Obangame Express, an exercise sponsored by US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and designed to improve regional cooperation, kicked off on March 21 with an opening ceremony in Libreville, Gabon. The annual exercise aims to enhance maritime domain awareness (MDA), information-sharing practices, and tactical
French defense and technology company Thales worked with the Royal Navy recently to see if upgrades in submarine sonar systems could be applied on towed array sonars used on surface ships such as the Type 23 frigates. Sonar 2076 is the Royal Navy’s major sonar platform on all submarines, while the T
UK-based engineering consultancy BMT and Turkey’s ARES Shipyard have received a new order from the Qatari Coast Guard which includes an additional nine vessels. The order was officially signed during Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (DIMDEX) last week. The new order cove
The UK defense ministry has awarded a £160 million (approx. $226.5m) contract to a BAE Systems-led team to resolve the power and propulsion system issues experienced by Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers. The Power Improvement Project (PIP) will improve the resilience of the Type 45 class by installing
US Navy’s Harpers-Ferry class dock landing ship USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) and the embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) wrapped up their 15-day stay in the Black Sea, transiting the Bosphorus to return to the Mediterranean Sea on March 22. During their time in the Black Sea, US Navy sailors and
Search and rescue experts aboard Royal Navy survey ship HMS Echo recently trained with their Cypriot counterparts sharing their experience with the island’s rescue teams for the first time. The Plymouth-based survey ship has been assigned to the Mediterranean since the tail end of 2016; her crew hav
Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Mounts Bay arrived in Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) waters on March 19 to help the the British overseas territory with a recent increase in the number of migrant arrivals from Haiti. TCI police and border control officials observed a surge in the number of illegal sloops
After concluding exercises and at sea maneuvers with Lithuanian Navy units, ships from NATO’s Standing Maritime Group One (SNMG1) started a series of naval exercises with the Polish Navy in the Baltic Sea. The exercise got underway on Monday and included a number of basic and advanced maritime opera
A Finnish Air Force pilot landed an F/A-18C Hornet on a US Navy aircraft carrier on March 17, becoming the first Finn ever to do so. Capt. Juha “Stallion” Jrvinen performed an arrested landing on the Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and is currently attached to Marine Fight
The Royal Navy has shared the first design photos of its £18 million (approx. 25m) Royal Marines Museum, some two years ahead of its opening in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Directors promise a much more interactive, hi-tech museum which will immerse tourists in the world of the Royal Marines from t
The Netherlands-based shipbuilding group Damen Shipyards is ready to build Germany’s new MKS180 frigates at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, the company has told German parliament members. This is according to a letter seen by German news agency Welt in which Damen, together with its bidding part
Sailors aboard the Royal Australian Navy’s Collins-class submarine HMAS Rankin held a burial at sea ceremony recently, scattering the ashes of three former Royal Navy submariners off the coast of Western Australia. The ceremony is known as a Committal of Ashes to the Sea (COATS) in the Royal Austral
The US Navy’s froward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) got underway from Spain, to start a patrol in the US 6th Fleet area of operations. The destroyer’s seventh patrol started on March 12, as the ship and crew departed Naval Station Rota. Donald Cook wi
The US Navy has shared photos of two of its submarines surfacing in the Arctic Circle on March 10 as part of the multinational maritime Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2018. Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Hartford (SSN 768) and Seawolf-class fast attack submarine, USS Connecticut (SSN 22) broke thr
