Spain's Paznic Detachment Opens eAP-72 in Romania With Seven F-18Ms and Three Counter-Drone NH90s

The composition is the reference value here, because it is not the standard shape of an air-policing rotation. Seven F-18Ms from Wing 12 cover the four months; an A400M from Wing 31 supports the first two; three NH90s from Wing 48 join at the end, and they are there for counter-uncrewed-aircraft tasks rather than for transport or search and rescue. Spain is also manning the alliance's sensor and control layer, sending three intercept controllers and a Link 16 operator to the control and reporting centre at Baloteşti.

The rotation is one of three: Italy takes four Eurofighters to Lithuania, Türkiye five F-16s to Estonia. The pressure the deployment answers is documented — Spanish reporting counts 33 drone incursions into Romanian airspace since the invasion began, 18 of them this year, and Romanian F-16s engaged three drones in three days in late July.

Adding helicopters to an air-policing detachment is an admission about cost, not a capability upgrade. Fast jets firing air-to-air missiles at one-way attack drones is an exchange that runs the wrong way round, and a rotary-wing counter-UAS element is a cheaper interceptor placed inside the same mission. Whether it works against Shahed-class targets over the Danube delta is not established, and the detachment's order does not claim it is. Großwald recorded the deployment in Signal No. 114. The observable is whether an NH90 is credited with an engagement during the rotation, or whether the F-18s keep taking the shots.