British air power played a pivotal role in a recent NATO live fire exercise over Norway, demonstrating the alliance’s ability to operate seamlessly in defence of the northern flank.
F-35 Lightning jets joined forces with Norwegian and U.S. aircraft to execute precision targeting operations, marking a powerful show of unity and capability.
The exercise saw F-35 jets from the RAF, Royal Norwegian Air Force, and U.S. Air Force exchange real-time tactical data to create a unified operational picture.
This collaboration culminated in the successful targeting of simulated enemy positions by U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bombers, using advanced “find, fix, track, and target” (F2T2) techniques.
Group Captain Bishop, Head of Operational Plans at the RAF, underscored the significance of NATO’s integration:
“Interoperability is vital to the defence of NATO’s northern flank. This exercise has demonstrated important enduring strengths of our alliance: our ability to understand how each other operates, to share critical information quickly, and to work seamlessly with each other.”
Beyond precision strikes, RAF assets such as the RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft enhanced situational awareness by gathering electronic intelligence, while a Voyager tanker from RAF Brize Norton provided mid-air refuelling over the Norwegian Sea, extending mission endurance. These contributions highlight the RAF’s critical role in sustaining NATO operations.
Norwegian Brigadier General Tron Strand, Commander of the Joint Air Operations Center, spoke on the collective strength demonstrated in the exercise:
“This training event demonstrates the ability of the Norwegian Armed Forces to integrate with and leverage cutting-edge capabilities provided by the UK and US in multi-domain operations. Together we are a credible deterrent, and if required, we are ready to defend the Arctic region.”
This can’t be true, the UK is totally shit, if only we had TSR2. How can our F35’s possibly be useful weapons of war. Total gimmick, give me a couple of buccaneers any day over the new fangled stealth shit with that sensor fusion nonsense. Totally not true that just over a dozen F35i demolished Iran air defence for no losses.
I agree to a point.
Yes, NATO can easily deal with Russia.
Trouble is that a lot of the deranged associate strength with mass. And mass we do not have.
So conventional defence depends on mass…
That is before you get to a rerun of Corporate where for some unforeseen reason UK had to act alone.
In 1982 we had mass but almost all the escorts where low grade and had little to stop air attack other than their hulls. Our “carriers’ where as cheap and nasty as it was possible to make and we don’t even have numbers and they operated an aircraft that barley had a radar.
Everything we sent south in 82 with the exclusion of the SSN’s and the T22 was of low quality designed to produce mass and it resulted in the deaths of hundreds of men and us very nearly loosing.
What we have now is world class, numbers are small but then I never seen analysis anywhere in modern warfare that suggest mass over comes quality. Modern kill ratios for platforms like F35 are likely in the 100 to 1 level against Russia jets, submarines and tanks much the same. Russia lacks the logistics or manufacturing base to deploy a force sufficiently large enough to over come even just UK forces much less NATO with kill ratios like these.
S400 can’t even intercept a single storm shadow fired from a Su23, what chance would it have against typhoon with SS much less F35 with SPEAR. We have 20 times more storm shadow than Russia has s400.
What does Russia have that can combat Typhoon with Meteor much less F35 with Meteor backed by E7.
The Russians would be as effective in the air as the Taliban. Their fleet could not enter the same Ocean as an Astute.
Agreed.
I think I agree with this about 50%. One thing the Falklands also taught us is that with mass you can take casualties and still be able to function. In a full blown conflict there will always be a weak link. Case in point the Atlantic Conveyor. Something like that takes out 5 or 6 F-35’s or some other valuable asset and all of a sudden there is a gaping big whole in your capabilities and you become real vulnerable.
As an example, what happens if we lose one of our “Armoured” Infantry battalions or Tank Regiments a la Bluff Cove? What do we have to fill the void?
A very fair point as to why mass and depth matter.
We are not going to be transporting F35s like that.
“We are not going to be transporting F35s like that”
How do we know that?
Whilst our AAR is massively better and F35B has a much longer ferry range than Harrier….totally excluding the idea of moving F35B on another ship isn’t a watertight argument.
In war, with the slim resources we now have, improvisation is the name of the game.
This is why we have gotten rid off the LPH and are moving to the MRSS concept, in a world where even Houthis rebels after anti ship ballistic missiles the days of large landing ships with little self defence capability is over.
‘82 was the dawn of the missile age starting to mature.
The systems that were available were pretty awful by modern standards.
T22 was the best integrated system out there.
You should also carefully distinguish between the T42’s Sheffield not having the best installed systems and Exeter which did have the most upgraded systems – Exeter performed at a totally different level to the other T42’s down South.
I agree that Hermes was in an appalling materiel state – there were scantlings you could put your finger through.
As you know from my previous comments I never had much time for the fundamental T21 or T42 designs although they were crewed by some amazing people who worked wonders with poor systems.
I agree that F35B is at a totally different place to to Harrier – you cannot compare a subsonic VSTOL with limited electronics to a Mach 1.6 capable with superb radars and stealth.
The Harrier was much talked up and in my view over talked up. Part of the reason Harrier did so well was ELINT based from the SSN’s and the O class with its very special electronics fit – so they could ‘appear’ in the right spot by magic – sometimes…
I don’t doubt that we could, on day one, take out most of the S400s if we wanted to. But this is where mass is an issue – Russia is a huge place and being able to get 60 planes in the air would rapidly exhaust the pilots and munitions.
It’s a hudge place but most of their major centres are a stones throu from a NATO boarder. I can’t imagine a scenario where the UK ever goes solo to war with Russia but even if we can take out their air defence they are totally f**ked as they are completely dependent on rail transport for even basic movement which is easily stopped with even just a small number of F35.
Even just the JEF countries could probably launch a lightning raid against the Kola Peninsula and cut of Murmansk. Without air power capability and their lack of logistics not to mention Finlands artillery it would be an easy hold.
Cut off Murmansk and that’s much Russias nuclear capability gone an end to its ability to export oil. Its entire submarine fleet would wither on the vine.
“‘82 was the dawn of the missile age starting to mature.”
Really? so 1967, 1971, 1973 did not existed?
Stop making excuses for Royal Navy incompetency. T21 and T42 were frigates with worse AA capability than a RN WW2 late war destroyer. Even if the T42 missile had some of excuse due to its specific long range propose, the lack of gun AA was almost criminal.
Much of the issue ( besides pilot and munition shortages) with our air capability is not their ability in combat but protection of their supporting infrastructure eg airbases ( including again those supporting assets such as Rivet Joint etc etc). A quick strike on them by cruise missiles (with explosive or even perhaps persistent chemicals) could render them inoperable. Similarly our naval bases ( and here we can include the use of mines esp given our lack of sweeping capability now). Asymmetric warfare ( inc cyber) is gettjng ever more devious but can be very effective at capability denial in critical periods.