Proud Manta 2013 Has Started

One again the time of the year has come when dozens of ships, submarines,planes and robots meet and play hide and seek two weeks long.

Yes, NATO’s largest anti submarine warfare exercise Proud Manta 13 (POMA 13) has started. It will end on 8th March 2013.

According to NATO the aim of the exercise is to enhance the operational proficiency and interoperability of the participating forces across a broad spectrum of potential tasks, roles and missions of the NATO Response Force (NRF). The exercise also provides a challenging operational environment to test new doctrine, tactics; and equipment.

When I started to search through the internet to find more information about the exercise and the participants I was shocked from the lack of information. NATO used to prepare webpages dedicated to this large exercise. This year there is surprisingly sparse information available on various NATO Command Centers’ webpages.

Was NATO staying loyal to the motto silent service and hiding about its submarine exercise? No. The restructuring of the military structure created a no-mans zone in PR so neither the outgoing Allied Maritime Command Naples nor the incoming Allied Maritime Command in Northwood prepared anything about POMA 13.

Thank God there are people who know about this NATO exercise more than NATO shares: The Russians. On a Russian web forum where radio enthusiast meet I was able to find more information about POMA 13 than on official webpages of various NATO Commands. Thank you Comrades!

Here is the list of participants according to Russians:

The following air assets will take part in the exercise too: 2 CP-140 Aurora from Canada, 2 Atlantic Mk2 from France, 1 Atlantic from Italy, 1 P-3C Orion from Germany, 1 P-3C Orion from Norway, 2 P-3C Orion from USA, 2 EH-101 Merlin from Italy an 3 EH-101 Merlin from UK.