Australia — Wolf Pack Sails

The ‘boats’ of the Aus­tralian Sub­ma­rine Force once again oper­at­ed as a ‘pack’ at sea, sail­ing in sup­port of each oth­er in Exer­cise DOUBLE TROUBLE. DOUBLE TROUBLE was a com­bined Oper­a­tional Workup/Unit Readi­ness Eval­u­a­tion peri­od for HMA Sub­marines Collins (Com­man­der Glen Miles) and Dechaineux (Com­man­der Jason Cup­ples). Addi­tion­al sup­port­ing units includ­ed HMAS Waller (Com­man­der Michael Man­field) and HMAS Anzac (Cap­tain Peter Quinn) as well as air­craft from 816 Squadron and 5 Squadron RNZAF.

Chief Pet­ty Offi­cer Cryp­to­log­i­cal Sys­tems Sub­mariner William Nicol, Chief of the Boat HMAS Waller (left), has a dis­cus­sion with Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Matthew Brown, Exec­u­tive Offi­cer HMAS Waller, in the con­trol room of HMAS Waller whilst at sea. Source: Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Defence Click to enlarge

Sea Train­ing Unit-Sub­marines simul­ta­ne­ous­ly embarked in two sub­marines to cov­er the inten­sive oper­a­tional train­ing required to assist them in achiev­ing such an impor­tant mile­stone. The gru­elling two weeks at sea put the sub­mariners through their paces as they reg­u­lar­ly con­duct­ed CASEX anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare exer­cis­es in con­junc­tion with air­craft and sur­face units. Of the 30 sor­ties flown by 816 Squadron, two thirds were against sub­ma­rine tar­gets, pro­vid­ing an extra lev­el of chal­lenge for the sub­mariners while enhanc­ing the over­all anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare capa­bil­i­ty of the Fleet. The under­wa­ter war­riors also seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hone their skills by tak­ing periscope pho­tog­ra­phy of oth­er units from all angles. A par­tic­u­lar high­light was the sub­ma­rine inter­ac­tion – the three par­tic­i­pat­ing sub­marines pit­ted against each oth­er in a series of exer­cis­es designed to train them in track­ing and attack­ing oth­er sub­marines. All three crews enjoyed the chance to prove their suprema­cy of the briny deep, although no clear vic­tor emerged! No oper­a­tional workup process would be com­plete with­out weapons fir­ings, and DOUBLE TROUBLE was no excep­tion. Ably assist­ed by Anzac, Dechaineux fired the high­ly advanced Mk 48 ADCAP heavy­weight tor­pe­does, achiev­ing weapons cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by suc­cess­ful­ly engag­ing and ‘killing’ the ‘ene­my’ war­ship. Exer­cise DOUBLE TROUBLE marks an impor­tant mile­stone in Australia’s sub­ma­rine capa­bil­i­ty as well as pro­vid­ing a pre­view of Fleet oper­a­tions to come as the new Fleet Oper­at­ing Con­cept is imple­ment­ed. Greater inter­ac­tion between sur­face, sub­sur­face and air assets presents an enjoy­able chal­lenge for the crews involved, but it also increas­es the lev­el of train­ing, expe­ri­ence and ulti­mate­ly the stan­dard of anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare pro­fi­cien­cy through­out the Aus­tralian Fleet. The Wolf Pack now pre­pare to go their sep­a­rate ways, with all sub­marines sched­uled to con­tin­ue in var­i­ous oper­a­tions and exer­cis­es. They all remain equal­ly com­mit­ted to the max­im that there real­ly only are two types of ships – sub­marines, and targets. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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