GLOBAL REACH
Seen here through one of the embrasures in Portsmouth’s historic sea defences, HMS Daring makes her way out of harbour on active service for the first time – 11 years after she was ordered, nine years after the first steel was cut, six years since she was launched into an icy Clyde and three years after she made her debut in the Solent. She departed for the troubled waters east of Suez to maintain the Navy’s long- term presence there.
Daring sailed with her 200-plus ship’s company – her normal complement has been bolstered by a specialist Royal Marines boarding team from the Fleet Protection Group – eager to show off what has been hailed as one of the most advanced warships in the world.
Navy. Fired up in the Channel, her radar can track most air traffic over the UK – it can follow aircraft approaching Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Schipol in Amsterdam, Manchester, Edinburgh. As for her Sea Viper – the missile system around which she is built – it can down a target the size of a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound. All of which is why the ship’s company use superlatives like ‘Starship Enterprise’, ‘Porsche’ and ‘staggeringly capable’ to describe her. “We know that Daring is more capable than anything which has gone to sea
Roughly eight in every ten pieces of kit aboard Daring are new to the Royal
Great expectations T
HE torch has been passed to a new generation of Royal Navy warships as the very first Type 45 destroyer sailed on her maiden deployment.
before,” said navigator Lt Will Blackett. “This ship was designed for anything – and is ready for anything. “There are mixed emotions, of course. We will be away from home for seven months. But there’s also that sense of excitement. I’ve been on board for 20 months, I’ve gone through seeing the ship go from something on trials and training to a warship ready to go. Deployment is the reward for all our effort.” Daring is the first of six £1bn warships, four of which have been handed over to the Royal Navy, with three ready for front-line duties. She is taking over from frigate HMS Argyll on a varied mission from counter piracy and safeguarding sea lanes, to working with the nation’s allies and flying the flag for the best of British.
Viper for the first time off Scotland in May, was fitted with Phalanx automated guns over the summer, and underwent two months of Operational Sea Training in the autumn.
Sea Training organisation, saw the final tick in the box: ready to deploy. Given recent tensions in the Gulf region, the media made something of a fuss over Daring’s departure; her deployment there, however, has been planned for a good six months or more.
2011 was largely dominated by training, trials and tweaks. The ship fired her Sea The latter test, carried out under the auspices of the world-renowned Flag Officer
And as her Commanding Officer Capt Guy Robinson points out, the Gulf is “a volatile region” – which is why there’s been a long-term Royal Navy presence there. “We cannot predict what might occur – it would be foolish to speculate. You only have to look back to what happened around the world in 2011,” he added. “As far as the Navy is concerned, this is a routine deployment. To deploy Daring herself for the first time is far from routine of course, taking a ship of this complexity away from the UK for seven months. “There’s been a year of hard work getting her ready. Now is the chance to show what we can do. This ship is staggeringly capable – she stands alongside the best in the world.” Chief caterer CPO ‘Bill’ Bailey, beginning his first deployment in the surface fleet after a career in submarines, says there’s a “great camaraderie on board”. “You step across the brow of Daring and you’re proud to serve in her. That shows all over.
“These have been exciting times, the build up for this, getting her ready. We’re very aware that we’ll be showing what the ship can do.”
The first chance to show what Daring can do came a few days later when she made her debut in Gibraltar. The Rock was shrouded in mist and rain when the destroyer entered harbour – joining Mediterranean-bound minehunter HMS Ledbury (see page 4) in the naval base.
Despite getting a drenching as he safely guided his ship alongside, Capt Robinson said that “seeing the Rock as you sail in is a sight you never forget, and always one you welcome seeing. “Gibraltar is an iconic place to visit – a place held dearly in people’s hearts. You could not enter the Mediterranean without stopping here.”
Once alongside in the shadow of The Tower (or was it The Tower in the shadow of Daring given the height of her main mast, more than 100ft above the waterline?), the ship hosted a reception for the Rock’s leaders.
Among those shown aboard Daring (dubbed a ‘superdestructor’ – super destroyer – by the Spanish press across the border) were Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and the territory’s governor, Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns (who knows quite a bit about Type 45s as his wife Susie is the sponsor of HMS Diamond). The ship also hosted visits from local schools, Air Cadets, the Sea Scouts and the Royal Gibraltar Association. No visit to Gibraltar is complete without the Navy’s traditional ‘Rock race’ – from the dockyard to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar, with the ship’s physical training instructor LPT Simon Radford spurring the men and women on. “The race was really well attended by the ship’s company – despite the very early start,” said Simon. “There were some very tired-looking people at the top – but luckily there were no proper casualties.”
The stay in Gib was all too brief. After just a couple of days, the destroyer resumed her deployment – with a little help from the Gibraltar Squadron. Long before Daring cast off, HMS Scimitar – one of the squadron’s two fast patrol boats – sailed to conduct a security sweep of the Western Anchorage accompanied by an Arctic 24 RIB. An hour or so later, bang on schedule, Daring left 41 berth and conducted a stern-first passage through the southern entrance, which had already been cleared by Scimitar and the RIB. When the destroyer had safely reached the limit of British Gibraltar
Territorial Waters, Daring and Scimitar moved into the next part of their morning’s work – a force protection exercise in which Scimitar would simulate various attacks on the destroyer. Small, fast and manoeuvrable, Scimitar and her sister Sabre are well able to simulate a waterborne terrorist attack and are regularly used by deploying ships for this type of continuation training. It quickly became apparent to Scimitar’s crew that Daring’s pre- deployment training had ensured her force protection teams were highly ‘worked up’ in a ship which is well equipped to defend herself. Despite the best efforts of Scimitar’s two gun aimers, D32 successfully deterred the mock attacks and the exercise was completed with the Type 45 disappearing into the Mediterranean sunshine on her journey eastward.
www.navynews.co.uk
picture: po(phot) paul punter, frpu east 3
FEBRUARY 2012 :
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48