestimate the combat engineers.
8) East Timor as peace keepers.
9) Bosnia as peace keepers.
10) Monitoring the DMZ between Israel and Egypt (Actual mission done)

You don't necessarily send the entire unit, but this provides a flexible response option for foreign intervention (war and humanitarian) in needed. For example, this unit would have been hugely useful in Libya, and would have shortened the war. I suspect with Nato air support, it could take on Qadaffi toughest units straight up. Bad things happen in the world, and it sometimes takes firepower to stop the bad guys.

Now for a more humanitarian focus, minor restructuring helps a lot. Make the 1st and 2nd Battalion reserve status, and 1/3 strength units. i.e. Iceland owns the equipment, but you have a unit with some sergeants and officers. I case of war, you will have to train up the privates and some sergeants. This will be more like 6 months lead time to deploy, but you will be able to help in something like Afghanistan. BTW, at least for USA in the 1990's, an reserve division cost 10% the cost of active division. So the 1300 men in the 1st and 2nd battalion will cost less than an active duty company. The take the 3rd battalion and beef it up. Give it a full field hospital, attach rescue dogs, civil engineering units and the likes.

This type of unit will enable Iceland to participate in anything from humanitarian help to peacekeeping, to high intensity combat. But yes, from a purely selfish perspective, it is all unneeded.
 
Indeed. And, if the USSR did decide to attack Iceland, they have several divisions of airborne and naval infantry they could use for the job. Even one of those might well be too much for a single battalion to handle.
 
I don't want to deprecate the importance of any responsibility Iceland may feel to be a good global citizen, so I can understand Iceland may well wish to contribute to other operations. And I believe that utilitarian self-interest is not always an appropriate response to international relations (or human affairs in general, come to that).
Still, we're talking about a unit half the size of the New Zealand regular army (using 2 Land Force Group as an example), for a country with less than 10% the population. Granted New Zealand tends to underfund it's military and arguably should take such things more seriously, but does Iceland really need such an investment?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I don't want to deprecate the importance of any responsibility Iceland may feel to be a good global citizen, so I can understand Iceland may well wish to contribute to other operations. And I believe that utilitarian self-interest is not always an appropriate response to international relations (or human affairs in general, come to that).
Still, we're talking about a unit half the size of the New Zealand regular army (using 2 Land Force Group as an example), for a country with less than 10% the population. Granted New Zealand tends to underfund it's military and arguably should take such things more seriously, but does Iceland really need such an investment?


Need, no, but broadly speaking, i believe this force is similar to what the USA fields per capita. But if we use other historical examples, say France 1912, the number would be 30K including reserves (20 of units i listed). But yes, it is a lot more than the minimum required to defend Iceland (0). It is higher on manpower, but much lower on expensive things like stealth bombers, ships, etc.

The problem i see with scaling down is minimum needed size for some of the units. If you lack artillery, light armor, helicopters, they unit loses both firepower and flexibility. There are 8 pieces in a 155mm unit of towed artillery, with about 15 men per gun. If it is scaled down to 2 pieces, is it even worth having them? I would say no. You also need a Forward Air Controller, and there is one per battalion. If it is scaled down from 1500 to 400 men, you still need this position. You still need doctors and nurses if you plan to ever deploy away from the main city of Iceland. You need NBC specialist if you ever fight an enemy that has chemical or biological weapons. It is easy to use the warning strips, but it takes a lot of training for a full NBC NCO. Likewise, on anti-air, don't you want at least a platoon of stingers or the like?

Iceland's population makes it tough. True, a reinforce battalion is a lot for a country that size compared to many countries of the world today, but a smaller unit has pretty limited value and lacks the ability to operate independently.

Now if the USA did not want to be world policeman/enforcer, we could cut our military by 75% or more. Most of the cuts are from making the units reserve status. Converting from active duty to reserve cuts the costs by 90%, assuming the equipment replacement cycles are extended. For example, I was using Korean War era equipment in 1990 on the big expensive stuff. We had humvees, M-16, and kevlar helmets, otherwise, we could step right into the Korean or Vietnam war and not standout. We chose to spend a lot on our military, and we have a disproportionately large say in what happens. This is why the USA is criticized a lot, we pay the military bills, we make the call on when and where to fight. We make good calls (Libya, Grenada, Iraq War 1) and bad calls (Iraq War 2).
 
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