Royal Netherlands Army Artillery


The Royal Netherlands Army Artillery provides artillery support for the Royal Netherlands Army. It is divided into three corps, undertaking two roles: Korps Veldartillerie - Field Artillery and Korps Rijdende Artillerie - Horse Artillery. These two corps undertake the field artillery role. They are equipped primarily with the PzH2000 and were equipped with the M109 howitzer. Until 2013, one regiment retained the traditions of the Veldartillerie and one of the Rijdende Artillerie, with one assigned to each of the army's mechanised brigades.
In 2013, following a series of defence cuts, the two artillery regiments were amalgamated into a single unit called the Fire Support Command , with three fire support batteries and an HQ battery, of which two of the fire support batteries are Veldartillerie and one, together with the HQ is Rijdende Artillerie.

Korps Luchtdoelartillerie

The third corps is Korps Luchtdoelartillerie - Air Defence Artillery. It undertakes the air defence role. Three individual batteries were equipped with Stinger man-portable air defence missiles and the Cheetah armoured air defence vehicle and are assigned to the three mechanised brigades. The rest of the unit is assigned to provide air defence for other vital areas.
Korps Luchtdoelartillerie consists of the Air Defence Command. 11 Air Defense Company Samarinda is considered part of the Air Defense Artillery Regiment, but is an independent Air Defense Company and part of the infantry Regiment Van Heutsz. It is composed mostly of infantry. To avoid confusion, it was named a company rather than a battery.
As of 2007 the Air Defence Command is located at and equipped with the NASAMS 2 Army Ground Based Air Defense Systems.The regiment consists of a Joint Air Defense Center, a Staff battery, 11th Air Defense battery, 13th Air Defense battery, an instruction and training battery and the Joint Air Defense School.
Each of the two Air Defense batteries consists of a staff platoon, three Stinger Weapon Platform platoons and a NASAMS 2 Fire Unit. The SWP are available in two variants: The SWP is a four wheeled armored vehicle with the ready to fire a Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher. The Mercedes Benz G290GD four-wheel drive light transport vehicle, with a Dual Mounted Stinger on a tripod, offers two Stingers ready to fire.
By integrating the Low Level Air Picture with both VSHORAD-missiles systems into the wireless GBADS-network, which is JTIDS capable, they can bring the Recognized Air Picture to the SWPs. This is a unique capacity and a powerful attribute to NATINEADS.
Besides the SWPs the Air Defense batteries have a NASAMS II Fire Unit. Each FU consist of a FDC, a MPQ-64 Sentinel radar and 3 Launchers with 6 AIM-120B AMRAAM's each.
The sensor capacity of the GBADS-network consists, besides the MPQ-64 and LLAPI, of five TRML radars. These Medium range, modular, highly reliable, countermeasures-resistant, 3D, C-band, self-contained, mobile radar systems are capable of detecting a real target with a small RCS like Cruise Missiles and UAV's, even at low attitudes.

Joint Air Defense command

On September 23, 2009 it was announced by the Commander Royal Netherlands Army Commander, Commander Peter van Uhm, that all ground based air defense units, including the Air Force’s Guided Weapons Group, would be merged into a single Joint Air Defense Command at De Peel Air Base.