RT:
The US Navy alongside forces from eight other nations, will hold missile defense drills in Europe later in October, according to military sources, as cited by the American media.
The exercises will be held under the Maritime Theater Missile Defense Forum, which is a coalition aimed at coordinating missile defense efforts, Stars and Stripes reports. The forum was created in 1999 and includes Canada, Australia, Spain, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Italy alongside with the US.
The goal of the exercises is to test the allies’ capability to counter multiple missile threats and coordinate their actions in defending against several missiles at once, which is known as an integrated air and missile defense concept, military.com reports citing the US 6th Fleet.
The drills will reportedly include simultaneous interception of an unarmed ballistic missile launched from a British range located in the Outer Hebrides near Scotland and an anti-ship missile fired from a closer range. In order to accomplish this task, the vessels will use highly automated command-and-control systems such as Aegis with the US ship also using their guided anti-ballistic SM-3 missiles.
Aegis is an advanced integrated command and weapon control system used to find and track targets as well as to guide weapons to destroy them. It is installed on more than 30 US Navy warships and is also used by several other countries, including Spain and Norway.
The military sources have revealed neither the exact date nor the location of the missile defense drills in Europe…
