For the past five weeks HMAS Melbourne has conducted Unit Readiness (UR) level collective training in the East Area Exercise Area including a number of evaluations supervised by Sea Training Group (STG).
Melbourne will commence mission specific training from Monday 24 June, in preparation for their OP SLIPPER deployment.
Gunnery, air warfare, damage control and force protection were some of the key areas of focus over the past two weeks with more than 30 personnel from STG embarked in Melbourne providing oversight.
Commander Sea Training – Major Fleet Units Captain Michael Harris said despite the challenging living and working conditions for Melbourne ’s crew of 230 and the team from STG, there was a strong level of dedication and cooperation to meet the standards required.
“ Melbourne ’s ship’s company demonstrated a strong work ethic throughout the training to meet the standards we require of them to be assessed as unit and mission ready,” CAPT Harris said.
“Like many ships conducting workup, factors such as individual and collective experience at sea, planning expertise, percentage of crew change-out prior to a deployment and receptiveness to the STG advice all has a bearing on the success of workup.”
Collective training begins with Pre-Workup Training and the Mariner Skills Evaluation (MSE) . Following MSE, ships’ companies are deemed safe to proceed to sea to undertake trials and basic mariner evolutions. In order to sustain Navy’s preparedness across its full range of capabilities and missions, ships subsequently undertake Unit and/or Mission Readiness Workups.
Melbourne will have conducted three mission-specific workups within three years in the lead up to support operations in the MEAO later this year.
[mappress] Press Release, June 24, 2013; Image: Australian Navy