Following a 10 week maintenance period, Australian Navy’s HMAS Melbourne is back in action, preparing for a Middle East deployment.
Melbourne has been conducting intensive training to refine mariner and warfighting skills, and at the mid point, a well earned break was taken in Melbourne’s home city of Melbourne. It has been six years since the last visit and there was much interest from the general public and media.
During the maintenance period, Melbourne had a number of upgrades to improve her capability for the forthcoming deployment and was able to leave the dock nearly a week earlier than scheduled.
While Melbourne was being refurbished, the ship’s company were heavily engaged in pre-deployment planning, training and logistics preparations. Personnel were qualified in boarding and weapons, action medical, refined maritime war fighting skills in simulators, and completed professional advancement courses. Concurrent to this, Melbourne’s aviation team was detached to HMAS Albatross performing a major engineering serving on Melbourne’s Seahawk helicopter ‘Reaper’.
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Image: Australian Navy