Exercise High Explosive
No. 5 SQN’s Bomb Training
By SGT Nick Rowe
Moment of Impact
Over five brisk days in June, Kaipara became a war zone—of sorts. No. 5 Squadron’s P-3K Orion—aka the ‘sleek greyhound of death’—dropped 30 practice bombs and 8,000 lbs of High Explosive (HE) bombs on the sands of Kaipara Air Weapons Range.
Air Force-wide it’s known that you can practice Core Military Skill drills as much as you like with an unloaded Steyr, but when it comes time to loading that magazine full of live rounds, attitudes change as it becomes ‘real’.
This is our war fighting ethos. It is therefore essential that Live High Explosive currencies are maintained by required personnel. To ensure that attitudes change from drills to the ‘real deal’, we physically handle live weapons—from transportation, preparation and loading, to delivery by aircrews.
The Exercise achieved these aims, and more. Each morning, Orion crews took off, dropped practice bombs on the range, and then carried on to Ohakea. There, armament staff from weapons preparation delivered the bombs to be loaded by No. 5 SQN armourers—then we went back to Kaipara.
Bomb away!
Once on the range and cleared ‘LIVE’, the hours spent prepping the bombs, loading, practicing release profiles, and getting the entire activity to this point hung in suspended animation, in the few seconds between the bomb falling away and hitting the ground in a plume of fire, sand and shrapnel.
Ordinarily, no one likes to see the ‘fruits of their labour’ going up in smoke, but watching these things detonate below you from the aircraft, or from the observation tower at the range, puts a smile on your face. The culmination of months of hard work from key personnel, across the RNZAF, literally ended up in a cloud of smoke and sand—the desired result.
Training exercises, like High Explosive, enable the Air Force to continue maintaining our deployed level of capability. Our thanks go to all who were involved in getting this bombing camp up and running. Units and personnel RNZAF- wide have worked tirelessly—and still do—in support of this.
The Exercise was a great success and we look forward to the next one!
Anti Submarine Warfare
When it was first manufactured, the P-3K Orion’s primary role was to hunt and kill submarines. Over the years, the Orion has adopted a multitude of other roles making it the most versatile air asset we have.
Annually, No. 5 Squadron also has the opportunity to put into practice our Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) tactics in the waters around New Zealand and at various Joint exercises around the world. The most noteworthy of these is the Principal Warfare Officers Course (PWO) held in Perth, Western Australia.
Throughout the PWO exercise, we put ourselves and the Commanders of Collins Class submarines of the Royal Australian Navy to the test. Towards the end of the Exercise—after gaining sufficient attack criteria—we ‘attack’ one with an MK46 torpedo. The torpedo ‘attack’ is conducted on a weapons range using training torpedoes, which are inert and specifically designed to break off their attack before hitting the sub—for obvious reasons!
However, there will be times when a torpedo may not be the best tool to use. In such cases, we have at our disposal the MK82 500lb GP HE Bomb. With the MK82, and practice bombs, the possibility exists where the sub will be hit or damaged—however inert the bomb may be. This is when the exercise becomes ‘real’ and further develops our war fighting ethos.