Russia: Northern Fleet Surface Ships Finish Drills in Barents Sea

Northern Fleet (NF) surface ships in cooperation with naval aircraft and a submarine have finished joint drills in the Barents Sea and returned to NF main naval base on March 1.

For NF antisubmarine ships, that exercise was one of the basic combat training activities in the winter period. The task unit included search strike group consisted of large ASW ships Admiral Chabanenko and Vice Admiral Kulakov. Being at sea, crews of warships accompanied by ASW helicopters Ka-27 and airplane Il-38 practiced searching of an “enemy” nuclear-powered submarine with use of ASW weapons.

During the one-week long exercise, ships carried out torpedo firing and deep-sea bomb release drills.

In addition, the crews performed drills in joint maneuvering, interaction and communication between the task unit’s ships. Before returning to the homebase, the ships held joint antiaircraft exercise. They practiced searching and tracking of air targets, and repelled an “air attack” with the use of Kinzhal SAM systems.

For the crew of large ASW ship Admiral Chabanenko, the drill was a good opportunity to prepare for the Pomor-2012 Russo-Norwegian joint exercise to be held in May.

According to NF command, crews of the ships have excellently completed all training tasks and demonstrated capability to operate within a task force.

[mappress]
Naval Today Staff , March 06, 2012; Image: mil