Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 in Kiel

Many naval vessels in the naval base in Kiel on February 19th, 2023: Permanent NATO mine countermeasures group 1 is a guest in the naval port of Kiel.

There has been a lot going on at the Kiel naval base in the past few days, there were significantly more ships in the base than usual. Of course there was a reason for that. Over the weekend, the naval ships of the permanent NATO mine countermeasures group 1 (SNMCMG1) were moored at the Gorch-Fock-Mole in the Kiel-Wik naval base. Here the naval ships were moored together with the sailing training ship Gorch Fock on the pier in glorious sunshine on Sunday, February 19, 2023.

Gorch Fock and A 531 Nordkapp in the naval port of Kiel

The NATO task force is led by the Royal Norwegian Navy’s deep-sea patrol ship A 531 Nordkapp. The Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 is an association of mine countermeasures vehicles and is part of the NATO Response Force (NRF). The area of application is the European North Atlantic with the North and Baltic Seas. The counterpart to the Mediterranean is the Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2.

Mine Countermeasures Unit 1 consists of the following ships at the moment:

A 531 Nordkapp (Norwegian Navy)
M 351 Otra (Norwegian Navy)
M 860 Schiedam (Dutch Navy)
M 1061 Rottweil (German Navy)

On Monday, February 20th, 2023, the NATO task force left the naval base in Kiel with the next destination: the Bay of Kiel and the Baltic Sea. At the same time, the frigate F 222 Baden-Württemberg left the Kiel naval base after the German Navy frigate had been moored in Kiel for a few days. Here you could take photos and videos of the ships A 531 Nordkapp, M 351 Otra and the F 222 Baden-Württemberg on Monday morning, even if the weather conditions were significantly worse than the day before.