By
LEUT Kirsty Boazman
Two
PNG Defence Force Patrol Boats have arrived home to Port Moresby
after successfully taking part in Ex Kakadu off the northern
coast of Australia.
HMPNGS Tarangau and HMPNGS Basilisk took part in Kakadu, a multi-national
naval exercise held over the last two weeks.
Head of the Australian Defence Force in PNG, Colonel Dougall
McMillan, said PNG’s participation in the multinational
exercise had been effective and very professional.
He said it was evidence that the maritime element of the PNGDF
is capable and that their skills and ships are well regarded
in the region.
Through Australia’s Defence Cooperation Program, ongoing
assistance is provided to the PNGDF maritime element to help
the force maintain an effective capability.
“The PNGDF crews will have benefited from the practical
training and experience in joint and combined multi-ship and
aircraft exercise scenarios,” COL McMillan said.
“The PNGDF contribution to Ex Kakadu has been most worthwhile
and the crews themselves have been a credit to the PNGDF.
“Australia’s Defence Cooperation program is pleased
to be able to continue contributing to the effective maritime
capability of the PNGDF,” he said.
During Ex Kakadu, crews practised multi-ship operations such
as surface and anti-aircraft gunnery firing, boarding party
exercise, fire fighting and damage control drills, engineering
breakdown drills and replenishment at sea with ships from Australia,
Singapore and France.
The final sea phase involved formation manoeuvres, minefield
transits, communications, navigation, naval signalling and simulated
attacks on ‘enemy’ ships.
The PNGDF Maritime Task Group Commander for Ex Kakadu, LCDR
Clement Tele, said the training will go along way in enhancing
the PNGDF maritime element’s capability in protecting the
marine resources of PNG.
“The crews have performed extremely well and have been
commented on favourably by senior Australian Naval officers
for their good work in the recent sea phase and their persistence
in staying at sea in adverse weather conditions,” LCDR
Tele said.
Hoggs
bowl over mighty Munga
By
LEUT Kirsty Boazman
 |
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Australian
spin bowler Brad Hogg with daughter Madison took the opportunity
to tour HMAS Warramunga in Darwin recently.
Photo by POPH Steve Coates
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An
early finish to the July test match between Australia and Bangladesh
in Darwin left the country’s cricketers with a bit of spare
time on their hands.
Most spent the afternoon rehydrating, and working on their splice
rather than cover drives, but left arm spin bowler Brad Hogg
took the chance to take a tour of fellow West Australian - HMAS
Warramunga.
Brad’s son Gavin, who has been interested in naval cadets
since visiting a recruiting stall at the Perth Show, was the
excuse for the visit. But Brad admits to being a bigger kid
and was keen to see some of the behind-the-scenes engineering.
Seven year old Madison tagged along and was a particularly good
sport as Dad happily spent a good two hours poking into most
corners of the ship.
Brad made his Test debut for Australia in 1996 against India
and has been travelling with the team since. Therefore, he was
particularly interested in hearing about how Navy families and
wives cope with the long times apart.
He could see the similarities with being on tour but with his
family in Darwin for this trip, conceded the Navy has it a fair
bit tougher.
The bowler’s low-key tour of Warramunga obviously sparked
some quick cleaning stations activity in the PO’s Mess.
The tour finished there with a solid analysis of past, present
and future Australian cricket teams.
The trio finally escaped, armed with caps and posters thanks
to the “Hosts with the Most” - LCDR Dean Powell and
LEUT Ben Macdonald.
Pythons
spark near drama
By
LEUT Kirsty Boazman
Ships
and aircraft from the navies of Australia, New Zealand, France,
Singapore and PNG recently participated in Exercise Kakadu VI,
aided by a group of gate-crashers in green - the omnipotent
Sea Training Group.
Waller was the first to sail for the sea phase of the exercise
which began on July 21, on what can be a millpond-like Arafura
Sea. It wasn’t. Seastate five ensure very wet boat transfers
and had the Singaporean Corvettes and patrol boats pitching
in a sickening fashion.
All the activity made for a hungry ships company in Arunta.
In ten days they ate their way through half a tonne of potatoes,
80kg of carrots, 26kgs of bananas and 1kg of fresh chilli.
The palates in Warramunga are obviously a little more refined.
There was a near culinary disaster when it was discovered that
only two boxes of Jelly Pythons had been stocked for the entire
exercise.
Kakadu remains one of the region’s most important exercises
- a concentrated period of anti-submarine, seamanship evolutions,
gunnery exercises and DC training.
The programmed exercise period then gives way to a free-play
finale, which pits the Blue and Orange forces against each other.
According to the ships, Blue force was victorious. According
to the submariners, that was only because Waller had to leave
for FBW before FINEX.
The FA-18 and Hawk fighters attacked the ships day and night,
but it was the Lear Jet pilots who came closest to eyeballing
the ships’ bridges as they swung back and forwards with
towed targets.
It was an awesome sight to look back on a meandering line of
warships, clouds of smoke billowing off their decks as each
engaged the target.
MCAUST RADM Raydon Gates said that in a time of so many operational
demands it is easy to overlook the significance of training
scenarios like Kakadu.
