Exercise Intrepid Sentinel gathered ships from the French, UK and US navies for two days of maneuvers in the Gulf of Oman on October 20 and 21.
US Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86), French Marine Nationale’s anti-air destroyer FS Jean Bart (D 615) and the Royal Navy’s Duke-class frigate HMS Monmouth (F 235), participated in the exercise.
Intrepid Sentinel is designed to increase interoperability between the three nations and reduce response time to establish a coordinated international maritime coalition in order to counter the complex challenges in the US 5th Fleet area of operations.
“This was a great exercise,” said Cmdr. Ted Wiederholt, commanding officer aboard Shoup. “This exercise brought together the United Kingdom, French, and US navies in an operational environment where we successfully built proficiency across multiple warfare areas, strengthened already strong naval relationships, and built new personal relationships that allowed all of us improved warfighting integration.”
During the exercise, the ships conducted multiple operations that branched into the air, and undersea and surface warfare areas. The multinational trio was involved in an air defense exercise, a combined anti-submarine exercise, a visit, board, search and seizure event and a photo exercise.
“This exercise provided an opportunity to demonstrate our professionalism while warfighting together in this area, said French Marine Nationale Lt. Denis Giraudion, Jean Bart’s air defense officer and air intercept officer. “It was a pleasure to visit USS Shoup after a one-month deployment with Carrier Strike Group 11.”
Monmouth’s leadership agreed this collaboration at sea was beneficial to everyone involved.
“Interoperability with key partner nations is critical to conducting operations,” said U.K. Royal Navy Cmdr. Ian Feasey, Monmouth’s commanding officer. “Exercise Intrepid Sentinel has allowed us to hone and refine our collective fighting capability, ensuring we remain at high readiness to provide a multinational response to emerging situations or crises.”