ESBERN SNARE is moving into an area where attacks can be expected from both the sea and from the air. So “Action stations!” are ordered to make the ship ready to handle any kind of threat. Luckily the situation is part of exercise DANEX 08, so the threat is not real. But the ability to defend oneself is naturally very important for a warship.

When dealing with operations in areas where there is a risk for attacks by terrorists or pirates at sea, the heavy guns are not always the best choice. The reason for this is, that such attacks are typically conducted using small boats or planes, so here smaller weapons like heavy machineguns and Stinger-missiles are more useful.

On ESBERN SNARE the members of the crew are at their posts and ready to protect the ship. Heavy machineguns are an important part of the ships total protection, because they are well suited to handle the treat from smaller crafts moving close to the ship.