US Navy SEALs in Romania
Best two special forces in the world meet each other in the Carpathians

Believe it or not, but the US Navy SEALs are in Romania !
An unknown nomber of combatants from SEAL Team Two came to Romania in Transylvania this february 2000.
The SEALs came here to train with the best Mountain Special Forces in the world, the Romanian Mountain Hunters. Vânatorii de munte are the most highly skilled mountain special forces in the world and they are completly untrackable. Their weapons are just as sophisticated as their American or British counterparts, but their skills are and always were beyond them. US Navy SEALs, SAS, SIS, K4 Rangers, US Army Rangers, Spetsnaz, DST, the Gurkhas, Green Berets and many other forces have special mountain-only sub-units or are trained for mountain warfare as a dedicated training, but even though their weapons come in a larger variaty than the Romanians' weapons (Pavelow, M16A2, M-14, M-4, RPG, M-72, portable FLIR and gunsight HMDs), their training is based mostly on physical punishment and psychologycal warfare resistance. The Romanian training, altough by far the toughest in Eastern Europe and very comparable to the top special forces of the world, puts its accent especially on old skills and "grannie methods" of being Stealthy during both combat and cruising in the mountains and also on mountain survival personal independence and natural feeding and maintainence of all their equipment as well as their lives.
Vânatorii de Munte are using mostly AKM automatic machineguns which are a short-barrel Romanian upgrade version of the classical AK-47 Kalashnikov which during jungle and freezing environments is a better weapon against the American M16A2 which beats it at firing speed and weight, but looses at environment resistance and also has an extremly low magazine (20 rounds) compared to the AKM which can be fitted with magazines of 30, 31, 32, 60, 61 and 62 rounds.

Also, the usual Romanian AKM has a device which absorbs 20-25% of the firing shock, while the Romanian Armed Forces have already developed since 1998 a system which will absorb more than 90% of the firing shock, leaving the Romanian AKM virtually recoiless. That prototype of Romanian AKM is still, after 2 years (2001), the first and only weapons of such performance in the world, having no operational nor even a prototype counterpart yet from any other country, military or research laboratories in the world.

All the top ten special forces in the world except the Russians', naming SAS, Navy SEALs, SIS, Dutch Special Forces, DST, K4, Gurkhas, Army Rangers and Green Berets pay huge ammounts of US dollars (a few millions) every year to have the opportunity to train with the Romanian Mountain Hunters and learn from each other. The Romanian Mountain Hunters are the only special force in the world to my knowledge which receives money to train not only other top special forces, but namely the top ten of the world.
The Year 2000's Operation in february was named Operation Dacia 2000, after the original state name of the Romanian ancestors thoundsands of years before being incorporated in the Roman Empire following the wars of 101-102 and 105-106 AD.
Operation Dacia 2000 had mainly top secret objectives and training grounds, and the US Navy SEALs did not let themselves be filmed or recorded in any way by any Romanian Media representants. However, a US Navy SEAL stated for the nomber one television network in Romania, PRO TV, that "Well we're here in order to train with the Romanian Mountain Hunters and develop common ways of mountain attack and guerilla warfare, and also to find and designate targets which will later be attacked and destroyed by attack helicopters and/or fighter aircraft".
The ones that did let themselves be filmed were the Romanian Mountain Hunters in their winter white camouflage and with their special weapons around.
Day Two of Operation Dacia 2000
The US Navy SEALs groupped themselves in ony big team and spread across the Romanian Mountains somewhere in the Meridional Carpathians (Brasov area, where IAR SA Ghimbav is also located as well as the main Mountain Hunter bases of the 2nd "Sarmizegetusa" Mountain Brigade) and tried to escape a much smaller Romanian team following to hunt them. The US Navy SEALs used their huge experience and skills accumulated during five decades of special warfare and black operations and after countless extremly difficult training sessions to try their best at decoying and deflecting their Romanian pursuits. The SEALs applied a technique called "Track Deflection" which was successfully applied in Chile a few years ago where the Navy SEALs fouled, de-tracked, re-circled and attacked their Chillian pursuits in a similar training session with the Chillian Army's Mountain Division, resulting in their total success in that training mission.
Repeating that same technique, the SEALs also performed a circle-running and intended to camouflaged themselves and wait for their hunters and neutralize them. However, the Romanian Mountain Hunters successfully used this same Track Deflection technique during World War II and World War I against both Nazi German/Hungarian and Soviet invaders and it always worked, so being a much much older user of this method than the SEALs which only accomodated it during the 1980s, the Romanian Mountain Hunters switched the odds of the SEALs' plans and got to their intended ambush site first. As the SEALs arrived there in order to prepare their trap for the Romanians, they've found themselves trapped by an already existing Romanian counter-ambush. So in short terms, the Romanian Mountain Hunters (Vanatorii de Munte) defeated the US Navy SEALs in this exercise.
Day X
Both fully original as well as mixed Romanian and American Special Forces teams joined up in a mission to detect a various nomber of Paramilitary, terrorist and rebel camps and bases hidden in the heart of the Carpathians and designate laser trackers on them in order to help attack helicopters and fighters to bomb them. The US Navy SEALs often perform such missions, as they did it during the Panama War, Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and other conflicts, all the time with full success. The two forces had an amazing adventure running into and discovering various previously unidentified bases and lonely freelancers in the Carpathians and they destroyed them all. Reaching the final point sometime between 4am and 5am that morning, the combined teams illuminated with laser designators the rebels' tents and military installations. Coming through the night an unknown nomber of MH-53 Pavelow and Puma SOCAT helicopters hugging the ground and flying only by NVGs and FLIRs engaged the targets with Maverick, TOW and Hellfire missiles as well as minibombs and cannons. All the targets were smashed according to the previously assambled plan.
Day Y
The same exercise in day X, only that this time, between 2 and 4 MiG-21A Lancers were called to do the rebel-cleaning job.
Training ended with a mixed attack team, when both Pavelow as well as Lancer aircraft hit targets designated by both Romanian Mountain Hunters and SEAL teams.
Although this is only one of the many training sessions that the Romanian Special Forces had this year with NATO special operations forces, the Team Dacia 2000 exercise between Vanatorii de Munte and the US Navy SEALs is one more proof, if ever needed, of the fully integration and cooperation between the Romanian Armed Forces' elite and any other NATO SOFs(Special Operations Forces).
Operation Dacia 2000 will end in the 5th of March 2000, with the departure of all the US Navy SEALs, the additional American personnel and the Pavelow attack and special forces transport helicopters.
Team Dacia 2000 was only one of the douzens of exercises incorporated in the Forta 2000 (Force 2000) or "Vis de toamna" (Autumn Dream) mega-exercise that took place in the year 2000 in Romania, the largest exercise since 1989.
Read all about Forta 2000 here.

©2000 Sorin A Crasmarelu

february 2000

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