Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Justin Yarborough | ATLANTIC OCEAN (Dec, 6, 2024) – Royal Australian Navy sailors lower a Mission...... read more read more
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NORFOLK, Va. – Commander, Submarine Forces conducted the Australia, United Kingdom and U.S. (AUKUS) Subsea and Seabed Warfare (SSW) Event Two / Integrated Battle Problem (IBP) 25.1 in the Virginia Capes Dec. 3rd-17th.
As part of the AUKUS Pillar II – SSW Line of Effort Three, U.S. Navy, Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy personnel launched, tested and operated several unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) and remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) systems in tandem over the course of the two-week event.
Through analysis, simulation, prototyping, and demonstration, the event focused on employing unmanned systems below the sea at depth, and provided an avenue for AUKUS unmanned system operators to simultaneously augment and deploy various systems together and cross-train.
“This exercise demonstrates AUKUS’ ability to integrate advanced undersea technologies and operate seamlessly as teammates,” said Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, Commander, Submarine Forces. “This Integrated Battle Problem includes participants from all three partner nations and employs unmanned and hybrid systems to demonstrate our ability to defend our critical undersea infrastructure. Building on our last Integrated Battle Problem in Australia, it further showcases the collective strength of three of the world’s most capable maritime partners.”
AUKUS SSW Event Two / IBP 25.1 builds upon AUKUS SSW Exercise One / Integrated Battle Problem 23.3, previously held in October 2023 in Sydney, Australia, demonstrating subsea and seabed warfare. Commander, Submarine Forces scheduled the event and acted as the officer conducting the event.
The Norwegian-flagged seabed construction vessel MV Island Pride, a ship with a sensor suite capable of autonomous-underwater vehicle (AUV) survey, multi-beam seabed survey, remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) survey, subsea construction, inspection, repair and maintenance, was utilized as a host platform for AUKUS personnel to test, demonstrate and evaluate various UUV platforms in shallow-water and deep-water environments.
“With AUKUS SSW Exercise One / IBP 23.3, we as an alliance demonstrated that we could fight tonight, that we can come together and quickly deliver effects against an adversary's seabed infrastructure, or protect friendly seabed infrastructure,” said Cmdr. Dan Stock, Lead Planner for Subsea and Seabed Warfare, Submarine Force Atlantic, and U.S. Lead for AUKUS SSW - Pillar II, Line of Effort Three.
“In Event Two, we’ve expanded on what we accomplished in IBP 23.3 and went to deeper depths with larger arrays, we improved the access that these systems allow us to leverage,” said Stock. “In turn, this has enabled us to advance and expand our capabilities by testing them at sea and in deep-water, so that we can identify all the places in the kill chain where work is necessary so that we as a trilateral alliance maintain our competitive advantage.”
Several of the events consisted of the deployment of three Mission Specialist Defender Mark IV remotely-operated vehicles (ROV) at the same time. Each vehicle was operated by personnel from a different nation, in pursuit of and tracking the same underwater target.
Additionally, Sailors assigned to Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron (UUVRON) One, deployed the Rat Trap IVER4 900 unmanned underwater vehicle as a demonstration of the UUV and the squadron’s capabilities.
“We demonstrated the capabilities our UUVs and ROVs can employ in the interest of strategic messaging, to ensure that our adversaries know the challenges that they will face if they intend to compete with us in the undersea domain and in the subsea and seabed warfare environment,” said Stock.
During Event Two, sailors and personnel from the three navies worked together in various capacities with the overarching goal of improving collaboration and interoperability.
“This event has been really good – my team focused on a different battle problem set as opposed to ones that we traditionally encounter,” said Royal Australian Navy Chief Petty Officer Alan.* “Having the opportunity to rapidly deploy these systems, to test them at deeper depths and operate in challenging conditions and environments has been an invaluable experience that raises the collective knowledge, decision-making, processes and capabilities of the alliance in regard to the employment and operation of UUVs.”
“From the Royal Australian Navy’s viewpoint, we are interested in the capabilities that our American and United Kingdom counterparts utilize, and we’re integrating the knowledge gained from those capabilities to inform our decisions from an Australian standpoint,” said Alan.
“This exercise really broadened our aspects of operating for all three nations,” said Royal Navy Petty Officer Lauren Stone, AUV/ROV operator leading hand, Mine and Threat Exploitation Group Two. “From the different scenarios we encountered to operating at different depths with different equipment, it’s brilliant seeing all of the other nations’ capabilities and different methods of operating, which has provided us with a broader range of practices and techniques that we can use in the Royal Navy.”
The AUKUS Advanced Capabilities Line of Effort – known as Pillar II – is a seminal strategic partnership and technology accelerator for the three AUKUS nations to harness and uplift innovation enterprises and industrial bases, remove barriers to cooperation, and deliver advanced capabilities for the AUKUS warfighter.
*Per Royal Australian Navy protocols, submariners’ last names are not publicly released.
| Date Taken: | 12.06.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.20.2024 18:15 |
| Story ID: | 488143 |
| Location: | ATLANTIC OCEAN |
| Web Views: | 169 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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