Onboard Atlantique 2 over the Baltic Sea: The cluster of dots on the Atlantique 2’s screens could look like a complicated mess to the untrained eye, however to not the crew of the French naval surveillance plane tasked with telling pal from foe in the Baltic Sea.
“Another tarantula,” says an operator as the Russian corvette of the Tarantul class turns into seen, travelling in a pack with different Russian vessels as a number of close by Nato ships additionally criss-cross the placid northeastern European sea.
“It’s busy down there,” the soldier observes.
France’s Atlantique 2 plane, in service since the Nineteen Eighties to detect floor vessels and submarines, has been dispatched to trace Russian and Russia-friendly ships, a job that turned key after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘Rapidly distinguish’
The patrol plane took off from Brittany, western France, early in the morning and stopped over in Germany earlier than heading north to scour a lot of the Baltic, now a strategic point of interest for Western and Russian forces.
Once the plane passes the island of Ruegen – the place work for the Nord Stream 2 fuel pipeline between Russia and Germany was abruptly frozen – the eyes of the 14-strong crew (12 males and two ladies) change into targeted.
The aircraft’s most senior officer Lieutenant Commander Guillaume – who in accordance with French army custom offers solely his first title – offers the order for the radar’s protecting shell to emerge from the aircraft’s hull.
The gear could look old style, nevertheless it is stuffed with state-of-the-art know-how.
The sea is calm and the climate clear, however frantic motion is seen in a zone, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) huge, between the Swedish and Polish coastlines.
“We have to be able to rapidly distinguish between friendly, neutral and suspicious vessels so our forces can find the best navigation path,” stated Guillaume.
French forces have orders to keep away from flying too near some coastal waters and Russian ships to avert any escalation, or getting into potential hazard zones the place Baltic rim nations could have flagged army actions.
‘A strange crane’
The flurry of exercise coincides with the finish of the annual Nato army train Baltops, which the Russians responded to with manoeuvres of their very own.
Both undertakings display a willpower on either side not to surrender any areas, even when it means sending large numbers of warships into the Baltic the place they co-exist with numerous service provider ships and pleasure boats.
A well-rehearsed process kicks off. Radar operator Chief Petty Officer Maxime watches the indicators, generally known as “tracks”.
Next to Maxime sits Lieutenant Alain, the tactical coordinator also referred to as “Tacco”, who picks the tracks he believes require extra detailed commentary, equivalent to traces from ships who fail to activate their automated identification system (AIS), which is obligatory for civilian vessels.
Alain shares his observations with Chief Petty Officer Christopher, to his proper, who operates the Wescam digital camera positioned at the backside of the plane and that yields an in depth image of targets even tens of kilometres away.
Finally Christopher and Petty Officers Roxane and Nicolas frantically verify numerous databases hoping to correctly determine the ship.
“It has a strange crane near the bow,” says Christopher as he zooms in on a ship that has attracted their consideration regardless of trying civilian at first look.
“In fact, it’s a Moma class,” responds Roxane, confirming that the vessel is a Russian water survey ship suspected of gathering intelligence. It promptly will get an AXRU label on the state of affairs display screen, an acronym for Russian auxiliary vessel.
There’s no scarcity of acronyms: DDG UK, PBF LT, MLE FI and FFL SE designate British, Lithuanian, Finnish and Swedish vessels.
‘Quite crowded’
Russians are marked in purple, equivalent to the Tarantul or Parchim-class corvettes recognized on this flight.
As quickly as the Atlantique 2 flies over a quieter stretch, the Tacco arms his notes to Chief Petty Officer Romain.
The latter is in cost of digital warfare and transmissions and sends the aircraft’s observations through a devoted chat system to French and Nato command centres. A full report can wait till their return.
“This small space has gotten quite crowded, which shows how interested everybody is in everybody else,” says Lieutenant Henri over the aircraft’s noise.
The Baltic is the place Russia’s assault on Feb 24 has prompted fast geopolitical change.
Sweden and Finland have utilized to hitch Nato which, if profitable, will isolate Russia much more in the Baltic which Moscow wants for entry to the world’s oceans.
“The Baltic will in effect become a NATO lake,” stated Robert Dalsjo at the Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI.
Sweden’s membership in specific would take away an element of uncertainty, he informed AFP, “because the Baltic countries couldn’t be sure about how Sweden would act in a crisis”.
The aircraft adjustments route to fly near the forbidden Kaliningrad zone to catch a glimpse of the army exercise in the extremely militarised enclave, then heads north.
Once it reaches the latitude of Riga, the aircraft makes a U-turn and checks on the Russian ships in the southern zone one final time earlier than heading residence.
The day’s work? Nearly 7,000 kilometres of flight and round a dozen Russian vessels recognized together with, to the crew’s delight, the gorgeous sail coaching vessel Sedov, the world’s largest crusing ship nonetheless in operation. – AFP
