NATO Paratroopers Descend Over Romania

NATO Paras descended over Romania as part of Exercise SWIFT RESPONSE 2024, the largest Allied airborne operation since the Second World War.

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At an airbase near Câmpia Turzii, Romania, German Armed Forces paratroopers from the Rapid Forces Division led troops from France, Romania, Spain and the United States in an airborne operation that involved between 1,200 and 1,500 soldiers. Fourteen transport aircraft carried them to the drop zone, making this one of NATO’s largest and most complex manoeuvres this year.

An annual US-led exercise, SWIFT RESPONSE helps Allies practise the complex art of multinational airborne operations, ensuring their readiness to respond in the event of a crisis. SWIFT RESPONSE 2024 is part of STEADFAST DEFENDER 2024, NATO’s largest collective defence drills in decades featuring around 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO member countries.

This NATO Multimedia footage, filmed Monday 13th and released Friday 17th, includes shots of multinational paratroopers arriving in the drop zone, as well as interviews with German and Romanian officers.

Shot list:-

• 00:00 ~ A German air force A400M transport aircraft drops paratroopers onto a field in Romania
• 00:16 ~ French, German, Romanian, Spanish and US Paratroopers drop from several aircraft, including US C-17s, Romanian CJ-27s, a French C-130 and German A400Ms
• 01:14 ~ German paratroopers walk through a field with paratroopers dropping behind them
• 01:30 ~ Two German paratroopers carry a parachute between them as they walk towards a staging point after a drop
• 01:39 ~ Two German paratroopers carry a parachute between them as they walk towards a staging point after a drop
• 01:52 ~ A German paratrooper walks towards a staging point after a drop
• 02:04 ~ Close-up on a German badge
• 02:08 ~ Close-up on a German paratrooper
• 02:14 ~ Close-up on a German paratrooper
• 02:22 ~ Close-up on a German paratrooper
• 02:29 ~ Soundbite: Brigadier General Daniel Pop – Deputy Chief of Staff of the Romanian Land Forces, Romanian Army
• 03:00 ~ Soundbite: Major General Dirk Faust – Commander of the Rapid Forces Division, German Army

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Editor’s Footnote: SWIFT RESPONSE 24 began with six near-simultaneous joint forcible entries (JFE) into Estonia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. Although there have been larger individual exercise JFE parachute drops by US Airborne Forces with NATO Allies (most notably the US-led JOINT WARRIOR 96 over Fort Bragg with the UK’s 5 Airborne Brigade and the Polish-led ANAKONDA 16 multinational mass drop over Torun) the geographical spread, complexity and total number of participants put SR24 in a class of its own. Use the tag SR24 to find more articles on the exercise and watch for further posts in due course.