the threat of Russia about an Eastern European country that is a member of NATO ends up becoming a reality and materializes in an invasion. The country attacked activates article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. From then on, the speed of reaction is crucial.
This is the starting point of the maneuvers Air Defender 23, the largest NATO air exercise in its history. Starting this Monday, the Alliance will launch 220 military aircraft from 25 flagsnot counting the Predator drones whose use is also expected during fictional war missions.
Air Defender will last Until June 23. It will be 11 days of deterrence message to Russia, whose thunderous delivery may coincide with the development of the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive. There are other elements in the time frame of these maneuvers: a huge Ukrainian Dam, Nova Kakhovkadestroyed precisely because of a lack of air defense and an announcement by the Kremlin -another- that it will deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus within a month.
The United States, through its National Guard, contributes 100 of the 220 aircraft involved. Germany activates 16 Tornado fighters and 30 Eurofighter fighters, the most powerful of his aerial arsenal. The United States will carry the stealthy F35, the most advanced fighter in the world. Three F-16 put Turkey, four Eurofighter the United Kingdom and four F-18 Finland. Spain provides three Eurofighter fighters from the most modern and operational wing of the Air Force.
The numbers
Three figures summary Air Defender 23: the 220 aircraft, the 25 participating countries and a total of 10,000 soldiers mobilized.
That number of soldiers represents the largest deployment of airmen in a NATO exercise. Not all of them are crew, of course: part of that deployment, that of the base security teams, for example, has already been activated for two weeks. The rest are technicians from the control, radar and communications towers and support soldiers at the bases for supplies and mechanics.
And not all pilots are from Alliance countries. Japan is invited, which provides observers and its most modern cargo plane, the Kawasaky C-2. And Sweden participates, whose entry into NATO is still being processed, but which will put its Jas 39 Gripen fighters of entirely Scandinavian design and manufacture into the air.
The fighters will be the star of the exercise. In addition to the Eurofighters and the Swedish Saab aircraft, the American F-15, F-16, F-18 Hornet, Tornado and the aforementioned F35.
These planes will carry out their own maneuvers, mainly, of the war in the air. For the ground attack there is a guest Dramatically Tested in Iraq: The A10 Thunderbolt, which was nicknamed “tank killer” by the American press during the Gulf War. The armored vehicles that he destroyed, by the way, were of Soviet origin. The United States will deploy 18 units to two German bases.
The entire maneuver will be serviced by military cargo giants aerial -the Airbus A400M, the Hercules C130J, the Spanish -designed- C295M, the Japanese Kawasaki C-2 and an Italian Alenia C27J Spartan- and in-flight refueling, such as the KC 135 Stratotanker.
defense and attack
In the approach of Air Defender 23 there is “a renewal of the concepts of combined air combat“, explains a Spanish military source.
The participating fighters, even if they are not from the V generation to which the F35 belongs, have to adapt to a versatile demand: they will not be activated only to face “melee” or at a distance -where the eye cannot see- against others hunts, but also to give “close air cover” to troops that NATO would deploy on the terrain.
The general mission is, first, to test itself and the coordination between different systems and, secondly, to send a decision message to Russia; but it is at a third level where there is the specific objective with which this message is built: achievement of the air supremacy on the stage.
This requires fighters to deny airspace to the supposed enemy, missions to bombardment to eliminate the opponent’s air defensessurveillance patrols, obtaining intelligence from the air and, of course, “interdiction” or combat against other fighters.
heart of europe
The list of countries contributing forces to this air war test is made up of Germany, the United States, Belgium, BulgariaCroatia, Czechia, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, HungaryGreece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, United Kingdom and Türkiye. The list thus includes allies not always firmly aligned with Washington.
German participation in the human and technical deployment of these exercises is the most relevant in Europe. After all, the maneuvers are going to take place over their airspace.
But it will not be so because the air command of the Atlantic Alliance considers in the war game that Germany be the invaded country, but rather because the German air bases together form the great NATO air base in Europe, in the center of the continent and practically equidistant from the two areas that are raised as targets of an alleged Russian attack: the three Baltic republics and Romania.
civil impact
There is no less a civil derivative of Air Defender 23: it will entail flight restrictions on commercial aircraft in the heart of Europe, which the German authorities have downplayed.
Not only German airspace is compromised, as there are Planned flights to and from Romania and Estoniaand takeoffs and landings also from the Caslav (Czech) and Volkel (Netherlands) bases and an extension of operations to Polish airspace.
In Germany, the most affected bases are those of Jagel/Hohn (in Schleswig-Holstein), Wunstorf (in Lower Saxony), Lechfeld (in Bavaria) and Spangdahlem (Rhineland-Palatinate).
Related news
On the Bundeswehr website, the German Ministry of Defense has been announcing for three weeks that “processes and procedures are being optimized in order to minimize as far as possible the effects on civil air traffic“. But this minimization will not be noticeable on the axis that goes from the Baltic at the height of Tallinn to Berlin, passing through Brandenburg.
In some exercises within the maneuvers, in the Baltic for example, combat simulations below the 3,000 meter range Tall. There will be quite a few moments of these maneuvers in which 100 military planes will be flying at the same time.