Red hot Cougar task group sharpens its teeth in Saudi Arabia

THINGS are really hotting up for the Royal Navy's key deployment of 2011 with a demanding eight-day exercise around the Arabian Peninsula in fearsome temperatures.

Fresh from passage through the Suez Canal, the Cougar 11 task group – the Navy's flagship HMS Albion, her escorting frigate Sutherland, amphibious support ship RFA Cardigan Bay and tanker RFA Wave Knight – is now involved in major exercises with the Saudi armed forces.

Red Alligator is a real workout for the task force featuring everything which it is expected to deal with – from maritime security/counter-piracy operations, to a full-scale amphibious assault – hand-in-hand with Saudis.

Royal Navy takes part in largest submarine rescue exercise

Royal Navy personnel have joined 2,000 sailors from 13 nations for the world's largest submarine rescue exercise, off the south-eastern tip of Spain.

The ten days of NATO Exercise Bold Monarch witnessed an international effort to bring trapped submariners from four boats to the surface.

The exercise is run every three years to test the ability of allied teams - including the UK-based NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS) - to react to the two most terrifying words in a submariner's vocabulary: submiss and subsunk.

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Richmond honours the dead of Force Z

STANDING to attention on the flight deck of HMS Richmond, today’s sailors honour the dead of 1941 – and remember one the greatest shocks in the Royal Navy’s history.

The frigate broke off from exercises with the Australian-Singaporean-New Zealand and Malaysian navies to make for 3° 33′ 36″ N, 104° 28′ 42″ E – the approximate last resting place of HMS Prince of Wales.
In December 1941 the battleship – the newest in the Fleet – and her accompanying battle-cruiser HMS Repulse were the firepower of Force Z, sent to the Far East to deter Japanese aggression.

George Bush bound for Portsmouth after war games with Royal Navy

THE world’s newest and most powerful surface ship arrives in the Solent this weekend – after playing games with the best of British.

USS George H W Bush will be weekending in Stokes Bay on her maiden deployment, fresh from exercising in the Western Approaches with HMS Dauntless and Gloucester.

Exercise Saxon Warrior is one of the largest war games hosted by the Royal Navy in UK waters in recent years with other NATO forces, plus RAF and British Army units.

HMS Daring Fires First Venom Air Defense Missile

The Royal Navy’s flagship Type 45 destroyer, HMS Daring, has successfully fired her groundbreaking new air defence missile for the first time, the MoD announced today.

HMS Daring, the first of the formidable next generation warships to be built, fired her world-leading air defence missile system, Sea Viper, during a rigorous training exercise at the MOD’s target range in the Hebrides.

Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Peter Luff, said:

"This is another important achievement for the Type 45 project. Sea Viper is one of the most advanced weapons systems in the world and this capability, combined with the might and speed of the Type 45 destroyer, will provide the Royal Navy with a fearsome fighting force with unparalleled protection from air attacks.”

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Brocklesby weighs in after 'very despicable act' by Gaddafi's forces

ROYAL Navy sailors have cleared mines from a war zone for the first time since Iraq as they prevented Col Gaddafi from holing up aid ships bound for the beleaguered city of Misrata.

HMS Brocklesby and other vessels in a NATO minehunting task force were searching the waters off the western Libyan port after enemy fast patrol boats were seen dropping what appeared to be a mine into the Gulf of Sirte.

The ships – NATO’s Standing Mine Counter Measures Group 1, part of the sizeable maritime force enforcing Operation Unified Protector – found two moored mines on the seabed intended to detonate on encountering passing ships in the approaches to Misrata harbour, plus evidence that a third had broken from its mooring and was floating free in the sea.

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New RAS'll dazzle them at Raleigh

A NEW £25m mock-up refuelling complex is to be built at HMS Raleigh to meet the demands of 21st Century warships.

Replenishing at Sea – known throughout the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary as ‘RASing’ – is vital to support the operations of Britain’s warships around the globe.

There’s already a replica RAS rig at the Torpoint establishment, where sailors from both the RN and RFA learn the art of transferring fuel, ammunition and general stores from one ship to another in a benign environment ashore.

Helo, helo, helo - Fleet Air Arm fliers join forces over Afghanistan

THERE’S a Jungly, a Lynx and a Bagger.

What a cracking example of Fleet Air Arm co-operation in Afghanistan.

(With apologies to 1970s working men’s clubs comics…)

Above the almost featureless terrain of the sands of Helmand two helicopters of the Commando Helicopter Force and one crucial eye in the sky form up briefly before going their separate ways to conduct missions in support of the Allied peacekeeping effort on the ground.

Despite the media’s obsession that everything which flies must be RAF, one in five British helicopters in Afghanistan is Royal Navy – particular pertinent now that 3 Commando Brigade are in charge of operations on land.

Thales signs new Merlin support contract with Lockheed Martin

LONDON (BNS): Thales UK has signed a new contract with Lockheed Martin UK for the next five-year phase of the existing 25-year Integrated Merlin Operational Support (IMOS) programme.

This new contract covers the period April 2011 to March 2016 and continues to provide an availability-based support package for the acoustic sub-system for the Merlin Mk1 and Mk2 helicopters operated by the Royal Navy.

The Merlin’s acoustic sub-system comprises the Folding Light Acoustic System for Helicopters (FLASH) Active Dipping Sonar, combined with a sonics sub-system for sonobuoy processing.

Australian Purchase of an Amphibious Ship Saves Taxpayers

Australia's purchase of an amphibious ship from the Royal Navy at the bargain basement price of A$100 million could save Australian taxpayers at least three times that amount, a senior defence analyst says.

The operations and capability director for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Andrew Davies, said A$400 million to A$500 million had been set aside as the probable cost of acquiring an amphibious ship for the Royal Australian Navy in the second half of the decade. He said yesterday's announcement that the cash-strapped British Government had agreed to sell Australia its five-year-old Largs Bay was great news for Australia.

SEA KING Helicopter drops into Wesley

Wesley College in South Perth just about came to a standstill on Wednesday morning when Wesley Old Boy, Sands Skinner, returned to his old school by dropping onto the oval in a Royal Australian Navy Sea King helicopter!

If this helicopter could talk, it would have a lot of stories to tell from its thirty odd year history. It has been deployed to just about every area of confrontation in the world, as well as rescue efforts in the recent Queensland floods.

This visit also afforded Wesley Chaplain, Reverend Allan Mackenzie, an opportunity to get back into the helicopter’s pilot seat, albeit on the ground. In 1971 and 1972 Reverend Mackenzie served in 817 Squadron operating from HMAS Melbourne (II) when he was seconded from the Royal Navy.

Navy Opens High-Tech Warship Simulator

Junior officers in the Royal Australian Navy will learn to pilot the next generation of warships, in an upgraded $10m training facility at HMAS Watson, Sydney, which will be officially opened tomorrow.

The new high-tech simulator uses computerized virtual-reality software to simulate a working warship's bridge, complete with a 240-degree view of a computer generated 2D scene through the bridge windows.

Navy to axe 'Fukushima type' nuclear reactors from submarines

The Royal Navy is to drop a dangerous type of reactor used in its existing nuclear submarines because it fails to meet modern safety standards, defence ministers have disclosed.

A safer type of reactor is expected to be used in the submarines that will replace the Trident fleet, as the existing design shares very similar features to the nuclear reactors involved in the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan.

Ark Royal passes into history

WE WILL wake up tomorrow for the first time in more than 30 years without the name Ark Royal in the Royal Navy’s inventory.

The one time flagship of the Fleet – and highest-profile victim of cuts under last year’s defence review – was formally decommissioned yesterday in Portsmouth Naval Base.

Upwards of 900 guests from dignitaries, affiliates, former captains and senior officers to relatives of the 150 or so remaining ship’s company attended the hour-long ceremony on the carrier’s flight deck.

The carrier has already said her goodbyes to the people of Portsmouth and Leeds, her affiliated city, by marching through both metropolises.

HMS Bulwark rejoins Royal Navy operational fleet

The Royal Navy amphibious landing ship HMS Bulwark has returned to the Royal Navy's operational fleet and is ready for any tasking worldwide. 

The ship has emerged on time and budget from an 11-month upgrade and maintenance period by Babcock in its base port of HM Naval Base Devonport, Plymouth.

The project team successfully met significant challenges, including severe adverse weather conditions, to keep the programme on schedule. This was the ship's first docking period since being formally commissioned into the Royal Navy in April 2005.

Having successfully completed three weeks of sea trials the ship has passed the formal fleet date inspection by the team judging her readiness and effectiveness to join the operational fleet.

Cumberland goes 'beyond the call of duty' to rescue civilians in Libya

HMS Cumberland is due back in Malta today after her second rescue mission to save foreigners caught up in Libya’s spiralling civil war.

Some 200 civilians – many of them oil workers from refineries in eastern Libya – boarded the frigate in driving rain in rebel-held Benghazi yesterday.

The port is the focal point of the international evacuation effort and several hundred Britons are still thought to be spread across the country.

Bye, George as support ship sails out of Plymouth

WITH the waves crashing against Plymouth’s outer breakwater, RFA Fort George leaves the Royal Navy’s West Country home for the final time.

The one-stop support ship is one of the ‘forgotten victims’ of the Strategic Defence and Security Review; while all the media attention (and we too fell into this trap admittedly) focused on the demise of HMS Ark Royal, the Harrier jump jets and all four Type 22 frigates, three auxiliaries were also axed – a smaller surface fleet requires a smaller support fleet.

Royal Navy’s ‘HMS Queen Elizabeth’ under construction

Pictured here is construction of the first of the two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, HMS Queen Elizabeth, as workers at BAE Systems’ Govan yard moved two giant sections of the hull together for the first time.

The structure is so big that it fills an entire hall at Govan and now extends beyond the doors onto the yard.

HMS Queen Elizabeth Steps Out Into the Lime Light

Construction of the first of the two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, HMS Queen Elizabeth, took a huge step forward today as workers at BAE System' Govan yard moved two giant sections of the hull together for the first time.

The structure is so big that it fills an entire hall at Govan and now extends beyond the doors onto the yard, providing a spectacular view from across the River Clyde.

Highlighting the skill and technology involved in British shipbuilding today, it took a team of 20 employees and remote controlled transporters just one hour to move 1,221 tonnes of steel over 100 metres across the shipyard. The hull section was then manoeuvred carefully into position to line up with the rest of the block.

Royal Navy Merlins Fly to the Anti-submarine Exercise

A Royal Navy helicopter squadron is taking part in NATO's largest Mediterranean anti-submarine exercise, Proud Manta, for the first time.

Merlin Mk1 maritime patrol helicopters from 814 Naval Air Squadron (also known as 'The Flying Tigers') have flown 1,400 miles (2,250km) across Europe from Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Helston, Cornwall, to Sicily in order to take part in the exercise and practise hunting submarines.

Run by NATO, Exercise Proud Manta (formally Noble Manta) sees ships, aircraftand submarines from the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Greece and Turkey, plus hosts Italy, converging on the central Mediterranean for a week.

The exercise provides a realistic, challenging training environment for all participants in order to improve the readiness, proficiency and tactical skills of all the units taking part. It gives the Merlin crews anexcellent opportunity to practise their primary role of anti-submarine warfare as they operate against a wide variety of exercise 'adversaries' not normally encountered in British waters.