Singapore and US Conduct Annual Maritime Exercise

The Sin­ga­pore Armed Forces (SAF), the Unit­ed States Navy (USN) and the Unit­ed States Coast Guard (USCG) are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 16th Sin­ga­pore-US Coop­er­a­tion Afloat Readi­ness and Train­ing (CARAT) exer­cise from 5 to 19 Jul 2010.

RSN Com­man­der 1st Flotil­la, Colonel Sim Tiong Kian and Com­man­der, Destroy­er Squadron 31, USN Cap­tain Richard Clem­mons exchang­ing views on Exer­cise CARAT. In the back­ground are RSS Stead­fast (left) and USS Chung Hoon (right) Source: MINDEF Sin­ga­pore Click to enlarge

Exer­cise par­tic­i­pants from the RSN and the USN dis­cussing naval plans for Exer­cise CARAT. Source: MINDEF Sin­ga­pore Click to enlarge

The Repub­lic of Sin­ga­pore Navy (RSN) Fleet Com­man­der, Rear Admi­ral (RADM) Joseph Leong, and the USN Com­man­der Logis­tics Group West­ern Pacif­ic, RADM Nora Tyson, offi­ci­at­ed at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the exer­cise at Chan­gi Naval Base this morning. 

Exer­cise CARAT 2010 will focus on hon­ing mar­itime capa­bil­i­ties such as com­pe­ten­cies in anti-air, anti-sur­face and anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare, as well as mar­itime air oper­a­tions. This year’s exer­cise will fea­ture a MISTRAL mis­sile fir­ing by the RSN Land­ing Ship Tank RSS Per­sis­tence against air drone tar­gets. Sub­mariners from the RSN and the USN will be oper­at­ing togeth­er in a sub­ma­rine track­ing exer­cise. The SAF will be par­tic­i­pat­ing with nine ships, includ­ing frigates and mis­sile corvettes; a sub­ma­rine and 12 air­craft, includ­ing fight­ers and mar­itime patrol air­craft. The USN and USCG will be par­tic­i­pat­ing with five ships, includ­ing destroy­ers; a sub­ma­rine, and four air­craft com­pris­ing heli­copters and ear­ly warn­ing air­craft. A total of 1,400 per­son­nel from both coun­tries are also involved in this year’s exercise. 

Con­duct­ed since 1995, this series of annu­al bilat­er­al mar­itime exer­cis­es aims to enhance inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al coop­er­a­tion between the par­tic­i­pat­ing forces of Sin­ga­pore and the US. Com­man­der Destroy­er Squadron 31 USN Cap­tain Richard Clem­mons said: “Work­ing with the RSN allows us a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to cul­ti­vate rela­tion­ships with a high­ly capa­ble part­ner in this region. This Exer­cise CARAT marks 16 suc­cess­ful years with Sin­ga­pore and I’m cer­tain that this year’s exer­cise will be reward­ing both in terms of train­ing as well as in the per­son­al rela­tion­ships we con­tin­ue to nurture.” 

Press release
MINDEF Singapore