Within the framework of NATO's eastern flank reinforcement efforts, quite an unusual exercise took place in Latvia between an air defense unit of the Spanish Army and the Dutch Air Force.
The scenario depended on the point of view: the NASAMS crew was supposed to repel an F-35 attack, while the fighter pilots had to break through the air defense. Details of the drill were reported by Defensa.
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Defense Express adds, in light of the latest statements and actions of the U.S. President Donald Trump towards NATO allies, a clash between a European-made surface-to-air missile system and an American fighter certainly gave these exercises new implications.
But objectively, it's ordinary training practice, just carried out using the equipment at hand. Moreover, Spanish NASAMS systems were deployed at the Lielvārde Air Base in Latvia, and four Dutch F-35s were at the Ämari Air Base, Estonia, only 280 km apart.
The result of this conditional duel was not specified, although it can hardly be in favor of the NASAMS, at least because of the range difference. An F-35, its stealth properties aside, can attack this air defense system beyond the engagement range of its missiles.
Launched from the ground, the baseline AIM-120 interceptor has an estimated operational range of 30 kilometers, and its improved 60-km variant AMRAAM-ER is not yet fully integrated into the Spanish NASAMS, the tests completed only in February 2024 in the United States.
Side note, the NASAMS manufacturer, Kongsberg, has recently announced plans to integrate Ukrainian missiles into its system. This will expand functionality and mitigate the shortage of spare interceptors.
Threat detection on the defenders' side of the exercise was provided by the American AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar, featuring a passive phased array antenna. It was created in 1995 as an upgrade of the AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar. This radar has an instrumental range of 120 km.
Therefore, if the training aimed to closely simulate real combat conditions, it is possible that the Spansing crews were tasked to practice an ambush on enemy aircraft.
Alternatively, the conditions were purely notional, and the F-35s, which usually fly with special Luneburg lenses to increase their visibility, were simulating a different type of threat. Or, the exercises focused more on honing the F-35 pilots' skills in penetrating air defenses and thus simulated russian capabilities.
In the photo above, the Luneburg lenses are installed in small increments on the wings in front of the keel, as well as under the fuselage. In addition, the aircraft's visibility is artificially increased by external pylons with AIM-9 missiles.
Such measures are used to distort the fighter's real cross section, which is especially important for F-35 patrol missions near the russian borders, so that the russians cannot collect data on the real capabilities of this aircraft.
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