Three Royal Navy warships have joined a Nato military exercise which will be the world’s largest test of naval air defences.
The three-week-long Formidable Shield 2021 exercise began on Saturday, taking place off Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and Norway’s Arctic coast.
It will see live missile launches as the warships test their ability to deal with incoming threats from the air, including ballistic missiles.
HMS Dragon will lead the UK contingent joined by HMS Lancaster and HMS Argyll.
READ MORE: Former Iranian president Ahmadinejad to run for office again
Led by the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet, the 2021 version of Formidable Shield involves 15 ships, more than 10 aircraft and in excess of 3,000 personnel.
During the exercise, HMS Dragon will be challenged with intercepting a Firejet target drone weaving across the Atlantic at more than 400mph, just 20ft above the waves.
All ships will have to deal with supersonic high-diving targets plummeting towards the task group at speeds in excess of 12,000mph.
As well as testing the ships’ air defence radar and missiles, the Royal Navy will trial new software designed to reduce the burden on operators.
A total of 10 Nato nations are taking part in Formidable Shield, an exercise which occurs every two years.
READ MORE: Israeli airstrike destroys media building in Gaza
The Royal Navy says rigorous safety checks and procedures are in place to ensure the ranges are safe and the risk to the surrounding area is negligible.
Rear admiral James Morely said: “Formidable Shield 21 is an important opportunity to further develop fighting capability and domain integration against a challenging set of realistic targets – a demonstration of our resolve to counter the threat.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here