U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ship USS Coronado on February 3 entered Sembawang Wharves in Singapore for a scheduled maintenance period following a four-day underway in the South China Sea.
At sea the crew conducted training exercises designed to maintain operational proficiency while executing emergency procedures at sea. The crew flexed the ship’s capabilities with unit-level training, casualty drills, flight operations and engineering equipment operational testing.
“It’s been an extremely productive few days at sea and the sense of enthusiasm on the deckplates was evident throughout,” said Cmdr. Scott Larson , commanding officer, USS Coronado. “The team completed essential training that will pay significant dividends during future operational tasking.”
Specific events included small boat operations, live-fire gunnery exercises, damage control drills, and over 20 combined hours of manned and unmanned flight operations.
“Warfighting is a perishable skill set so every opportunity you get to flex those skills is needed,” said Senior Chief Joseph M. Hanley, Coronado’s senior enlisted leader. “This underway was all about that and the crew worked extremely hard fine-tuning their skills in a multitude of warfare areas.
In addition to the training, Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 Detachment 5 is embarked and conducting turnover with HSC 23 Detachment 4, who embarked Coronado in June 2016.
The underway period served as the at-sea portion of their turnover, and the combined detachments successfully conducted functional check flights and crew training on the MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned autonomous helicopter.