This week, crew members aboard the French frigate Normandie, one of France’s most modern warships, were roused from sleep and scrambled to hunt down and destroy a submarine that snuck into cold Norwegian waters.
The submarine belongs to Germany, also a NATO member. But for the purpose of the war games dubbed Nordic Response 2024, it was acting as an enemy vessel.
The Normandie crew spotted its periscope poking through the waves and sprang into action. The submarine had already “attacked” a nearby Italian ship, the aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, scoring an imaginary torpedo hit. The crew were determined not to let Normandie — a top-of-the-line vessel, in service only since 2020 — suffer the indignity of also being struck.
