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RAMSTEIN LEGACY 24 FINISHES WITH LIVE FIRING AND CERTIFICATION OF ROMANIA’S SECOND PATRIOT BATTERY
The multinational live exercise Ramstein Legacy 2024 concluded on June 14 with a live firing event from participating Surface Based Air and Missile Defence units and an international Distinguished Visitors’ Day. Ramstein Legacy is NATO’s capstone IAMD exercise. It enables Nations across the Alliance to test command and control, airborne early warning and conduct of air defence system weapon firing, https://ac.nato.int/ reads.
Organised by Allied Air Command in Ramstein, Germany, and hosted in Romania and Bulgaria from June 2 on, the exercise trained and developed NATO’s Live Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) with a tactical focus, an operational impact and a strong strategic message.
“In total 3,200 participants from 20 NATO nations trained at nine locations in Bulgaria and Romania employing 22 firing units and well over 30 flying assets. Activities were steered in 12 national command and control networks under the overall control of Control and Reporting Centres in Bulgaria and Romania and NATO and Turkish Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft,” said Major Tomas Kurpas, Slovak project officer for Ramstein Legacy 204. “Unified control and efficient integration of these systems enable us to successfully conduct our objective of safely executing live and simulated mission,” he added.
A special addition to the exercise was the experimentation of counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS). A team of experts from NATO Communications and Information Agency introduces their concept of defending deployed SBAMD units against the threat of UAS based on lessons learned from how the Ukraine has defended against Russia’s brutal war.
“Ramstein Legacy is NATO’s capstone IAMD exercise. It enables Nations across the Alliance to test command and control, airborne early warning and conduct of air defence system weapon firing,” said Air Marshal Johnny Stringer, Deputy Commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command.
He noted the opportunity to observe a live firing demonstration of Turkish Stinger missiles and Romanian PATRIOT and HAWK missile systems commanded by the German Surface-to-Air Missile Operations Centre. The live activities we complemented by static display of elements of SBAMD system participating in the exercise –French MAMBA, Romanian and German PATRIOT, Romanian HAWK, Turkish Stinger, Hungarian NASAMS, Polish PILICA PIORUN.
“During the exercise in Romania, participants operated a variety of missile systems and ground-based air defense equipment, command-control systems, as well as aircraft from the participating nations,” said Colonel Cristian Popovici, officer in charge of the Public Affairs Division at the Romanian Ministry of National Defence. “Romania’s national key objective was to complete the operationalization of the second PATRIOT system which demonstrated its capability during live firing at the Capu Midia range. This process was completed today for the second system, with systems three and four set to follow the same process, aiming for full combat readiness by mid-next year,” he added. Once certified, the PATRIOT batteries are integrated into Romania’s national integrated air defence system.