Two Typhoons from 6 Squadron at RAF Lossiemouth joined two Swedish JAS-39 Gripens for ‘live air attack training’ at the Ravlunda Range in southern Sweden.
The RAF say in a news release that the training provided an opportunity for the Joint Expeditionary Force partners to plan and deliver high-value training as part of the continued development of Joint Expeditionary Force interoperability.
“Swedish aircraft were required to repel an attack from a hostile maritime landing force along Skåne’s east coast. The RAF Typhoons attacked targets on the ground and at sea, up to 2km from the coastline, with inert Paveway IV munitions. Meanwhile, the Swedish aircraft provided protection from threats in the air.
These attacks were coordinated by Swedish ground units, known as Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, who identified the targets and then marked them using smoke grenades. The Joint Expeditionary Force is a British-led force comprising of 10 partner nations. The purpose of Joint Expeditionary Force is to act as a rapid response force in times of crisis. Joint Expeditionary Force can act on its own in a time of crisis or together with NATO.”
A Royal Air Force pilot was quoted as saying:
“Exercise Baltic Striker was an invaluable opportunity to work alongside the Swedish Gripens and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. For the RAF and Swedish Air Force to be able to safely and accurately deliver munitions on target together requires a very high level of interoperability, something we proved today. It was a pleasure to work with the pilots of the Swedish Air Force’s 172 Fighter Squadron, the ease of integration was a testament to their professionalism and capability.”
The Ministry of Defence stressed that “this activity is routine, pre-planned training between two Joint Expeditionary Force partners and was not related to recent Nord Stream leaks in the Baltic Sea”.
Got to love those gripen. Lovely aircraft. Welcome to the nato club, the Nordic countries bring lots of interesting stuff to the party.
Sweden recently said it wouldn’t take part in the joint investigation with Germany and Denmark into nord stream explosion. They must be needing to hide some fancy information gathering tech.
Or is it more to do with not duplicating efforts?
Denmark is the closest landmass and will do a reliable thorough job anyway?
Maybe the Swedes are focussing their resources on something else?
The Swedes have had a lot of experience tracking Soviet/Russian skullduggery for decades; would trust them implicitly to assist in identifying and holding parties accountable. Not as convinced about potential factional elements in Germany’s security services. Have all former Stassi alunni truly been purged or retired? Didn’t the previous coalition government seek accommodation w/ Mad Vlad? This is not meant to be an indictment of entire German population; but I personally have some reservations about political/ security establishments given their previous conduct. Don’t have reservations about the reliability of the Danes, but do not know how technically capable they are.… Read more »
I think we have to face a D-Day-like eventuality, against Russia…..Sweden, Lithuania, America, Canada, Britain, Finland……et al…..all ganging up on the Russian military junta……with the feeling of kicking a gun from a 10-year-old’s hand…..
US and UK are actually suspects in investigation both having the ability to carry out the attack and something to gain from it, so probably best not involved .
Only in an utter conspiracy theorists wet dream would the USA or Britain attack infrastructure within NATO territorial waters. What do we possibly gain from this? Answer zero. The UK is probably heading for a winter of severe hardship and discontent because of Putin. Blackouts very likely. I say because of Putin only because he is the easy target. In reality it is the UKs privatised and now state subsidised energy sector that is responsible. Responsible for not building enough capacity or resilience. 7 days gas storage. I mean seriously they must do much much better. The UK needs some… Read more »
Wonder whether anyone has noted the sacking of the German government’s cybersecurity lead by the Interior Minister for alleged involvement w/ Orc intelligence service(s)? Perhaps Swedes will reconsider their participation in this investigation, in light of this development? Wish to believe people would start to connect the dots…🤔
The BND were never trusted as they were widely penetrated post war. I doubt that has changed IRL.
Twenty eight nations have approved admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO; Hungary and Turkey are holdouts–who could have possibly guessed that was a possibility? 🤔🙄 Not certain this unanimous vote requirement will facilitate NATO functioning in the 21at century, perhaps a super majority vote ( w g., 2/3 or 2/4) would be sufficient? When Article 5 was invoked, did all countries have to concur? Seems a tad unwieldy when WW III could be over in about 30-60 mins.
…(e.g., 2/3 or 3/4)…🙄
It’s actually a big problem for NATO as much as it’s a defence alliance it’s also an alliance of culture. After all the fundamental requirement of being a member of is that you many face nuclear annihilation. Most people really don’t understand that to maintain its strength NATO has to be and is far more than any other alliance in history ( all previous alliances have always been far more alliances of necessity, as NATO was during the Cold War. But post Cold War NATO changed into something else, an expression of the face of western values against those that… Read more »
Yes, exactly. 🤔😳
your in the USA, same as ww2 took you 3 years to wait and Yamamoto did to you what we did with stringbags in 1939 at taranto. Then the liberty ships that we had paid for you started making and when USA in UK we were your frontline defence Kennedy asked for all our v bombers to be armed and ready complete with lightnings as interceptors all were on QAR and next stop was past Russia for bombers we stopped you being destroyed then you always to late or safe like 8,000 miles away from Russia and give minimal amount… Read more »
I’d say an 80-85% in favour should pass the nominations and admissions process, so a very clear majority. With key NATO states like UK, USA and France having the right to veto. After all the rest of NATO chooses to live under our nuclear deterrent umbrella.
“They must be needing to hide some fancy information gathering tech.”
Wouldn’t surprise me, apparently they have a close relationship with NSA for a neutral country.
But I think SBs suggestion more likely.
Only one if the explosion sites was in the Swedish economic zone. The other one was in Danish economic zone. It is rather natural that Sweden examines the one in our waters and Denmark the one in theis. But since it is not in either country’s territory anyone is free to investigate either. One interesting fact is that Swedish marine suddenly openly went to examine the area two days before the explosions. A while after they got there it seems they noticed something turned off their transponders (ie went dark) and also tracked somthing moving toward kaliningrad. Article here https://www.dn.se/sverige/marinen-i-uppdrag-vid-kaliningrad-fore-explosionerna/… Read more »
well Russian sub was on Swedish coast and their new Viggen looks super they always made good planes, welcome and thank you for taking part shows strength together
Really silly question, but what heavy weight weapon sysytems does the RAF own which can damage or kill a ship. because i’m pretty sure only the Navy has the Harpoon and with Hunt in at Nbr 11, I’m pretty sure that he is going to curtail funding to the MOD like the Gov did in 2010 so no chance of purchasing anything to defend the country, not even a needle to use in the channel.
The RAF have none. They’d have to use Paveway which in all likelihood means coming into range of the ships SAM systems
Not to worry Hunt and his chinese wife will see that the Uk becomes a vassel state of china. I mean I watched the video today of the incident outside the chinese consulate in Manchester where they marched out grabbed a bloke and his poster drgeed him back into the consulate grounds and gave him a good kicking, people who tried to stop that, were forced back by very quickly arriving police all the while over their shoulders (caught on Camera) the bloke was getting a good kicking. Since found out the man who lead this was the Chinese consulate… Read more »
The video of the incident from the otherside
the guy in the beret is the Chinese Consul:
Gen Zheng Xiyuan
And here is a much more incriminating video
Seen it mate, and to be fair to the plod he had wandered into the consulate grounds (did he know that) and may have had an “oh shit” moment which made him think twice! Fair play to him though, as he could have caused a bigger diplomatic incident than the rather large diplomatic incident which was already going on 😂👍
Yes there needs to be a pretty strong response to that. It was effectively kidnapping on British soil by the Chinese government.
Interesting to see that the policeman went into the consulate to rescue the victim
Yes it will be interesting to see where this goes. 1) the consular staff effectively attacked a lawful protest on British soil and the forcefully removed an individual from British soil and assaulted him. They were as far as I could see having members in protective tactical gear. 2) A British police officer entered a sovereign consulate without permission of that nation and effectively rescued the kidnapped individual. Its a bit of a diplomatic shit storm and I would imaging some consular staff will be sent home as there is little else that could be done. I hope the copper… Read more »
Interesting subject, the chinese do not allow freedom of thought and for the consulate staff to do as they did would have been only after orders from above (which might explain the presence of the Consulate General) So the question we have to ask is why? Could it be China wants to make an example out of a country before launching its own adventure in the future say Taiwan?. The US and EU are out as China needs the revenue they both generate and cutting links with them (Looks at Russia) would hurt China. So the Uk, the event was… Read more »
I agree, you do have think this was specific provocation. I cannot see diplomatic staff undertaking a random attack on protestors because they were upset ( it’s normal for people to protest outside of consulate or embassies).
As this was a protest about Hong Kong I think the assault on it’s even more likely it was a planned provocation or message.
Screw the rules. The copper did the right thing and responded to the Chinese behaving like thugs on UK territory. Not acceptable!!
yes spot on and punishable by death, look up defence of the realm act, I signed as I worked for MOD in various countries around the world same as that USA woman who killed boy she was on video link today, we should take her same as yanks took ours to Guantanamo, she deserves life in prison for what she did and saying diplomatic immunity we getting to soft
RAF have access to the joint P8 stockpile which includes Harpoon.
Well the can use Paveway, but that would put them in the situation of need to get within engagement range of the ships air defence system. Lack of a fast jet air launched anti ship missile ( light weight or heavy weight) is a really big hole. Spear three will plug that very well, but we are still 3-4 years away. As for now there is nothing to stop the RAF from using Brimstone for navel strike, each tornado can carry 18, they have a limited swarm function can be used to target systems, are fire and forget and have… Read more »
Ya know…if in the position of being an AF which needed to bulk up, or rearm on an expedited basis, one could do worse than the purchase of some JAS-39 Gripens as a short range AD fighter for home defense–a lot worse. Not the latest tech, but reliable, maintainable, supportable, deployable…and one wouldn’t have to wait for the next decade for Block 4 hardware/software release. The Swedes would certainly accommodate any buyer to the maximum possible degree,. Realize that this is not US political orthodoxy–not supporting the home team. Ultimately the F-35 will reach maturity…but everyone could be significantly older… Read more »
Do realize that JAS-39 and F-35 fulfill largely separate roles but there could be some overlap in munitions supported, eventually.
Just learnt something that’s focussing attention on the theme of older and air force. Retired Western pilots, including UK, being encouraged by large remuneration packages * to pass on their operational expertise on various modern fighter types to the Chinese. * short title, bribed?
One does despair. Their officer remuneration and pension rights cannot have been that bad, but too often Money is All these days.
Reference, please? Disturbing, to say the least. ChiComs are not officially listed as enemies of the US, but they are certainly on virtually everyone’s shortlist of possible additions.
BBC news
Thanks for reference, will pursue. Don’t believe this story has surfaced ‘above the fold,’ either literally or metaphorically on electronic media, on this side of the Pond. 🤔😳
It was widely reported in the UK. Seems to be true if the head of MI5 and GCHQ are both reporting this issue as a concern.
I see you’ve been sent the source, Former.
Why my use of despair in last para? I was low RN grade during seventies, but had access to missile reports, and since those times have had other occupations that required signing Official Secrets Act. Regardless, I never revealed anything I read even in my own home – let alone a country that’s fair to call a ‘Clear & Present Danger’. It was not the OSAs, I have acted the same regardless with respect to privy info. It was a moral choice. Anyway, Regards.
Thanks for mentioning this, had no clue it was occurring. 😱
Some have gone to Spain and Saudi to help train them new pilots I never thought they’d go to China
Well, technically China came to South Africa, a country that dominates the Atlantic-Indian Ocean gateway and has moved a lot closer to China over the years for a suitable ‘consideration’, perhaps! Now what could possibly be in it for China? 🤔 ah, yes!
Another good reason the Falklands have become a western military base on the other gateway, I’d say.
Morning.
Just an update from my last. Seems you were right, Fred. A number of the international pilots ended up in China.
Certainly the US hasn’t wasted any time, having an ex-Marine AV8B pilot arrested by the Aussies with a request to extradite to the States. That’s going to get a few sphincters twitching, if nothing else!
Beats a gentlemanly raised eyebrow from the. though I fully expect the UK will tighten procedures fairly rapidly along with everyone else.
Rgs
For smaller countries or for those on a tight budget. Gripen would be a great asset. It has been designed from the get-go to be very easy to maintain. Be that operating from a main airbase or from the side of a road. Ukraine for example, would gain massively from getting a few of these, even if they were the older C/D versions. Especially as multi-role replacements for their Mig-29s. Primarily as it then opens up the NATO cupboard of what can be fitted to the aircraft. With the standard NATO weapon’s data-bus (1553/1760) means it has a good selection… Read more »
Thanks DaveyB for providing additional detail to substantiate my contention. Wonder if there are NATO funds available to standardize weapons integration across NATO platforms, or are these costs borne solely by specific users? Even a cost-sharing arrangement between NATO, specific AFs and equipment manufacturers, would prove useful.
Ukraine and less prosperous NATO members could all benefit from this approach.
this is the plus if you are not intending to go into enemy airspace less sophistication is required.
The Saab grippen bid in Canada was up against tough competition in the new fighter procurement there.
Interoperability with US Armed forces is the RCAF’s chief goal.
Still a great interceptor over friendly territory as was mentioned and also great for small to mid size countries to have on a budget.
Overall very impressed with it.
Agree on how good vigen would be but when Russia invaded Ukraine last time they said no thanks, as far as I’m aware they not in NATO nor is Sweden so yes Swedes could let them have some Saab Viggen jets, that would make Sweden and Ukraine Russia’s enemies???
Do you mean the Gripen rather than the previous Viggen?
I think if Ukraine was to be offered the Gripen C/D now, they’d bite your hand off!
sorry to bring this downer reportedly
Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says – BBC News
Nice photo, love it how the Gripen and Typhoon’s look like siblings…
I like to think of the Gripen that it’s a single engined Typhoon.
And via Bae there may be a reason for that?
AA
This is my take on a single Engined Typhoon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10#/media/File:J-10B_with_PL-10_and_PL-12.jpg
ooh yes. Spitting image. One of the things I like about the Tiffy is the ability to carry 4 BVRAAM semi recessed in the fuselage without compromising the carriage of other stuff. The Rafale is deficient in this area.
AA
That is a Chinese fighter.not a Rafale. But you are correct Rafale can only take 2.
Sorry was not clear, the mention of the Rafale was in regard to missile carriage as a for-instance, rather than mistaking the Chinese fighter for being French.
AA?
Correct J10. Strangely enough designed to look very similar to typhoon but likely a very inferior product. Still the Chinese have hundreds and hundreds of these aircraft. Quantity has a quality of its own.
Can i have the car
Still find it amazing – and not in a good way! – that we have no dedicated anti ship missile for our Typhoons.