On January 10 at 10.00 a.m., the minehunting boat “Grömitz” of the German Armed Forces will leave its home port of Kiel for the Aegean. The boat, which belongs to the 3rd Minehunting Squadron, will be the German contribution to the NATO Aegean Support Mission in the coming months.
For the next six months, the minehunter will provide the command platform and the German contribution to NATO’s Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 and the NATO Aegean Support Mission. From mid-January, the unit will be led by German Captain Felix Hornung. The task of the “Grömitz” is to act as a command platform with partners and relevant agencies to ensure mission- and situation-specific cooperation in a region that is important in terms of foreign and military policy. For this purpose, the German crew is also accompanied by a Turkish and a Greek liaison officer. The commander commented on the task: “Providing the flagship for the coming months is an unusual task for us, but one with which the crew of the ‘Grömitz’ identifies and which we want to master successfully.” https://militaeraktuell.at/thales-liefert-gm200-mm-c-an-litauen/ Background information
In addition to the missions mandated by the German Bundestag, the German Navy is constantly involved in NATO’s four multinational naval units – such as SNMG 2. The Navy permanently deploys ships and boats to these units. The NATO units have existed for decades. They are only very roughly limited regionally. This is another reason why they are rapidly available maritime reaction forces with which the Alliance can intervene quickly in the event of a crisis or conflict. The naval units are therefore part of the NATO Response Force (NRF); and in this formation they are the naval forces’ share of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) – the spearhead of NATO, which is permanently ready for deployment. The requirement: to be ready within 48 to 72 hours to deploy to wherever they are needed. Two of the units are capable of protecting large areas of sea lanes, while the other two specialize in defending against sea mines.
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