Taking place throughout May, Exercise Formidable Shield was led by the US Navy’s 6th Fleet and involved 13 NATO allied and partner nations practising operating against subsonic, supersonic and ballistic enemy assets using allied aircraft, ships and ground forces.
RAF Lossiemouth was a key location for the largest NATO exercise of its type to happen this year. The bi-annual exercise involved more than 20 ships, 35 aircraft and an array of ground units consisting of radars, surface-to-air missile systems, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems known as HIMARS and nearly 4,000 NATO personnel.
As well as RAF Typhoons and Poseidon aircraft, RAF Lossiemouth hosted NATO aircraft including Rafale M jets and an E-2C Hawkeye from the French Navy, and Typhoons from the Italian Air Force, supported by a KC 767 A Tanker.
Situated close to fast jet training areas, RAF Lossiemouth is ideally situated to provide the dynamic, multi-domain exercise area needed for an exercise of this type. MOD infrastructure including the Tain Ranges and the Hebrides Ranges, as well as the open seas of the Atlantic, allowed for accurate reproduction of a combat scenario involving air, water and ground assets.
