Royal Navy warship HMS Dragon has arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean to begin operational integration into Cyprus’s defenses alongside allies.
The Portsmouth-based Type 45 destroyer has spent the last two weeks undergoing critical training and assessment to ensure its sailors, advanced systems, and weaponry are ready for the potentially intensive pace of operations.
“HMS Dragon was rapidly brought to readiness and deployed from Portsmouth earlier this month and will now play her full part in defending Cyprus and the wider Eastern Mediterranean. Equipped with the cutting-edge Sea Viper system, she can tackle a wide range of threats. On her way to the region, her crew have undertaken essential training to ready themselves for this mission, and I have every confidence that they will rise to the task before them,” General Sir Gwyn Jenkins , the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, said.
According to the Royal Navy, HMS Dragon can find and track hundreds of targets simultaneously – and eliminate them with the Sea Viper system, which can launch eight missiles in under ten seconds and direct up to 16 missiles onto their targets simultaneously, closing in for the kill at up to four times the speed of sound.
Six weeks of work were completed in the space of six days in Portsmouth Naval Base to get Dragon ready to deploy and essential training has since taken place across the last fortnight during the ship’s 3,500-mile voyage to Cyprus, via a logistics stop in Gibraltar, it was noted.
“It has been a busy three weeks getting the ship fuelled, stored, ammunitioned, worked-up and deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean,” Commander Iain Giffin , Commanding Officer of HMS Dragon, stated.
This training included dealing with intensive realistic scenarios, including air defence serials, firing upper deck guns (4.5in gun, 30mm and Phalanx), damage control, firefighting and medical first response, person overboard drills and aircraft crash on deck scenario training.