Tag Archives: Danish F-35s

Danes Receive First of 26,000 Colt C8 Rifles, Order another 26,000

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The Danish military has literally doubled down on an order of new 5.56 NATO chambered Colt Modular Rail Rifles in an effort to rebuild its army.

The Danish Ministry of Defense Materiel and Procurement Board (Forsvarsministeriets Materiel- og Indkøbsstyrelse, FMI) last week made a two-point announcement.

First, it had received the first shipments of new Colt Canada C8 MRR Carbines, type qualified as the Gevaer M/25 in Danish service. These guns, ordered last August, were to be in two variants separated by colorways, with half being all-black and the other half being a sort of coyote brown/dark FDE, with the full order delivered by the end of 2026. The Elcan Specter is the day/night optic of record.

Colt C8 MRRs arriving in Denmark
The first of 26,000 ordered Colt C8s arrived in Denmark this month. (Photos: Danish FMI)
Colt C8 MRRs arriving in Denmark
The Colt Canada C8 MRR uses a monolithic upper receiver with a lot of slots for M-LOK accessory rails, and it looks like the 15.7-inch model was delivered. These will use Elcan Specter 4x optics. (Photo: Danish FMI)
Colt C8 MRR
They use free-floating, cold-hammer-forged chrome-lined barrels in lengths of 11.6, 14.5, 15.7, or 18.6 inches. The C8 MRR is also offered in .300 BLK and 7.62 NATO, although the Danes are just using the 5.56 variants. (Photo: Colt Canada). 

Udleveringen af omkring 50.000 nye M/25 C8 MRR geværer til Forsvaret og Hjemmeværnet er gået i gang. Hærhjemmeværnets SSR-soldater er de første der får leveret GV M/25 fra Colt Canada med SpecterDR-sigter fra ELCAN.

Udleveringen af omkring 50.000 nye M/25 C8 MRR geværer til Forsvaret og Hjemmeværnet er gået i gang. Hærhjemmeværnets SSR-soldater er de første der får leveret GV M/25 fra Colt Canada med SpecterDR-sigter fra ELCAN.

Udleveringen af omkring 50.000 nye M/25 C8 MRR geværer til Forsvaret og Hjemmeværnet er gået i gang. Hærhjemmeværnets SSR-soldater er de første der får leveret GV M/25 fra Colt Canada med SpecterDR-sigter fra ELCAN.

Udleveringen af omkring 50.000 nye M/25 C8 MRR geværer til Forsvaret og Hjemmeværnet er gået i gang. Hærhjemmeværnets SSR-soldater er de første der får leveret GV M/25 fra Colt Canada med SpecterDR-sigter fra ELCAN.

The second part is that they want to double the order.

“As part of this contract, there was an option to purchase an additional number of rifles, and this option has now been used by the IMF,” said the agency in a statement. “This means that through 2026 and 2027 in total, over 50,000 new rifles will be delivered to the Armed Forces (Forsvaret) and Home Guards (Hjemmeaernet).”

The new guns will replace the old M/95 and M/96 series carbines, which are Canadian-made Diemaco C8 and C7s, which are effectively clones of the Colt M4 and M16A2, respectively, and were delivered in the late 1990s. The country also fields the M/10, which is more equivalent to the M4A1, and was also made by Colt Canada. All three series of rifles were used by Danish forces in Afghanistan, a country to which they deployed a total of 18,000 troops from 2002 to 2021.

Denmark, a NATO ally, is not only trying to beef up its military forces in Europe with the ongoing tensions with Russia, but is also expanding its defensive capabilities in Greenland. This year, the country stationed the first combat units on the somewhat disputed Arctic island – detachments of the Jutland Dragoons and the newly formed Jaeger Corps Arctic Specialists (Jaegerkorpset Arktiske-Specialister) – at Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq, as part of the ongoing Operation Arctic Endurance.

Previously, only a small surveillance unit armed with bolt-action M1917 .30-06 rifles and 10mm Glock pistols was stationed in Greenland full-time.

Perhaps the new guns will be ordered in a white and green colorway.

The new guns getting some use this week at Flyvestation Karup:

Meanwhile, in Greenland…

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The Danish military has been heavy with updates on operations in the suddenly controversial territory of Greenland, and notably has done more in the past month to boost the defense of the massive land mass than it has in the past 80 years.

I would think everyone would agree that this is a good thing.

The Arktisk Kommando (Joint Arctic Command) has been steady with posts on social media in the past couple of weeks detailing visits by the patrol frigate HDMS Vaeddernen (F359), and her embarked MH60 to coastal towns and ship tours to locals (more than 3,000 calling aboard her at Nuuk Harbor alone, about one-sixth of the capital city’s population).

Guard details mounted at the temporary military area in Qinngorput outside of Nuuk– with soldiers practicing guarding critical infrastructure.

For the first time, Jægerkorpset arctic specialists (recently established) from metropolitan Denmark have been sent to Greenland’s roughest terrain at the Blosseville coast for operations.

There have even been visits and joint operations with small detachments of French (27e BIM) and German mountain troops (since withdrawn), brought in by two Danish C-130Js to Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq.

The exercise, Operation Arctic Endurance, also saw liaison personnel from Belgium, Britain, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden– typically two officers from each.

In all, some 150 Danish troops from the Engineer Regiment and the Jutland Dragoon Regiment (Jydske Dragonregiment), and about 50 from NATO allies have been sent to Greenland for the Arctic Endurance mission, which is slated to run “a year or more.”

This bolsters the 90 regular personnel of the Arktisk Kommando, effectively tripling its size.

Keep in mind that when Germany invaded Denmark proper in April 1940, Greenland only had four police officers and two small (70-foot) sailing ships— the Royal Danish Navy’s opmålingsskib (survey ship) Ternen, and inspektionsskip Maagen, with 22 total crew– a sum of just 26 military and police to secure a land three times the size of Texas.

The French FREMM-class frigate Bretagne has been seen in the Greenlandic littoral and has been cross decking operations with her embarked Aeronaval EH101 helicopter.

Finally, two Danish F-35s from Fighter Wing Skrydstrup deployed directly to the area around Kulusuk on Greenland’s east coast with the aid of a French Air Force MRTT tanker.

All of this is an “about time” sort of thing.