25 Oct 24. UK and US carrier groups flex muscles in North Sea as major exercise ends.
One of the most powerful maritime forces in the UK’s arsenal joined forces with a US counterpart to demonstrate allied resolve, unity and cooperation in the North Sea.
While at sea for Exercise Strike Warrior the UK Carrier Strike Group (UKCSG) – spearheaded by HMS Prince of Wales – and the US Carrier Strike Group 8 (CSG8) centred on the USS Harry S Truman, joined forces to deliver a powerful statement of NATO’s ability to project power from the sea.
Britain’s biggest warship hosted the US Strike Group Commander Rear Admiral Sean Bailey, who watched UK F-35B Lightning stealth fighters launch from her flight deck – then join the Truman’s F/A-18 Super Hornets and an E/A-18G Growler conduct a flypast of the two naval groups.
The UK Carrier Strike Group comprising HMS Prince of Wales, associated air wing, escorts, supporting vessels and almost 2,000 personnel, has been at sea for training as part of exercise Strike Warrior, one of the final milestones in the preparations of the Strike Group to undertake a global deployment to the Indo-Pacific region in 2025.
Lightnings from the UK’s new front-line strike fighter unit, 809 Naval Air Squadron have been operating from the deck of HMS Prince of Wales, training for strike missions that has included the dropping of live ordnance onto the Cape Wrath range in Scotland.
The exercise scenario was choreographed by the UK’s Joint Training and Exercise Planning Staff based in the Royal Navy Warfighting Centre in Portsmouth Naval Base with the activity of the Strike Group in response to the training scenario being directed by the staff of Headquarters UK Carrier Strike Group, embarked in HMS Prince of Wales.
Involving warships and support vessels from the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary along with elements of the British Army, Royal Air Force and NATO warships from six nations – Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Portugal and the UK – Exercise Strike Warrior has seen air and naval power tested in challenging tactical situations.
The RAF supported the anti-submarine defence of the Carrier Strike Group through provision of Poseidon P8 maritime patrol aircraft while other NATO aircraft supported F35s in defending the strike group from “aggressor” aircraft, to fend off threats from the sky.
Between these large scale set-piece activities, participating ships have conducted their own training – fighting fires and floods, dealing with mock casualties, replenishing with fuel and stores while underway. The end goal being to hone both individual and collective skills to forge a powerful yet flexible trike group able to deploy around the globe.
“Strike Warrior has delivered a short and intense period of training for the UK Carrier Strike Group, testing the group all the way from individual responses to a fire or flood through to complex long-range F-35B missions involving live weapon drops in support of Royal Marines ashore,” said Captain John Cromie, Deputy Commander UK Carrier Strike Group.
“Throughout the Strike Group has taken the opportunity to work alongside NATO partners participating in activity concurrent to Strike Warrior, confirming ed our procedures and interoperability with key Allies and demonstrated the UK’s continued and absolute commitment to NATO.”
Commander Nick Smith, 809 Naval Air Squadron’s Commanding Officer, said the maiden embarkation had been “phenomenally successful”, laying “firm foundations” for when his F-35s re-join the task group in 2025 on its first deployment.
He continued: “The training teams have surpassed their targets with 19 pilots completing carrier qualifications within the first weeks of the deployment and flight deck teams receiving their authorisations to safely operate on the deck, both day and night.
“Our integration has also spread beyond the ship, demonstrated by the successful release of live weapons on targets at Cape Wrath; weapons prepared by the ship’s company, loaded and delivered by 809 NAS and 617 Squadron engineers and pilots, controlled by Royal Marine Commandos on the ground.”
Portsmouth-based destroyer HMS Dauntless led the air defence of the strike group. Her Commanding Officer Commander Ben Dorrington said his team had been tested by “a broad range of threats, including enemy air sorties, anti-ship cruise missiles, and the challenges posed by electronic warfare” thanks to the scale and scope of the exercise – and proven the ship’s ability to protect the carrier group.
“The comprehensive training applied during Strike Warrior has thoroughly prepared Dauntless’ ship’s company to handle everything from fire and floods to high-end warfighting.”
Strike Warrior concludes this weekend, further training will be conducted in UK waters before the Carrier Strike Group deploys in 2025.
Since departing Portsmouth last month HMS Prince of Wales has sailed 1,500 conducting training. Her aircraft have conducted 71 sorties accounting for 210 hours (nearly nine whole days) airborne, and the F-35s have dropped four Paveway bombs on the Cape Wrath range during a live ordnance exercise.
Strike Warrior concludes an intensive early autumn of training for HMS Prince of Wales and her 750-strong ship’s company. Her Commanding Officer Captain Will Blackett said it had been “hard work – but all of our benefit. We have made huge strides – from improving our ability to deal with emergencies internal to the ship, to refining task group defensive tactics, all the way through to accurately delivering live munitions on simulated targets at reach. This ship is amazing – and my people are even better.”
Among those benefiting was junior rating Able Seaman Thomas Fobbester who works in the carrier’s operations room who described the exercise as “a very valuable learning experience”.
Thomas added: “This is my first Ship and first time getting involved in this sort of thing. Camaraderie with the lads has been a key point. The air defence exercises have been the best, as the highest activity for me, but there’s also a lot of time living and working with the same people so getting to know them during our downtime has been really good.” (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
24 Oct 24. Defense Official Statement on AUKUS Pillar 2 and Exercise Maritime Big Play. The following statement can be attributed to Ms. Madeline Mortelmans who is currently performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities. Her office is lead for both pillars of AUKUS within the department and is in close partnership with all of the DOD stakeholders.
“Secretary Austin has said several times in the past that our alliances and partnerships are our greatest global strategic advantage. Specifically, AUKUS presents a unique opportunity for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to foster a more capable, more combined force of the future. And in so doing, we will strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Through AUKUS, we are working across the full spectrum of capability development, generating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial based collaboration and ultimately delivering advanced capabilities to our forces. AUKUS Pillar 1 focuses these co-development efforts on delivering an advanced nuclear power submarine capability through the optimal pathway.
Pillar 2 focuses on the development and delivery of emerging technology. AUKUS Pillar 2 is designed to harness the combined industrial and innovation bases of the tri-lateral partners to ensure that our forces are equipped with cutting edge interoperable military capabilities and prepared to face down aggression in whatever form it may take.
In Pillar 2, we’re building a more capable combined joint force for the future, working across the full spectrum of capability development and we’re already delivering. This year, we’re advancing our undersea warfare capabilities by expanding our ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater systems from torpedo tubes on current classes of British and US submarines, that will increase the range and capability of our undersea forces.
We’re integrating the Stingray lightweight torpedo into the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, which will support our forces in being more interchangeable while providing resilience to munitions stockpiles across AUKUS nations. At the same time, we’re also implementing a fundamental shift to more closely integrate our systems and break down barriers to collaboration at every stage and in every part of our systems.
We’ve welcomed collaboration with the International Joint Requirements Oversight Council or I-JROC, a critical collaborative forum to identify and validate joint and combined requirements. The I-JROC will ensure that we have prioritized combined and joint solutions from the very start and that the capabilities we develop under Pillar 2 address some of the most pressing challenges our forces face.
A cornerstone of AUKUS Pillar 2 remains the opportunity to leverage the best of our defense industrial bases in combined innovation communities. This year we executed the first office innovation challenge focused on electronic warfare. We announced the winners last month and our teams are working to develop a robust two-year plan to increase the collaboration between and among our innovation centers of excellence.
By the end of the year, we’ll have convened meetings with the Advanced Capabilities Industry Forum in each country. Engagements provide an opportunity for representatives across government and industry to exchange ideas and deepen industrial based collaboration.
This week we’re here in Jervis Bay to observe the Maritime Big Play, which is an important demonstration of AUKUS in action. The Maritime Big Play is a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises aimed at enhancing capability development, improving interoperability and increasing the sophistication and scale of autonomous systems in the maritime domain. These experiments address the need to expand the reach, capability and capacity of our forces in the maritime environment through the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been testing and refining the ability to jointly operate uncrewed maritime systems, to share and process maritime data from all three nations, and to provide real time maritime domain awareness to support decision making. The Maritime Big Play allows AUKUS partners to practice fielding and maintaining thousands of uncrewed systems, gaining valuable experience operating in coalitions to solve realistic operational problems such as improving undersea situational awareness.
Our work will inform AUKUS partners’ understanding of how crewed and uncrewed capabilities can be integrated to get an operational advantage, and where we can achieve cost savings and improved efficiencies in acquisition, maintenance and sustainment activities.
Maritime Big Play isn’t just a demonstration for demonstration’s sake. It’s our goal to transition cutting edge technologies into capabilities that give our forces decisive advantage as quickly as we can. This year, Japan joined the Maritime Big Play as an observer. We look forward to deepening their participation in the coming years. All of this together underpins a more strategic approach to ensure that AUKUS and like-minded partners can operate new autonomous uncrewed systems more effectively as a coalition force from the start.
This is only the first in our series of experiments and demonstrations. Over time, Maritime Big Play will grow and evolve to reflect the emerging technologies, new systems and new operational requirements. I want to emphasize that AUKUS is dynamic. It will grow, it will evolve as the world changes around us, and as we break down the old barriers to cooperation and inevitably discover new ones.
AUKUS is building a foundation for deep defense industrial cooperation and delivering advanced capabilities that can and will ensure our defense forces succeed in enhancing peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific alongside UK and Australia partners both now and in the years ahead. Thank you.” (Source: U.S. DoD)
22 Oct 24. US Army seeks information on contracted helicopter pilot training, potential UH-72A replacement. The US Army has released a request for information (RFI) seeking to learn how contractors might provide initial flight training for helicopter pilots, including potentially replacing the Airbus UH-72A Lakota as the service’s primary flight training helicopter.
The RFI, issued on 8 October, requests information on both government-owned, contractor-operated and contractor-owned, contractor-operated helicopters.
“The UH-72 is [a] very capable aircraft. It might be too capable to teach a basic aviator,” Major General Clair Gill told reporters on 17 October at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, DC.
“We look at what we’ve trained on in years past – and we have been through a couple generations of aircraft; they’ve been simpler aircraft, and if that’s what trains a better aviator, then I’m interested in that,” Maj Gen Gill added, referring to the Bell UH-1 and TH-67, as well as the Schweizer TH-55, all of which were single engine; TH-55 and -67 were derived from popular civilian training models.
“The second thing that I want is an affordable model [of helicopter],” added Maj Gen Gill. “I’m agnostic about the platform, but [the UH-72] is an expensive aircraft to operate.” (Source: Janes)
23 Oct 24. Exercise Southern Tiger bolsters Australia-Malaysia ties.
Hosted by the 10th/27th Battalion, the Royal South Australia Regiment (10/27RSAR), the exercise took place across several locations in Australia.
Australian and Malaysian military personnel have reinforced their partnership through Exercise Southern Tiger.
The two countries are approaching the 70th anniversary of Australia’s diplomatic presence in Malaysia in 2025.
In 2021, Australia and Malaysia upgraded their bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Hosted by the 10th/27th Battalion, the Royal South Australia Regiment (10/27RSAR), the exercise took place across several locations, from 30 August to 24 September.
These include Cultana Training Area, Murray Bridge Training Area, and Edinburgh Defence Precinct in Australia.
During Exercise Southern Tiger, a sub-unit from the Malaysian Army was assigned to an Australian Army unit.
This strengthened interoperability and cultural understanding.
Malaysian Army 14th Mechanised Battalion commanding officer Azllan bin Zainul Abidin said: “This was a very good opportunity to have my soldiers exposed to Australian culture, Australian Army culture, it’s training and training environments.
“Seeing the differences between our two armies and the way we train will be of great benefit to all those involved.”
The training focused on foundation war-fighting and combined arms tactics, culminating in a live-fire in complex combat scenarios.
Australian Army commanding officer 10/27RSAR Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Jackson said: “It’s been a great opportunity for us to train alongside our Malaysian partners. Individual soldiers getting time on the tools is always a good thing. Soldiers are out there training, getting better at their core trades.
“Meanwhile, the soldiers and officers that organised the training and were involved in planning the exercise also benefited from increasing their understanding of how Army is contributing to implementing the National Defence Strategy.” (Source: army-technology.com)
17 Oct 24. SAS Amatola returns to the fight with successful Ibsamar VIII. The sea phase of the multinational maritime Exercise Ibsamar VIII has wrapped up successfully off the Cape West Coast, showcasing the combined efforts of South Africa, Brazil and India.
This latest iteration of the naval drill involved South Africa’s SAS Amatola, India’s INS Talwar and Brazil’s BNS Defensora, which departed Simon’s Town Harbour on 10 October after an alongside phase from 7 to 9 October. Upon departing the safety of the harbour, the ships immediately faced simulated attacks by fast incoming attack craft, setting the stage for a series of complex manoeuvres and exercises over the week-long training period.
The drills included close-proximity ship manoeuvring, helicopter operations, replenishment at sea (RAS) exercises, seamanship evolutions and air defence activities with two South African Air Force Hawks which had deployed to Air Force Base Langebaanweg. The fleet also simulated warfare against each other as well as a live Gunex evolution using a “Killer Tomato” added to the range of training.
For SAS Amatola, the exercise marked a significant milestone. After years of inactivity due to maintenance issues, the ship was brought back into service earlier this year through the dedicated efforts of its crew. Initially, the extensive work required for safe operational readiness had been underestimated, resulting in the cancellation of a planned ambitious voyage in July to participate in the Russian Navy’s anniversary parade in St Petersburg. However, since then, Amatola has regained operational momentum by conducting border safeguarding patrols under Operation Corona off the West Coast of South Africa and participating in exercises with a visiting Chinese frigate.
Reflecting on the challenges and achievements during the exercise, Jones emphasised the remarkable growth of the crew, especially the younger sailors.
“The most rewarding part as a Captain is seeing how my young people have developed over the six days at sea,” he said. “Their knowledge base, competence and confidence have grown significantly.”
Continuing, he said: “We don’t get the opportunity to do these exercises often, so operating at sea in a multi-threat environment with other ships in close proximity really hones the skills.”
“We have skilled warfare operators on board who operate various systems,” Jones noted. “During the exercise, we operated in both Combat State One and Two threat environments, staying in a tense warfare setting for several hours. This involved conducting surveillance, compiling a recognised maritime picture and defending ourselves against simulated attacks. You can’t fully replicate the real thing, but this time it was real, and they did it.”
The crew also gained valuable experience in RAS operations, which involved conducting tight formations and transferring gear between ships.
“These are tasks we don’t often get to perform, so from a command perspective, it was great exposure,” Jones explained, “The precise pilotage required for station-keeping demonstrated the capability of the teams on board.”
The exercise also strengthened the interoperability between the participating navies.
“The culmination of very close manoeuvres showed that we have all grown in our ability to operate together,” Jones observed. He highlighted the camaraderie that developed among the younger sailors, who bonded with their counterparts from the other nations.
“Seeing the youngsters who have never been involved in these types of exercises bond with others from different countries was a positive outcome. When we exchanged personnel or brought visitors on board, it was clear that these experiences left a lasting impact,” he said.
For the Commanding Officer of South Africa’s only operational frigate, this was Jones’ first time leading an exercise of this nature in command.
“It involved a lot of sleepless nights, but it was worth it,” he said. “It provided a clear picture of what is required when operating a warship at sea, and I am proud of how well the crew performed.”
The successful completion of Exercise Ibsamar VIII has not only bolstered the maritime skills of all involved but also deepened the ties between South Africa, Brazil and India. As the ships returned to Simon’s Town on 16 October, they did so with enhanced capabilities and stronger bonds, ready for the next chapter in their ongoing efforts to ensure regional maritime security.
Following a brief rest period for the crew, Amatola is set to undertake a three-month anti-piracy mission in the Mozambique Channel as part of Operation Copper. These deployments underline the ship’s return to active service and its ongoing contributions to regional maritime security.
(Source: https://www.defenceweb.co.za/)