Laura Zornoza
Lielvarde Air Base (Latvia) (EFE) up to six medium-range missiles to defend Latvia and, with it, the increasingly topical eastern flank of NATO.
They are around 80 Spaniards in a six-month rotation with the Nasams Missile Anti-Aircraft Defense Unit, a force that received the order from NATO to deploy in Latvia in May 2022 and in June was already occupying their positions at the base of Lielvarde.
His arrival in the Baltic country is part of the reinforcement of NATO troops on the eastern flank of the Alliance – adding reinforcements to the battalions already installed in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and with new capabilities in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary – after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which raised the level of an alarm already created by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
The jewel in the crown of the Spanish deployment in Lielvarde is the Nasams medium-range missile battery, an advanced anti-aircraft system that contains six American AMRAAM missiles in its six tubes.
The battery is capable of simultaneously firing its six missiles, 165 kilos and 3.65 meters long, at a range of between 25 and 30 kilometers to intercept any threat in the vicinity of the air base.
Leaving its container tube fired at a 30-degree angle, the missile could reach more than five miles in height before plummeting vertically onto its target, which would be anything from a hostile helicopter to military aircraft, going through a drone
Sentinel Mobile Radar
The missile battery is accompanied by the Sentinel mobile radar, which with a range of 80 kilometers acts as “eyes” for the military working in Lielvarde. Interconnected with other radars located at various points in Latvia, these are the ones that give them the first warning that “there is something” in the airspace, but the Sentinel has greater precision to identify exactly what type of flying device these have detected. equipment.
What if those radars find a real threat to Latvian airspace? The response capacity of the missile battery, as explained to EFE by the Spanish captain Javier Molina Bravo, head of the battery, is “in seconds.”
The only “delays” in decision-making occur while waiting for the green light from higher command, but even in that case the reaction time is a few minutes, something crucial when talking about anti-aircraft defense.
“Our ability to operate 24 hours means that we always have people working. There is always someone in each element who is prepared to, if he decided on the upper echelon, defeat the threat. As boss, my duty and mission is to ensure that the battery is fully operational and ready to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week”, says Molina.
The different crews take turns so that “there is always a minimum crew per element capable of operating at 100%,” he says.
Lielvarde: Spanish, American and Latvian
In Lielvarde, the Spanish share a base with the Americans and Latvians. Precisely with the host country, they work hand in hand so that interoperability is maximum between the Nasams system, which shines in the medium distance, and the Latvian short-range systems, for when the threat enters a shorter radius.
The Latvian air defense framework works “like the layers of an onion” and the first layer is operated by various allied countries from air bases in the neighboring countries of Estonia and Lithuania through the NATO “air police”, with the one that in a matter of seconds a fighter can be sent to check unexpected or unauthorized entries from Russian airspace.
Therefore, no layer is more important than another. In fact, according to Molina, training interoperability with Latvian colleagues helps the Spanish to “improve, implement and maintain our capabilities and procedures.”
“They are NATO procedures, established and standard, but we always find new ways to improve and implement them.
Periodically we have certain exercises in collaboration and with them what we seek is to be as effective as possible and give the greatest certainty that we are capable of providing that security to this air base”, he stresses.
In the brain of the missile system, the command post where the red button that would fire the missiles of the Nasams system is hidden, works Alejandro Rodríguez, a tactical control officer.
The Latvian air base is his first foreign destination and he points out how “productive” the work and good coexistence with American and Latvian colleagues are. “Both we learn from them and they learn from us, the capacities of both are improved,” he points out.
And the war in Ukraine, he believes, has not substantially changed his day-to-day on the base. “We prepare every day, we train and exercise together with the Latvian air force and the American army and we are integrated to respond to any threat,” she says.
