Royal Navy: "Advanced techniques" developed with Norwegian forces ahead of HMS Prince of Wales deployment

British and Norwegian personnel completed three weeks of intensive drills as part of Exercise Tamber Shield. This comes in the wake of the Royal Navy flagship, HMS Prince of Wales, being deployed to the Indo-Pacific region this Spring. She will be taking charge of the UK Carrier Strike Group (UKCSG)

More than 200 Royal Navy personnel, four Wildcat helicopters and four fast attack craft have spent 20 days raging around the skies and waters near Bergen alongside Norwegian counterparts. The aim of the exercise was to help develop military tactics to defend the UKCSG.

Lieutenant Commander Oliver Brooksbank, 815 Naval Air Squadron’s Senior Pilot, said: “Previous iterations of the exercise laid the foundations with our Norwegian allies, rehearsing maritime strike tactics using the Wildcat’s Martlet missile in Norway’s congested archipelago. This year has built on those foundations and aims to ensure readiness to deploy alongside on operations in some of the most contested waters in the world, in the defence of the UK Carrier Strike Group.”

The Royal Navy’s Coastal Forces Squadron, headed by P2000 patrol boats based in Portsmouth, played a vital role in the exercise. Lieutenant Jack Mason, Commanding Officer of HMS Dasher, said: “The hospitality and support from 334 Skvadron and Haakonsvern Naval Base has been superb, providing medical, engineering and logistical support as required. The P2000s have been able to develop advanced navigation techniques within the Norwegian fjords, whilst also developing standard operating procedures to destroy an air threat within a littoral environment.”

Norway will commit frigate Roald Amundsen and tanker/support ship Maud to the UKCSG for the upcoming deployment. The frigate will operate a Royal Navy Wildcat helicopter manned by personnel from 815 Naval Air Squadron. Helicopter teams have been training alongside Amundsen’s sister ship, HNoMS Otto Sverdrup, and Maud. Personnel completed mock fire-fighting and flooding drills, as well as mock crashes.

British P2000 fast patrol boats and Norwegian missile craft manoeuvred rapidly in the fjords, testing the ability of crews of the larger ships to fend them off. Wildcat helicopters acted like opposition to target them with Marlet missiles. Aircraft also fired Sting Ray torpedoes, as well as carrying out target acquisition and reconnaissance, and search and rescue drills.

Commodore Kyrre Haugen, Norway’s Chief of the Naval Fleet, said the three-week-workout had provided “an exceptional arena for advanced integration training between the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy”. He added: “It also gave us the opportunity to do the last preparations for the upcoming Carrier Strike Group deployment. Tamber Shield clearly demonstrates the unique relationship between our navies.”

Defence secretary John Healey and his Norwegian counterpart have started negotiations on a major new defence agreement between the two nations.