 In May 2019, U.S. Sixth Fleet and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO executed Formidable Shield 19. The purpose of Formidable Shield is to conduct sea-based defensive exercises against simultaneous anti-ship and ballistic missile threats using NATO command and control reporting structures. Twelve nations participated or observed the live fire integrated air and missile defense IAMD scenarios, defending against ballistic missile targets as well as anti-ship cruise missiles, 13 ships, more than 10 aircraft and approximately 3,300 personnel from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States participated in FS-19 on the UK Ministry of Defense's Hebrides Range located on the western isles of Scotland. NATO's airborne early warning aircraft supported all live firing events and were integral to both the interoperability architecture and range clearance. U.S. Air Force's Europe F-16 aircraft and 40-flight test squadron test pilots safely delivered the three supersonic targets during Formidable Shield. Pilots from the U.S. Air Force's Europe 480 flight squadron also joined Royal Air Force Typhoons to present challenging air defense scenarios to the maritime force. U.S. Naval Force's Europe P-8 Poseidon aircraft supported several training exercises in range clearance. Formidable Shield featured scenarios characterized by an increased level of complexity and integrated participating allied units to increase interoperability and continue to develop integrated air and missile defense tactics, techniques and procedures. Formidable Shield 2019 and the Formidable Shield series in general offers nations an opportunity to work together in an integrated environment where we must data link, communicate and navigate together. For Formidable Shield 2019, Denmark has provided a float command and control platform for the international staff that leads the exercise and that platform is HDMS Absalom. Formidable Shield 2019 gives the Danish defense an opportunity to gain experience within the field of area defense. Formable Shield 19 is unique because it is gathering a great lot of warships that will intend to conduct live firing, very complex live firings and France is really glad to participate in this kind of exercise. The RCN is committed to working with our NATO partners encountering any threat that may confront the alliance and HMCS St. John's and her entire crew are very excited to be here in Europe participating in this exercise. It's important to build our confidence and also to evolve as a navy and in particular in a multinational setting it's really important to get through all of the communications issues and the coordination issues because I mean this is like this is rocket science that we're talking about here this is not easy stuff so the more that we can practice it and do it for real with ships at sea as opposed to doing it in a synthetic training environment it's just so important. We've been practicing for a number of years we've been we've been rehearsing for a number of years trying to get the command and control systems in place so that so that we can test them properly and this exercise fully tests them allows us to see how we would operate those those systems how the command and control would work from the the ships themselves up through the CTG to ensure that the NATO can defend itself against the ballistic missile Formidable shield 19 included a number of national firsts the exercise included the first engagement of a supersonic target by an aster 15 missile fired from the french frigate britannia which was also a first for this newly commissioned ship the royal canadian navy tracked and negated a supersonic target for the first time with an evolved sea sparrow missile we also recorded the first launch of a guided space object from the united kingdom in the form of an aegis readiness assessment vehicle b a rav b which is used as a test target for ballistic missile defense the royal navy tracked a supersonic target with the type 23 frigate for metal shield 2019 was an international exercise that tested several things one of the most important aspects of this exercise is the continued allied interoperability for integrated air and missile defense or imd using nato tactics techniques and procedures it is incredibly important for the experience and expertise of so many international allies to come together to create such a complex and multifaceted live fire exercise we began planning formidable shield 2019 more than 24 months ago even while we were executing formidable shield 2017 to provide an integrated air and missile defense force requires a significant investment of personnel time and resources from every nation that wishes to contribute the nations in fs 19 contributed significantly to that and i expect that as we bring in an additional mix of both ground based and afloat assets for 2021 that there will be an even greater investment by these partner nations it is a significant commitment to ask but i believe the rewards are are worth it the united kingdom's ministry of defense hebrides range continues to offer the best european location the right instrumentation package and the ability to simultaneously launch control air breathing and ballistic targets necessary to conduct an exercise of this magnitude we utilize us p8 persidium and nato e3 a wax aircraft based in europe to provide range clearance of surface ships small boats fishermen and fishing fleets as well as clearance of the airspace over the range we made sure before and after we launched any targets or conducted any intercepts that all non-participants were well clear of the hazard areas as we did for 2015 and 2017 we took flight and ground safety very seriously 19 tack one included two supersonic engagements by france in 19 tack one alpha and canada in 19 tack one bravo of a qm 37d targets both of which were successful the data analysis team confirmed that each a qm was destroyed by france and canada the events following the a qm's in tack one saw an eges ballistic missile defense destroyer the uss roosevelt launched two sm3's in tack one delta the uss roosevelt launched two sm2's and one sm3 simultaneously at air breathing and simulated ballistic targets respectively in a true iamd scenario in tack one foxtrot she launched an aging sm3 to collect data on rounds nearing their service life both sm3 firings will provide critical data to the acquisition community and give the warfighter confidence in the rounds they would use during a real world event 19 tack two included multiple air breathing target presentations two of which were successfully negated by canada in 19 tack two alpha and the netherlands in 19 tack two charlie 19 tack two bravo saw air breathing targets with electronic attack pods emulating an enemy aircraft disrupting operations or trying to mask an aircraft raid the task force was instructed to operate through the jamming and conduct simulated engagements which they successfully accomplished also in 19 tack two charlie we launched the first guided eges readiness assessment vehicle bravo the first guided ballistic target flown on uk soil two eges bmd ships tracked the guided ballistic target and sent their data to an eges assure unit that had been geographically repositioned to replicate the site in europe the eges assure unit successfully engaged on the remote data and simulated the launch of sm3 block two alphas to negate the threat 19 tack three included multiple air breathing target presentations which the task force used to simulate engagements also in 19 tack three alpha we launched the first single stage orion or sso a developmental ballistic target flight for a new guided short range anti ship threat target an eges baseline nine ship tracked and successfully negated the threat with a simulated sm6 block one guided missile in 19 tack three bravo the hms defender negated an air breathing threat with an aster 30 guided missile yet another first 19 tack four included a combination of air breathing ballistic and electronic attack scenarios in 19 tack four alpha norway in spain negated low level air breathing threats with e ssm guided missiles in 19 tack four charlie the arlie burt class guided missile destroyer uss carney successfully detected tracked and intercepted two air breathing targets while tracking and queuing another arlie burt class guided missile destroyer the uss roosevelt who conducted a cute simulated engagement using an sm3 block one bravo threat upgrade these two eges bmd ships once again tracked and sent their data to an eges assure unit that had been geographically repositioned to replicate a site in europe the eges assure unit successfully engaged on the remote data and launched sm3 block two alphas to negate the threat we get a lot more out of the exercise than just testing we we get the enhanced and knowledge about the others capabilities and how we can how we can make some some lessons identified that we can hopefully develop into lessons learned afterwards our common aim will be to make important steps in interoperability in the field of air and missile defense for the nudge navy in recent past this exercise has been of great importance so we're very keen to make it a success this time as well the roosevelt has been working a long time in preparations for this exercise i think that it's going to give us a an opportunity to showcase you know all the training we've done up to this point and share that with our partners and our allies we will use this exercise to springboard into formidable shield 21 and we will bring it all together in another major exercise now that formidable shield 2019 is complete we need to maintain this momentum forward continue to work together toward collective self-defense continue to strengthen partnerships in the maritime environment and continue to capitalize on the interest in ballistic missile defense in this theater as we look to formidable shield 2021