French navy shoots at 5 drones buzzing nuclear submarine base, AFP reports – POLITICO
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The incident follows a string of recent drone incursions in NATO airspace.

The French navy opened fire at drones that were detected over a highly-sensitive military site harboring French nuclear submarines, according to newswire Agence France-Presse.

Five drones were detected Thursday night over the submarine base of Île Longue, in Brittany, western France, a strategic military site home to ballistic missile submarines, the AFP reported, citing the the French_gendarmerie_, which is part of the military. The submarines harbored at the base carry nuclear weapons and are a key part of France’s nuclear deterrent.

French navy troops in charge of protecting the base opened fire, the report said. It was unclear whether the drones were shot down.

  • perestroika@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    8 hours ago

    A few frustrated notes from Estonia. Not first hand information, but visiting Ukrainian soldiers noted at a militrary exercise: “why don’t you have appropriate amounts of drones? if they attack you, they’ll drone you to death”.

    One part of the answer honestly seems to be “we’re dimwits, but trying already” and the other part seems to be “we don’t want to buy the current generation of sports drones, and sincerely hope that the next generation of dedicated war drones [which a random person can fly with 15 minutes of training] will be ready really soon”.

    A few meta-notes about the note: the local defense ministry holds various development competitions. So poorly that if I was involved, I would hide my face and cry into a pillow. Yes, companies do participate and develop drones. Local companies make pretty nice drones, some quadcopters, some medium range surveillance aircraft, some combustion powered strike drones, but the ministry does poor work and is visibly overwhelmed. In recognition of them, I must say that recently their announcements have recently been emphasizing that they’re looking for low cost, fast production and potential of mass production.

    Not a small part of the nonsense that’s going on is how funds may be granted for development. Current EU rules state that for a project to qualify for aid, relevant work may not be started. That’s crazy. Companies don’t request state aid to accelerate development because they looked at the blue sky and thought “at that point in future, we’ll run short of something and request state assistance”. They discover it first hand, at at that point, they are no longer eligible for assistance. It’s a joke.

    Regardless of this joke of a system, a few local companies have new air defense systems ready and capable of hitting targets.

    As for the local military… well, we don’t have strategic nuclear weapons here, just ordinary artillery and a few HIMARS-es here and there. They do seem to guard their bases because a few drones have been forced to land and their operators have been detained for questioning.

    As for buying things from abroad, unfortunately I have to curse. Local idots have decided to buy so many things from a particular genocidal Middle Eastern country that I’m ashamed. The systems, if they arrive, will likely work, but we’ll be paying through the nose and have a dependency on the good will of a wanted war criminal. If the war criminal doesn’t approve export contracts, we’ll cry a river. I hope things are much better in France.