The special delivery was a light-hearted moment in the middle of an otherwise very serious NATO exercise to bolster safety and security in the region which has been taking place for the past ten days or so.
Baltops has been running since the early 1970s with the 54th run-out involving around 50 ships, submarines and support vessels, more than two-dozen aircraft, and around 9,000 personnel from 17 nations, spread across an area from Jutland and the Great Belt in the West to the Bay of Gdańsk – about 40,000 square miles or roughly the size of the Netherlands.
Six Royal Navy P2000 patrol boats from the Coastal Forces Squadron have been committed to Baltops, and end participation by attending the world’s largest sailing/yachting festival, Kiel Week, which begins on Saturday in the namesake German port.
The fast boats – HMS Archer, Biter, Dasher, Example, Pursuer and Smiter – are committed to the exercise; two are conducting extensive work with the Royal Navy’s Mine Threat and Exploitation Group, who’ve been using the craft as launchpads for the latest robot tech monitoring the underwater battlespace through uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs).
The remaining four vessels will work with US Navy surface and aerial drones (uncrewed air vehicles or UAVs), frequently ‘attacking’ the participants to test their responses dealing with small, fast and highly-manoeuvrable craft intent on harming much more powerful warships.
