The French military tested the SAMP/T Mamba anti-aircraft missile system in Romania.

This SAM is deployed at the Capul Midia military base.

These air defense systems had previously been shipped to Romania as part of NATO’s action to strengthen Europe’s eastern flank.

On Wednesday, the French Mamba system during the exercises “repelled” an air attack simulation by conditional enemy aircraft, Le Figaro newspaper reports.

The training involved Turkish F-16 combat aircraft, Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, American EA-18 Growler electronic warfare aircraft, and French Rafale carrier-based multirole fighter jets, which took off from the Charles de Gaulle (R91) aircraft carrier.

“Such exercises ensure NATO forces to be able to act together and ready to respond to any threat from any direction,” NATO commented on the exercises.

NATO assured that these were routine exercises.

In May, France shipped the MAMBA system to Romania. This provided the opportunity to protect the Romanian port of Constanța on the Black Sea from “cruise missile, aircraft, drone, and tactical ballistic missile strikes,” NATO says.

In October, Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukraine would expect the supply of SAMP/T SAM from France and Italy.

The SAMP/T system is designed to provide air protection for mechanized units, as well as air cover for important stationary facilities from a massive attack by a wide class of air targets.

Each self-propelled launcher of the system is based on the Astra/Iveco vehicle chassis or Renault-TRM-10000 and is equipped with 8 Aster-30 interceptor missiles in transport and launch containers, which are transferred to an upright position before launch. The system also includes a multi-function Thompson-CSF ARABEL radar with phased antenna arrays.

The Aster-30 missile has a launch weight of 510 kg, including a warhead weight of 20 kg, and a maximum flight speed of up to 1400 m/s. These characteristics allow the SAMP/T system to destroy enemy aircraft at a range of 3 to 100 km, and ballistic missiles at a range of 3 to 25 km. The fight altitude is up to 25 km. All 8 Aster-30 missiles can be fired in one salvo within just 10 seconds.