In December last year, the ANZAC Anti-Ship Missile Defence (ASMD) Project conducted its first and highly successful “Sea Warrior” exercise. It was held at the ANZAC Combat System Integration Laboratory (ACSIL) at DSTO Edinburgh, SA in conjunction with the HMAS PERTH Operations Team.

An important element of this exercise (and more broadly for the project) was to track stakeholder expectations. Feedback from the exercise indicates that the effectiveness of this activity exceeded the expectations of both the stakeholders and personnel involved in the project. "Several of the Saab personnel who were involved with the Sea Warrior activities had never previously had the opportunity to observe a team in operations. The observations that they made will assist them in developing future modifications to the ANZAC combat system. Everyone involved felt that this activity was invaluable in assessing whether the right capability was being delivered for the project," said Val O'Brien from SAAB Systems.

The focus for Sea Warrior One was picture compilation and sensor management  The exercise involved running simulated exercises using a current ANZAC Ship Operations Team and an early version of the ASMD Combat Management System (CMS) software release.  HMAS PERTH’s Operations Team involvement  included the familiarisation of  the new Phased Array Radar and Infrared Search and Track (IRST) sensors (simulators being used for all sensors).  All stakeholders who were present were able to observe the operationally realistic serials.

One of the most positive outcomes of the excercise has been the increase in stakeholder understanding and ownership of the tasks that will be required to introduce the ANZAC ASMD Capability into service. Stakeholders indicated they were very pleased by the high level of interaction that Sea Warrior One allowed, including the ability to provide a positive influence for future design.  “Stakeholders also indicated that the capability demonstrated by the Project (from an OPS room end-user Human Machine Interface (HMI) perspective) at its current level of maturity was satisfactory,” said Commander Andrew Quinn, ASMD Operational Requirements Manager.

Future exercises are planned including Sea Warrior Two in June 2009 which will focus on fighting an ANZAC in a Defence Watch and Sea Warrior Three in June 2010 with a focus on fighting an ANZAC at Action Stations.