Norway Tests New 'Milestone' Mobile Air Defense

This is the first use of the novel NASAMS high-mobility launcher with vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft missiles. In the past, the Norwegian Army used static air defenses that lack the opportunity to follow marching troops.

For nearly 15 years, the Army has had no air defense at all. Combat air defense was disbanded in 2004, and slowly revived starting 2018 as part of the Artillery Battalion within Brigade North.

“This is the first time we get something that can follow a land force that moves in the terrain,” Army spokesman Eirik Skomedal said in a statement, Sputnik reported.

In the meantime, the Army had to borrow ground-based air defense from the Air Force.

“It is an important milestone for them to be able to shoot sharply, and I would also like to say that it is a very important milestone in the reconstruction of air defense in the Norwegian Army, which has unfortunately been closed for many years”, Ole Jørgen Maaø, Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy associate professor and historian, told national broadcaster NRK.

According to him, the reasons why air defense has not been developed before are mostly financial, as the Norwegian Armed Forces have been through drastic cuts.

The novel air defense has a range of 20 kilometers; it is able to shoot down aircraft, drones, cruise missiles and helicopters, and is expected to be fully operational in 2024.

Army spokesman Skomedal cited the 2008 war in Georgia, Crimea's re-unification with Russia in 2014 and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war as the underlying reasons for the air defense build-up. At the same time, he denied that the re-armament is a direct consequence of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, instead calling it a “coincidence” as building things up in a military context takes several years and longer.