On Sept. 17, 2009, President Obama announced that the United States would provide missile defenses to NATO, to include the deployment of SM-3 interceptor missiles at landbased sites in Romania and Poland. Now of course the SM-3 is a naval missile, so this led to a new take on an old idea.
The Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System (AAMDS) at Naval Support Facility (NSF) Deveselu, Romania is Phase 2 of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) to ballistic missile defense. AAMDS has many of the same components used at sea on guided-missile destroyers and cruisers, to include the Aegis Weapon System, Mk. 41 Vertical Launch System, and SPY-1 radar, but it can only fire the SM-3.
In short, it’s an unsinkable cruiser in a corn field so to speak.
The Navy just released some B-roll footage of the base inside and out including the “Deckhouse” and CIC, which is kinda rare access, so take the silent tour in the two videos below, before they disappear in the name of OPSEC.
