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RFA Tiderace (center) flanked by HMS Westminster (top) and HMS Lancaster during an Operation Baltic Dash replenishment exercise. Source: Royal Navy/MoD
Vessels from the United Kingdom's Royal Navy recently completed a large-scale NATO operation in the Baltic together with navies from several allies, including Estonia. The operation's challenges included conducting a night vertical replenishment – in other words shifting helicopter-borne supplies, at sea at nighttime, in changeable conditions.
The vertical replenishment was one of the major challenges of the operation, termed Operation Expone/Baltic Dash, organized under the framework of the U.K.led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), the Royal Navy said on its website.