It concluded on 26 March in Vreedepeel, the Netherlands, the Joint Project Optic Windmill 2025, one of the largest international Integrated Air and Missile Defence exercises, which had as its main objective to consolidate and improve the functioning of the Command and Control chain through a distributed simulation system, to which both real missile systems and weapon system and radar emulators were connected.
The Italian Air Force took part in the exercise with personnel from the Experimental Flight Department and the 2nd Wing, which has a Operator Training System (OTS) developed in-house through the synergistic collaboration between the two Bodies. This system is composed of a network infrastructure in a simulated environment and a software device of a generic missile system of which both the sensor and actuators can be modelled. Armed Forces personnel made use of the OTS during the CD&E phase of the exercise during which it was configured in mode standalone to experiment with and evaluate simulation scenarios to be used as an exercise platform.
Once the OTS test platform had been set up, AM personnel briefed their Dutch and German counterparts from the missile and command and control units, enabling them to operate in two modes following an incremental difficulty logic: the first mode consisted of a simulation reproduced via a pre-loaded scenario, with the main objective of providing rapid familiarisation with the actions required for the correct use of the system; the second, featuring a real-time simulation during which, starting already from a complex scenario, the operators of the 2nd Wing introduced additional “enemy” components controlled by an air threat piloting and manoeuvring tool that executed the instructor's commands in real time, a sort of stress test for countering even multi-domain threats.
Training in complex scenarios such as those simulated during JPOW25 represents the key to success in contexts where it is essential to improve effectiveness, increase safety in the conduct of operations and maximise the training return on the resources made available.
JPOW25 is a NATO-style exercise Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) leading Dutch/German trade fair which takes place biennially and is divided into two distinct phases:
Over 700 military personnel from Italy, the United States, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Spain, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Romania, Estonia, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, France, Germany and the Netherlands took part in this training activity, which provided the opportunity to train and validate programmes and concepts developed by NATO as well as the current state of integrated defence systems, in addition to further exploring the Doctrine, Techniques, Tactics and Procedures (DTTP) currently in use or under development by all the countries participating in the exercise.
