NATO is currently conducting two major naval activities – Dynamic Mongoose 24 in the North Atlantic and Neptune Strike 24-1, which involves four large-deck strike groups and spans both the Mediterranean Sea and Adriatic Sea as well as parts of the Baltic Sea.
NATO classes the Neptune Strike series of drills, usually held twice a year, as “enhanced vigilance activity” intended to demonstrate NATO’s capabilities and strength and enhance Allied connectivity. “Ranging from the Central Mediterranean to the Black Sea region and all the way up to the Baltic Sea, STRIKFORNATO’s execution will blanket three Joint Operations Areas and assert NATO’s capability to protect every inch of Allied territory with the naval resources that are organic to the theatre,” stated the command’s release on the exercise.
Neptune Strike 24-1 began on Friday and ends on 10 May, and involves Albania, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. According to a release by NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, this will be Sweden’s first time participating in the Neptune Strike series since it joined NATO on Mar. 7. The release also stated that as part of the exercise, NATO will control units operating across the entire Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas, along with air units flying across Europe via air-to-air refueling and carrying out live-firing missions in the Baltic Sea and on firing ranges in Poland and Romania
Two carrier strike groups and two expeditionary strike groups are taking part in the exercise along with other NATO ships and submarines. The CSGs are the French CSG and the Cavour CSG of Italy, while the ESGs are the Spanish “Dedalo 24” ESG and the Turkish Anadolu ESG, with the Anadolu ESG operating under Turkish national command rather than NATO command. The French CSG comprises of carrier FS Charles De Gaulle (R91), French frigates FS Chevalier Paul (D621) and FS Provence (D652), Portuguese frigate NRP Bartolomeu Dias (F333), Italian frigate ITS Carabiniere (F593), a Greek frigate, a Spanish frigate, French fleet oiler BRF Jacques Chevallier (A725) and a French attack submarine. The Cavour CSG comprises carrier ITS Cavour (550) and escorting Italian Navy surface ships.
The “Dedalo 24” ESG comprising of amphibious assault ship ESPS Juan Carlos I (L-61) with embarked AV-8B Harrier II strike aircraft, amphibious transport dock ESPS Galicia (L-51) and frigates ESPS Blas de Lezo (F-103) and ESPS Reina Sofía (F-84). A Spanish Marine Infantry battalion is embarked on the two amphibious ships. The Anadolu ESG consists of amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu (L-400), frigate TCG Salihreis (F-246) and corvette TCG Buyukada (F-512), along with an embarked Amphibious Marine Brigade force. From Friday to Monday, the Anadolu ESG conducted training in the Ionian Sea as part of Neptune Strike 24.1 with Albanian and North Macedonian troops, which included an amphibious landing on Sazan Island, Albania. The two ESGs are also scheduled to conduct a joint amphibious landing during Neptune Strike 24.1.
Also taking part in Neptune Strike 24.1 is French Navy fleet oiler and command ship BCR Somme (A631). Currently also serving as the flagship of Standing NATO Maritime Group Two (SNMG2), the French ship carried out a joint sail with the Anadolu ESG in the Ionian Sea and subsequently took part in an antisubmarine drill in the Mediterranean in which Greek and Spanish frigates protected it from attacks by French and Greek submarines.
In the North Atlantic, NATO ships, submarines and aircraft are carrying out the Dynamic Mongoose exercise, which began on Monday and ends on May 10. “Exercise Dynamic Mongoose is an annual anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-surface warfare (ASuW) exercise designed to prepare NATO maritime crews to respond and adapt to any type of threat from seabed to space,” reads a NATO release on the exercise.
The exercise will take place in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom-Norway (GIUK-N) Gap with Norway hosting the exercise, which began in Stavanger, with elements scheduled near the Faroe Islands. Dynamic Mongoose 24 will end in Reykjavik, Iceland. Air bases in Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom will support the participating maritime patrol aircraft (MPA).
Submarines from the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States are participating in the exercise, including Swedish attack submarine HMS Gotland (Gtd) and likely nuclear-attack submarine USS New Hampshire (SSN-778), which was recently operating around Iceland. Surface ships in Dynamic Mongoose 24 are from Germany, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, namely Danish patrol vessel HDMS Hvidbjørnen (F360), Faroese Coast Guard patrol vessel Brimil, German frigate FGS Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (F218) and fleet oiler FGS Rhon (A1443), Netherlands frigate HNLMS Van Amstel (F831), Norwegian frigates HNoMS Roald Amundsen (F311) and HNoMS Otto Sverdrup (F312), Spanish frigate ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbón (F-102), UK frigate HMS Portland (F79) and fleet oiler RFA Tidesurge (A138). Aircraft from Canada, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States will form the air component of the drill.
