From 12 to 16 October 2026, the annual tactical exercise “SPARTAN ARROW 26” was conducted at NAMFI, under the auspices of the German Air Force Headquarters, as part of Air Defence weapon system live-fire activities involving the Armed Forces of Germany and Sweden.
On Wednesday 14 October 2026, the Distinguished Visitors’ Day (DV Day) of the exercise, was attended by the Minister of Defence of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Boris Pistorius; the Minister of National Defence of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Nikolaos Dendias; the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, General Dimitrios Choupis; the Chief of the Hellenic Air Force General Staff, Lieutenant General Dimosthenis Grigoriadis; the Chief of the German Air Force, Lieutenant General Holger NEUMANN; the Chief of the German Army, Lieutenant General Christian FREUDING; the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Greece, Mr Andreas KINDL; the Chief of the Swedish Air Force, Major General Jonas WIKMAN; along with numerous other officials and senior military officers from the participating countries.
Live-fire activities were successfully conducted using the PATRIOT and LEFLASYS-OZELOT air defence systems.
Furthermore, for the first time, a qualification firing was conducted with the new IRIS-T SLM air defence system. This milestone, together with the successful execution of the live-fire activities, demonstrated NAMFI’s capabilities to support modern missile systems and complex multinational training activities involving Allied Armed Forces.
In addition, Swedish PATRIOT systems conducted live-fire activities as part of the certification of their operational readiness by SHAPE.
The exercise scenario, along with the necessary command and operational support for the training activities, was developed and implemented with the significant contribution of NAMFI’s multinational Tactical Firing Evaluation (TFE) Section, staffed by Greek and German air defence officers.
