NAVY NEWS, NOVEMBER 2010
As Lt Col Wood said: “A lot of
this work, helicopter and aircraft control, is pre-deployment training for Afghanistan, and NGS can also become a lapsed skill – it fades in Afghanistan, and they come here to build it up again.” Much depends on the universal skill of deconfliction, especially when dealing with different nations as well as different weaponry, enabling jets to fly missions while shells are being fired in and helicopters buzzing about, either on attack missions or support sorties.
On this occasion the flagship of
the Royal Danish Navy, HDMS Absalon – also acting as control ship – was the first to the gun line. On board was one of the 12
British NGLOs (NGS Liaison Officers,
all TA) who provide
support, advice and coaching to the ship’s command team as well as liaison with land forces ashore. “They are a critical part of the liaison picture,” said Lt Col Wood. “They do this for a few days
then go back to what they do – and we are talking about big financial managers from the City, key members of banks or global companies, all totally focused on this.
“They come up here, get cold
and wet, parachuting into the sea – they are a pretty hardy bunch.” Some have been coming for decades, like Lt Col Wood and the two NCOs, and are proud of the strong links 148 Bty has with the nearby village of Durness. They listen to local concerns, and compromise where possible
– ensuring the man who lives by the lighthouse on Cape Wrath itself is not inconvenienced when travelling to and from his home. The news of the impending
arrival of the Screen Machine, an artic which transforms into a mobile cinema, in Durness elicits a frisson of interest in the range building during a lull in the exercise (“it would be okay if you didn’t have to go to Ullapool for your popcorn,” observes Sgt Hoyland). Absalon expends a handful of
shells, mainly inert with a few high explosive, on the range before handing on to the USS Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Once communications issues
are sorted, she too flings shells ashore, while spotters work hard to slot in dry runs by Swedish Air Force Gripen aircraft operating out of Lossiemouth and shepherd in Apache helicopters from Ark Royal for dummy runs on specific targets. The
weather
through the day, but Bainbridge’s accuracy, as with Absalon,
impressive – the American ship looses off a dozen rounds from her 5in gun maximum rate (one every three seconds or so) to prove the point.
After dusk HMS Monmouth takes her turn some ten miles out, her rounds tracing red arcs through the sky as she uses starshells to light the target area – and range staff comment that the Royal Navy is often the one force pushing its ships the hardest, jinking and turning in heavy seas to push their skills to the limit.
RAF forward aircraft controllers are also using Joint Warrior to train for a forthcoming Afghanistan deployment, although they fared better
and it’s increasingly popular with US forces. “The firing danger area is about
deteriorates is
April, whose tents were ripped away at 3am by 100mph winds, a regular feature of Cape Wrath. Guardsmen were also due ashore for an exercise – and again, it is in such circumstances that Cape Wrath proves its worth. “This is the only range in the UK and one of the few in the world where you can do NGS, live air, live AH and infantry movements – all the weapons systems that the British Armed Forces use,” said Lt Col Wood. “It’s incredibly comprehensive training for everything from an infantryman to a carrier. “They can be used simultaneously,
than their colleagues in
12km across by about 25km deep, that’s both land and water – the land is about 7km of that. “So it’s not a huge range, but is mountainous you
because it
have a much better backstop than other ranges.” As the afternoon wears on other elements force themselves into the picture. Lulls in the action become less frequent as more machines line up to take aim. A Sea Hawk from the Bainbridge lifts off to deliver NGLO Maj Ian Wilson TA (a freelance water treatment scientist) back to Faraid Head while the sole Apache – its companion had gone unserviceable just before lift-off from the Ark – was being shepherded round Holding Area ‘Maggie’ under the gaze of weapons training team SSgts John Cocks and Dee Hague, of Wattisham Station, the Army Air Corps Apache base. And members of the four-strong
● This page (from top): An Apache on HMS Ark Royal’s fl ight deck lift; an Apache takes off from the carrier, two Apaches during Joint Warrior; USS Bainbridge on the gun line off Cape Wrath; an Apache on the Ark’s fl ight deck
military hardware spins, shoots and thunders all around; another characteristic of Cape Wrath, where rare plants and teeming wildlife thrive (despite the odd shell) because of its enforced isolation. Indeed,
a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protected Bird Areas, as well as some rare (and untouched) sites of archaeological importance.
– pages 24-25
Joint Warrior picture special the centre boasts
complete the control team for this exercise, monitor communications – a Dutch marine using British radios on a Scottish establishment to call in fire from a Danish ship using American spotters. Sheep graze peacefully as
Defence Estates civilian warden team, who look after the ranges all year round, monitor the radar screen, flagging up vessels which look likely to stray into critical areas (warnings of times and locations of firings are widely distributed in advance of exercises). Two Dutch marines,
who
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