Last week MDAA was honored to be in Greece, the birthplace of Western civilization, alongside of 650 Airmen from Germany and Netherlands with five of their combined Patriot air and missile defense batteries launching 46 interceptors and shooting down a multitude of sophisticated air-breathing drones and short-range ballistic missile targets over the Mediterranean Sea. This massive live fire involving Patriot interceptor variants, interoperable radars, launchers, crews and battle management command centers was centered at the NATO Missile Firing Installation (NAMFI) in Crete, a strategically significant island since the birth of Western Civilization. The U.S. Patriot air defense artillery crews of the 5-7 ADA Battalion stationed in Germany joined the Dutch and Germans in Crete for one of the launch windows. This trilateral NATO Patriot air and missile defense force demonstrated interoperability in air and missile defense projection by exchanging U.S. crews using the same Dutch and German equipment. The U.S. three-man firing crews successfully fired off nine of their own U.S. Patriot interceptors from German and Dutch Patriot batteries.
Click here to watch videos from the live fires at NAMFI.
It is the operators, allied and U.S. airmen and soldiers that gain invaluable experience, confidence and battle hardened assurance to overcome and succeed in this complex mission that requires exceptional leadership to fight and win in these live fires, where the systems are challenged by the environment, the multiple complex systems, the connectivity, the power and logistics, and the execution and reliability of five Patriot operational battery units. These soldiers and airmen exemplify a trait, a skill and a culture that cannot be duplicated by simulations, training and school house lectures.
Lieutenant General Dieter Naskrent, Commander of German Air Force Air Operations Command, and Major General Martin Wijnen, Deputy Commander of the Royal Netherlands Army, with their respective political delegations last Wednesday, the 5th of October, declared initial operation capability (IOC) for their joint air and missile defense task force that increases their capacity to fight the air and missile defense battle together for NATO in the defense of NATO.
This project called Apollo (Reuters article describing project APOLLO) by the Germans and Dutch is the genesis of how NATO can best force project with common capabilities that are interoperable and fully integrated. Enhanced interoperability will serve as a tremendous force multiplier, allowing for the sharing of cost, training, exercises and execution of this critical mission of air and missile defense for the defense of NATO. This task force will grow, bringing forward the willing and integrated air and missile defense-capable nations of NATO both on land and at sea through joint interoperable execution of live firings, testing, training and exercises.
There are five NATO European nations today that have common Patriot air and missile defense systems: Germany, Greece, Netherlands, United States and Spain. Poland and Turkey are deciding upon being part of this common system architecture. Adding to this common air and missile defense architecture from willing NATO countries will include different systems that are in existence today as each country possesses remnants of a national air defense capability, though outdated and from the Cold War, they all need to contribute into an overall integrated system that fuses a variety of sensors for a common air picture that can better inform the shooters. The challenge is that most countries will not want to contribute their national resources for their own security to the common defense and are overly concerned about certifying their systems to NATO and having them reversed engineered and their exact capabilities exposed.
The Apollo, the declared IOC task force and this annual live firing demonstration at NMFI–in its expansion of NATO contributors–is the framework for the air and missile defense of critical assets and maneuvering forces for NATO’s Fast Response Force and the newly formed Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF).
What happened in Crete last week is a significant step forward for the air and missile defense of NATO Europe in the protection of 750 Million people.
