The UK Commando Force is now in possession of 159 Lynx Brutal Over Snow Reconnaissance Vehicles (OSRV) made by a Finnish subsidiary of Canadian firm Bombardier Recreational Products.
Tasked with traversing treacherous snowy Arctic terrains for combat engagement, the Royal Navy has said: “As the nation’s specialists in extreme cold weather warfare, the Commando Force’s battlefield tactics have evolved for the modern era, deploying in smaller teams deployed across a wide area on reconnaissance, raiding and strike missions behind enemy lines, requiring greater mobility.”
While tried-and-true methods like skiing, skijoring, and snowshoes remain part of their arsenal, snowmobiles—once exclusive to specialist units—are now expanding to more troops within the Littoral Strike Group.
The imperative to navigate rapidly and travel longer distances over daunting landscapes prompted a hefty £9m investment, modernising and augmenting the Commando Force’s snowmobile capabilities.
Brigadier Chris Haw, in charge of the Commando Force Transformation Programme, has hailed a significant investment in the Commando Force’s Special Operations capability in the High North. “This is a very important investment at a strategically significant time.
“This is yet another cutting-edge capability enhancement as part of a wider transformation programme providing a more sophisticated and specialist force to Defence,” he said.
The Lynx Brutal began arriving at Camp Viking, the UK Commando Force’s winter base in Northern Norway, in January and has already been tested by the Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS) from Plymouth-based 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group during Winter Deployment 25.
An SRS operator, who cannot be named due to operational reasons, praised the platform for its ease of use and agility, dubbing it the most agile platform used to date.
“A more powerful platform but in a lighter frame enables the carriage of heavier sledges without any compromise to performance.”