THE world’s largest helicopter and one of the UK’s biggest auxiliary ships are part of a major maritime exercise that is underway in regional waters.
The second-largest drill of its kind, the International Maritime Exercise (IMX 19) which gathers more than 5,000 personnel, 40 vessels and 17 aircraft from 50 countries, is being hosted by the Bahrain-based US Naval Forces Central Command.
The three-week-long exercise which kicked off at the end of last month took to real action in the Central Arabian Gulf yesterday by testing counter-mine measures.
Exciting
Members of the media, including the GDN, were invited onboard the Cardigan Bay, a landing ship dock of the UK’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary, to witness the sixth iteration of the exercise, which aims to maintain regional security and stability.
“This is an exciting demonstration of what can be done by various nations,” Cardigan Bay Commander Simon Cox told the GDN.
“The hard work lies in planning to get different people, equipment in the same place, at the same time.
“We are sailors. We work well together on similar techniques, procedures and that is what brings in the possibility of having 130 of us together onboard from 10 different nations.
“The teams are integrated into one system to go out and practise their skills. They go out searching for the mines that are laid for the drill and learn how to deal with them together – be it to neutralise or defuse them.
“The exercise is huge – we have the full spectrum of warfare, from water, air, surface and we are focusing on the underwater.
“That’s happening in the wider Middle East, down to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but specifically from this ship (the Cardigan Bay) we just focus on the mines.”
The floating support base helps other ships taking part in IMX with the necessary fuel, ammunition and food.
It has 130 divers and operators onboard from 10 countries – the UK, the US, Australia, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Japan and Pakistan.
Anchored in the Central Arabian Gulf area, around 73km north north-west of Bahrain, it weighs 20,000 tonnes, is over 250m long and can carry up to 800 personnel.
It has vehicle space of 1,400lims and can accommodate helicopters, unmanned vehicles, almost 130 diving boats and helicopters on her deck.
The 14-year-old versatile and flexible ship, which has been in the region for two years, also has cranes to tow or lift smaller boats and is one of three of its kind, the two others being anchored in the Caribbean and the UK.
“She is huge and does lots of things. We just had the world’s largest helicopter landing on her deck and soon she will dock down into the water to deploy around a dozen boats at the same time.
“These boats will have robots in them, unmanned underwater vehicles and autonomous boats that will go and hunt mines.”
Around 30 journalists flew down to the Cardigan Bay on Tuesday on the world’s largest helicopter, an MH53 Sea Dragon from the US squadron HM15.
“She will be towing sonar to hunt mines and will sweep gears that will clear minefields, and will also have divers onboard,” said Cmd Cox.
IMX 19 (second to the RIMPAC – Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise) covers the strategic waterway spanning from the Suez Canal to the Bab Al Mandeb, as well as from the Strait of Hormuz to the Northern Arabian Gulf.
The exercise which began on October 21 comes after a number of commercial vessels were attacked in the Gulf from May, ratcheting up regional tensions.
Washington and other Western powers blamed the incidents on Iran, but Tehran has denied any involvement.
raji@gdn.com.bh
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