Defense Minister Nuno Melo this Thursday began to hear the head of the Air Force claim that Portugal is “lagging behind” by not moving towards replacing the F-16 fighters with the fifth-generation F-35; and ended the day firing live rounds – 50 km from the border with the heavily militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad – from, among other things, the G3 assault rifle that the Portuguese military had used since the Overseas War, 60 years ago, and which in the case of the Fusileiros it is well upgraded only because in 2019 the then commander of this special forces, Nobre de Souza, “burned a lot of eyelashes” studying a better upgrade with a meager value attached to it.
Nuno Melo visited two National Forces stationed in Lithuania as part of NATO’s efforts in the Baltics. In an air police mission with four F-16s from Siauliai airbase, Air Force chief Cartascio Alves stressed the urgency that these fighters are “30 years old,” their replacement “will arrive in 10 years.” and the “sovereignty and integrity of the national airspace” is at stake at a time when all of Portugal’s partners have already switched to the F-35. But it was on a mission with the Marine Corps, in the forest near Klaipeda, that Melo, after a military demonstration, tried out shooting with automatic weapons.
Author: Sergio A. Vitorino
Source: CM Jornal
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