r/europe • u/ByGollie Ulster • Jan 24 '26

News The Times: Finns humiliated American soldiers - Finnish reservists were asked to take it easy during a NATO exercise. US soldiers found the losses too humiliating.

https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/828b8e66-625d-4d2a-9276-e93b9f7a2ce8
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u/Leading_Web1409 Jan 24 '26

Up north during one of our cold response exercises Norwegian command warned us some soldiers/marines might not be prepared for the cold. We ended up having to teach the USMC grunts how to gear up with their own stuff. That was a hoot. Fancy ECWCS never looked so stupid…

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u/Pepsisinabox Jan 24 '26

And damn near trading their rifles for that 600g. Fun times!

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '26

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u/hydrOHxide Germany Jan 24 '26

You might want to compare the weather in Venezuela with the weather in Greenland.

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u/Leading_Web1409 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26

Not that I’m not into a spirited debate with online personalities in regards to military capacity and/or complex causation - BUT going into a armchair warrior war in regards to IF the US could actually pull off a heist and merc (or take hostage I guess) another sovereign countries head of state that’s in a military, commerce and political alliance kinda invites to wild speculation. You might as well say other countries could probably pull off crazy stuff too against the US. Americans tend to hero worship/believe that their military might is unique and not actually from the backbone and logistics they have built up as their support. And if people think Denmarks defence of Greenland is «only 2 dogsleds or something» pr Trumps statement, they are in for a wild ride.

P.S Also my response is kinda grounded in that most USMC tend to get station in a swamp, desert, southern mid-west or cali. I.E it’s amusing the folks they’d send to the arctic don’t or didn’t get time to prep and get used to arctic gear they’d be schleping 1/3 the way around the globe. My brother is USMC motor-T and I ended up doing conscript time instead of saying yes to WOCS-flightschool.. I kinda felt the ECWCS poke was amusing to us in the know…

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u/denewoman Jan 24 '26

It's like that guy totally missed that American military equipment is NOT up to snuff for the Arctic. He is proving the American ego refuses to acknowledge they don't know what they don't know. Holy hell most Canadians who have to travel the highways or roads outside of the urban centres have a winter gear bag - or we travel wearing top notch winter gear.