The Royal Air Force has launched Exercise Auxilium Fort 2025, a recurring training event designed to test the capabilities of its six Global Enablement forces.
These teams include engineering, logistics, force protection, communications, and medical personnel responsible for enabling the rapid deployment and sustainment of air power in challenging environments.
This year’s exercise focuses on the RAF’s ground-based support elements, simulating the task of securing and operating a decommissioned airfield for military use. The scenario is intended to assess the ability of personnel to establish and maintain operations in austere and potentially contested conditions.
At the centre of the exercise is the Global Response Team – a deployable RAF unit trained to support short-notice ‘Air Point of Departure’ operations. These are often linked to crisis response missions such as humanitarian aid, disaster relief, or non-combatant evacuation operations. Participants are being tested on their ability to manage a range of situations, including simulated attacks, multi-vehicle incidents, and the maintenance of air operations under pressure.
Auxilium Fort is also used to practise operating in contested and degraded operating environments (CDOEs), where forces may face disruption from near-peer threats and have limited logistical support. The exercise is designed to reinforce flexibility, improvisation, and inter-team coordination in such circumstances.
Notably, 2025 marks the first year that French forces have taken part in the exercise. Participants include personnel from the French Air and Space Force, the Service de l’Énergie Opérationelle, and the Commando Parachutiste de l’Air 20.
How do you have force protection etc with NO air defence, no armoured vehicles? Not a single RAF base has any air defence. What a great idea, what clever person came up with that. Did save a few £s in the short term?.
Martin.
Sorry, but that’s not the point of the article. While you’re correct in that RAF Stations have no air defence ( apart from a tiny CUAS element ) and no Armoured vehicles ( apart from some Foxhound I believe ) the article is about what’s known as the RAF Global Enablement Force, around 8k strong.
Force Protection is but one part of that, which includes both RAF Regiment and RAF Police as part of the 6 RAF groupings briefly mentioned in the article.
This Force primarily supports EAWs, Expeditionary Air Wings, which are support personnel from RAF Stations, who deploy with and are aligned with the RAFs assets, grouped into Typhoon, F35, ISTAR, AT & AAR forces when they deploy abroad.
On UK based GBAD, I agree, they’re needed. And careful what you wish for, if this government’s SDR chops off what’s left of our expeditionary power projection capabilities and spends on home guards, home defence forces and UK GBAD instead.
Both are needed.
If they cut expeditionary for home-based GBAD, there will probably be a few years during which we’ll have neither. This is why I hope they’ll wait for 2027 before doing anything too silly.
Like you, I’m worried.
The goal of the exercise, as it states, is to prove the ability to deploy into a potentially contested environment. Pretty sure that would involve both air and ground defense. That would prove pretty hard to do with no vehicles and no air defense would it not?
It would, yes, in an all UK operation.
In a coalition, we hide behind others assets.
As we have no GBAD assigned to the RAF beyond some LMM.
Hahaaaahaaa, who puts grass in their lids anymore, iron sights too must be @Marham jungle 🤔 ………….what capability??
Jason, iron sights. I guess the photo is not of Rockapes. Maybe engineering or logistics personnel?
Possibly 42 ESW. A part of the Global Enablement Force described in the article.
The RAF are only interested in securing airfields with an adjacent Holiday Inn. Can’t have the lads getting cold, wet and hungry
Awwww look at the RAF pretending to soldier. How cute.