August started with the beginning of the Shakedown phase of getting the mighty ‘E’ up to the standard required to re-deploy in November.
The training began in earnest with the visit of the DEVFLOT Operational Assurance Visit team led by Cdr HM . Over the two day period that the team were embarked the ship was put through several training serials including man overboard exercises, fire exercises and live weapon testing.
The training provided has continued the ships preparations to move into Operational Sea Training commencing at the end of the month.
With good progress being made by all departments and identifying areas that require further development the ship is well on the way to being ready to carry out the FOST training in September.
With the commencement of Shakedown training all three watches of the ship will shortly be embarked aboard resulting in the ship being a lot busier than usual.
With all three watches aboard this also enables the whole ships company to receive the benefit of the bespoke training being put together for us giving us the chance to train in situations that many of the crew will find less familiar.
Exercises such as conducting Anti-Air Warfare and working within a Task Group will enable the Ships Company to develop new skills as well as hone other areas that they have been using in the last deployment like protecting ourselves against small boats with hostile intent.
With all the new additions to the ships company the next two months will be an intense and exciting time for the crew of HMS Enterprise.
[mappress]
Source: royalnavy, August 12, 2011;