Rubb aircraft hangars are ready for action as part of Operation Barkhane to counter terrorism in the Sahel-region of Africa.
The Danish Defence Forces chose Rubb Military deployable hangars to help support the Danish effort in Mali. According to the Danish Ministry of Defence website, Denmark has contributed to the UN’s mission in Mali, MINUSMA, since 2014 and has provided a C-130J transport aircraft for the mission on two occasions, most recently in 2017. In 2016, Danish special operation forces were also part of a Dutch Task Group in the Gao region in Mali. The primary tasks included patrol activities, monitoring tasks and area analysis.
The S3 3rd Construction Battalion completed a training session ahead of their hangar installation mission in October. Rune Vinding Christensen, Master Sergeant OR-8, led the team of nine Danish military personnel at Rubb UK HQ, in Gateshead, England.
Commenting during the training session at Rubb, MSgt Vinding Christensen said: “The construction mission will take six weeks in total – three weeks for each hangar. The training sessions have been very good with lots of things and techniques to talk about. The hangar system is well thought through and has been tried and tested for a long period of time by other defence forces. It helps that there are lot of clever, detailed specific items featured on the product. We know it’s the right product for us, and in our general opinion it is a great hangar system.”
The two EFASS hangars structures, each measuring 25m wide x 40m long, will be used to store and protect Merlin EH101 helicopters during the Danish Ministry of Defence’s upcoming deployment for MINUSMA. Each Rubb Military hangar features a Heli-Door with a clear opening of 21.3m wide x 7m high. The aluminium framed structures benefit from double skin, insulated fabric cladding, lighting packages and 2000kg roof mounted crane systems.
Denmark will contribute to the mission with a transport aircraft to MINUSMA as part of a rotation concept with Belgium, Norway and Portugal. The Danish transport aircraft will be deployed from mid November 2019 to mid May 2020. As part of the rotation concept the participating countries send a transport aircraft to MINUSMA for approximately six months each.
In addition, the Danish Parliament deployed a military contribution to the French-led Operation Barkhane to support the international effort to counter terrorism in the Sahel region. The Danish contribution includes two transport helicopters and up to 70 troops deployed at the end of 2019 for a twelve month period.
MINUSMA was established in 2013, authorized by the UN Security Council (Resolution 2100). The purpose of MINUSMA is to support the implementation of a ceasefire between the government of Mali and the armed groups “Platform” and “Coordination” and to protect civilians.
The current authorisation is for a maximum of 13,289 soldiers and 1,920 policemen. Apart from Denmark, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali is also supported by The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany, among others.
France has established Operation Barkhane to counter terrorism in the Sahel-region. Currently, around 4.500 French troops are deployed in the operation to which also Great Britain (helicopters) and Estonia (infantry unit) contributes. The area of operations covers Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauretania and Niger.
