6 NAVY NEWS, MAY 2010
‘Back in the task force game’
off on the Navy’s flagship deployment of 2010.
And one week later the plans for the early part of the Auriga 2010 exercises were in the bin, courtesy of one volcano in Iceland, lots of ash in the skies, and lots of aircraft on the ground.
Ark made initially for north-west Scotland and the latest Joint Warrior war games, the last chance to hone skills in home waters before heading across the Pond to work with Canadian and US forces. The carrier served as home to Lynx, Bagger Sea Kings, Merlins and eight Harriers of the Naval Strike Wing for the Scottish exercises, which are aimed at testing the ability of all three Services to work together. Not everyone aboard the flagship was seized by the
prospect of Joint Warrior, admittedly. “I googled Benbecula. It’s like a chunk of Dartmoor which has been taken out and dumped off Scotland,” sighed LAET Simon Young of 849 NAS. He misses the trip across the Pond – and hence the best runs ashore – with good reason; his partner’s about to give birth. Mercifully, Ark only saw the remote island and its
environs for a week. A certain volcano intervened, grounded the Harriers and led to the warship being
diverted south (see pages 4-5).
But when Auriga does get under way off the Eastern Seaboard, what can we expect? Well, when it reaches its peak off Florida in July, it will see the carrier joined by HMS Ocean and Albion, plus American assault ship USS Kearsarge (a combination of Ark/Ocean, but twice the size…). Initially, however, the core of the group is Ark with her 650 men and women, plus around 500 aircrew and maintainers
PASSING crowds gathered on Portsmouth’s historic Round Tower, HMS Ark Royal heads
of the carrier’s air group, and the staff of the Commander UK Carrier Strike Group, Cdre Simon Ancona. The carrier’s joined by French submarine FS Perle,
more complex, so the ability to integrate becomes more complex.”
destroyer USS Barry, plus more familiar escorts – HM Ships Liverpool and Sutherland and RFA Fort George. The emphasis on the earlier stages of Auriga – Latin for charioteer – is on strike carrier operations operating with the US Navy and US Marine Corps. Later on, Ocean, Albion and RFA Largs Bay plus the men of 3 Commando Brigade join in for large-scale amphibious exercises. The net result, believes Cdre Ancona, is that the Royal Navy is “back in the task force game”. He continues: “The focus of all three forces at present is on current operations, but the core of the Royal Navy’s ability is the carrier or amphibious task group. “These are two elements of the Navy which we must maintain.”
As for working with our American allies, you might think that co-operation is tuned to perfection. Well, yes and no. Personalities change, kit changes.
“The ability to integrate is essential. Future operations will always be carried out in a coalition,” says the commodore. “But as systems become
For part of the deployment, Ark will be home to 18 US Marine Corps AV8Bs – the American version of the Harrier – building on the trail blazed by Illustrious on her visit to the USA two years ago. Otherwise, says Cdre Ancona, Auriga is “a no-frills trip to the gymnasium”. He explains: “We’ve 40 years’ experience of doing these
exercises in the USA – it’s the only place to do deployments of this type. The Eastern Seaboard has the ranges, it has the sea space. “It’s an exciting deployment. There’s a lot of homework for us, but I believe it will be an extraordinary way of sharpening our skills.” Aside from visits to Norfolk, Virginia, Mayport and Port Canaveral in Florida, Ark, Sutherland and Liverpool are lined up to visit Halifax in July for centenary celebrations of the Royal Canadian Navy, which are due to be attended by the Queen.
Picture: LA(Phot) Kaz Williams, FRPU East
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