Exercise KAKADU
By PLTOFF Rachel Lawrie
Exercise vessels in formation
Midnight on Friday, 25 July, a detachment commanded by Flight Lieutenant Cameron Brownlee, and consisting of one crew and its support personnel from No. 5 Squadron, departed Whenuapai en route to Darwin to take part in the multi-national Exercise Kakadu.
Exercise Kakadu is an annual, two-week exercise primarily based on anti-surface warfare, and aimed at developing interoperability among the participating countries. This year’s exercise involved eight countries including units from Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, France, Thailand and, of course, New Zealand.
I was fortunate enough to be a member of this crew, and having only just graduated as an Air Warfare Specialist, it was my first exercise away from New Zealand.
The exercise itself was split into two phases. During the first week, the exercise was largely planned into several ‘serials’ aimed at integrating and practising procedures used in a Maritime warfare environment. For us, this included several flights involving searching for ‘enemy’ surface vessels, and reporting them to our ‘friendly’ units for them to shadow or to launch a simulated attack. The serials we flew were in a mix of offshore and shallow water environments close to land, providing good training for the crew. It also provided me – being the newest member on the crew – with good experience operating in an unfamiliar environment.
The second week consisted of the warex side of the exercise. All the participating units split into two sides, Mauve and Green, to simulate a high tension surface warfare scenario. The scenario was based around the Mauve forces blockading the shipping routes in to the port of ‘Darwinia’, with the ‘Green forces’ playing the role of a multi-national peace-keeping force tasked with protecting the approaches to the port. We flew sorties, with both the forces giving us a variety of situations in which to carry out our tasked roles.
The warex consisted of three daytime flights for the crew, contrasting with the night flights we had been doing during the work-up phase. Our final flight consisted of launching simulated attacks against the enemy warships from the ‘Green Force’. In this, we started off identifying surface vessels on radar and used our on-board camera to identify them as friendly, hostile or neutral. Once we had positively identified our targets, we sent their positions back to our surface ships, which then launched several anti-surface missiles (simulated of course). Then it was our turn. Flying with four simulated anti-surface missiles, we moved in for the kill. Our four missiles – simulated by four RAAF Hawk fighter jets – formed up on our wings. On the Tacco’s call, we ‘launched’ our missiles and the Hawks promptly dropped off our wings. They descended low level and successfully screamed their way towards our unsuspecting targets.
For my first overseas exercise, it was an enjoyable one, and one where many lessons were learnt and good experiences had. In between the flying exercise, we had several opportunities to relax in Darwin enjoying the local sunshine, and even had the opportunity to observe the Darwin Cup race day.
Overall, the exercise was a success. Thanks must be said to all those involved, including Detachment Commander Flight Lieutenant Cameron Brownlee.