HMS Dragon, a Type 45 Destroyer, has defended a joint British and French naval task group against fast boats and attacks from the air during intensive training exercises.
According to a Royal Navy news release here:
“The Type 45 destroyer worked alongside frigate Aquitaine, anti‐submarine destroyer Latouche‐Tréville and offshore patrol vessel Jacoubet as a task group off the coast of Brittany.
A series of exercises saw Dragon defend herself against fast, in-shore attack craft as she navigated her way out of the sheltered bay of Brest.
The Portsmouth-based ship was then tasked to provide protection and support to Aquitaine and had to show she could rapidly identify and respond to potential threats to the task group including from Rafale fighter jets, NH-90 helicopters, drones, Hawkeye tactical airborne early warning aircraft and surface threats.”
Commander George Storton, Commanding Officer of HMS Dragon, said:
“Exercise Sky Sharks has been an excellent opportunity to once again develop UK and French integration and demonstrate the capabilities of our exceptional people working with cutting-edge technology. Despite challenging weather conditions, our teams came together to plan and execute the testing exercise scenario against the highly capable assets of the Marine Nationale. Dragon absolutely cherishes opportunities such as these and we look forward to much more in the future.”
Lieutenant Damien Tocquer is a French Exchange Officer from the French Navy currently serving as a Principle Warfare Officer (Above Water Warfare) on HMS Dragon, he was quoted as saying:
“As a French Navy Exchange Officer on board HMS Dragon, participation to Exercise Sky Sharks has been a pleasure and a great opportunity. The Royal Navy and Marine Nationale are both working incredibly hard to increase their lethality and operational efficiency by using cutting-edge technology and forefront tactics. Sky Sharks demonstrated once again how this shared aspiration for excellence can lead to success when fighting together in a challenging environment.”
Exercise Sky Sharks built on work HMS Dragon conducted alongside the French Navy and other NATO partners earlier this year on Exercise Formidable Shield, you can read more here.
Sleeping with the enemy.
Keeping them close and in ones sights. I bet the end ex drinkie poo was “eventful.”
It shows you despite Macrons (please vote for me) rather embarrassing tantrums, our armed forces work together very well indeed.
I would suggest Boris chats to the EU about pulling Macron back into line, talk to organ grinder, not the monkey….
Quite.
MN are every professional.
I suspect quite a few of them are embarrassed by Marcon overplaying his hand. Most of the French people that I know well roll their eyes at how a tiny fishing dispute is being blown out of all proportion: they would rather get on with trading with the UK as much as possible as it is a big export market for them and they are worried that all the hot air will blow us into the arms of others.
You mean talking to Mad Merkel rather than her Mini Me. Good luck with that.
Ah you do know Merkel has retired right?
Still in office though isn’t she, if not what the hell was she doing in Glasgow today? Or did no one have the heart to tell her she shouldn’t actually be there.
Shes the Caretaker as discussions continue over the formation of the next government, not unusual and I think it was reported that the most likely next Chancellor also attended. But as Caretaker she’s not setting new policies, and her time in European Affairs is over. Might as well suggest that World Leaders go talk to Cameron.
Her influence is still a major problem within Europe and the EU. Merkel is now in line for a very lucrative role within the EU hierarchy. Somewhere without the inconvenient need to be elected.
Well shes surplus to requirements now so why not shunt her off for a jolly
I think he has, judging by the various hints though we know how the cogs of power there are traditionally political hostages to France, or as and when they bother to step up Germany.
Thanks, I’ve been waiting for a French spot. So regards the acute cries of victimhood from Paris regards Fishing Licences , this according to the likes of the BBC is because the Uk in bad faith has rejected dozens of EU applications and I checked via the Gov UK Website. Yup, the nasty British under the Tories have rejected dozens of EU applications to fish in British waters. But unlike the media (And for some strange reason the Gov when discussing this on the news) I can and will quote actual figures and link you into the Website for you… Read more »
I read something similar a earlier last week, so the fact that so few French licences have been rejected is common knowledge.
Its funny how the mainstream media seem to ignore this? Couldn’t be due to their anti-brexit, anti government politics, could it?
Due to the need to self flagellate I think.
To be fair, I’ve not seen this info from pro-Brexit publications and politicians either- only Farouk seems to have behaved like a proper journalist/politician! Just goes to show how unimportant facts and figures have become in national and international debate these days…
It must be said that France “disputes the numbers” apparently, but they don’t seem to be putting their own up to compare so I doubt there’s any real difference.
Interesting Farouk, thanks for posting. Some of the folks in Normandy and Brittany have an ingrained hatred for Parisians, they tend to be rather ‘right leaning’ (to put it mildly) in general, from my observations of doing business in that area , particularly in Brittany….
Macron desperately needs votes and has to play Napoleon to keep the fishing community on side..
It’s all a bit embarrassing and will without doubt, cause damage to the Anglo French political relationship, impinging in turn on our current excellent military relationship and that’s a great shame….
It’s interesting that you can see all the faults with the French yet think that London is as pure as driven snow or trusted in any of the EU capitals after the last half a decade.
I think it might have something to do with that we in fact already hear endless questioning of Britain being right or otherwise in our press (nuances you rarely see in France by the way) as the writer references in his specific example. Specifically showing figures above re licences to show the evidence in terms of the perceived press bias in this particular case. So it gets a little boring when someone having simply pointed this out evidentially, that it seems inevitable that there predictably follows the ‘yeah but what about all that’s gone on before blah blah’ (without any… Read more »
You read The Guardian, right?
Probably not, he’s just not deluded enough to believe a word that comes from Boris and Co.
You read the Daily Heil and the Sun, right?
And yet in this case it has been proved beyond doubt with the facts and figures Farouk has kindly laid out for you to read!
The Sun! Must draw a line somewhere.
Well done for actually taking the time to go and get the numbers- it’s a shame that politicians and journalists don’t seem to see the value in facts and figures anymore… I think this is in a way similar to the championing of the fishing cause during the Brexit campaigning too, just from the other side; both pro-Brexit and now French protectionist policiticians seeing an “in” into an emotive but broadly speaking not very impactful slice of the economy that they can make a big noise about but won’t actually change much either way. Amazon directly employs more people in… Read more »
I guess it’s important to remember we have both gained a lot from close ties with each other particularly on missiles and sensors. However angry I am I think we’ll be better off if that continues. Macron will be gone next year but our co-operation will carry on. God that was hard to right LOL.
People just need to understand that the Franco-British Alliance is critical for the safety of both Britain & France. This manure about the fishing is small fry (pun intended), we just need to sort it out and NOT over blow the issue into some kind of casus-belli.
If it goes on long enough, some spiteful French politician ( I will guarantee a UK politician wouldn’t) will go out of his way to damage the excellent Anglo French military relationship, that would be hugely damaging to both countries …..
I hope the military relationship between France and Britain can survive the current French administrations willy waving….
I do hope the Dragon was less than fully vigilant while defending the back stabbing teddy chucking French.
It’s interesting how much at the time the issue of fishing was such a concern for elements of the British public and politicians despite how minor an industry it is to the U.K., yet somehow France also acting for the same minor industry draws such reaction from posters here….
Fishing is an issue as the EU boats have overfished their regions with these industrial scale electric killing machines that kill everything on the sea bed..they are not sustainable and we should boot them out of our waters (yes our waters).
I live in a fishing town, I have yet to meet a single member of the industry that pays any attention to conservation. To them it means they fish as much as they want and everyone else doesn’t. Doesn’t matter what the nationality, the entire industry is a plague on sea life.
“Doesn’t matter what the nationality, the entire industry is a plague on sea life.”
Bravo.
I have no problem with fishing as long as it is controlled and limited so fish populations can reproduce.
I tend to agree. France, Germany, Denmark, Holland all operate vessels +1000 tons. They have emptied their seas of fish stocks. Now want to do the same to UK territorial waters. Greenpeace and friends of the Earth have already reported and demonstrated the damage drag net trawling has done. Yet because it is politicalky expedient we allow tens of millions of £ of fish stocks to be plundered from UK territorial waters. If the EU fishing fleets fished sustainably it wouldnt have such a large fleet of +1000 vessels wanting, no needing to fish in UK territorial waters. Look to… Read more »
It wasn’t such a small industry when we entered the EU however, it was sold out for the greater good so some rebalance needs to be considered if there is a chance to even marginally rebuild it… though in reality that’s probably not going to happen, it’s a tradition difficult to replace once lost especially in the North Sea.
Can you imagine the British Government debasing itself to Macrons level and threatening all sorts of paranoid knee jerk reactions, cutting power off etc if it didn’t get its way …. Of course it wouldn’t. Bless him, little Napoleon Macron is desperately trying to prop up his vote, what he’s doing is all rather cringingly embarrassing, more like a Sub Saharan dictatorship, than a Western democracy… What’s next Mark, a General Gaddafi uniform and mirrored sun glasses, silly little man…. Like I said, Boris should just complain to his EU masters and they will yank his chain….. In my experience… Read more »
‘What’s next Mark, a General Gaddafi uniform and mirrored sun glasses, silly little man….’
Have you got a spy camera in his bedroom!?
I thought the French would have impounded our ships under false pretences and charged us a small fortune to have them released…you know extortion is very lucrative these days in France…then when they released them there will be all an sundry on board from the around the world…;)
Militancy ( ie threats, violence) in Channel fishing disputes are invariably from the French side and go back quite a way. Note how France is playing the ‘victim’ card again. Just like when Aus dumped the sub deal. Forgetting of course that Aus were the client and got tired of the French project, its escalating costs and lack of local content ( and French work practices ….in Aus if a meeting is at 9am it isn’t ok to roll in sometime after 10am for it and the later go off for 2+ hours for lunch….which is what the Aus project… Read more »
I think your right. Australia was being fleeced and rogered by the French. 34 billion for 12 diesel electtic subs. WTF thats not a good deal. Besides which PLAN spies already had havked the designs and you can bet that the PLAN are shortly going to be building vessels very very similar to the French Barracuda class. Piss poor data security by Naval Group. Australia knew the designs had been hacked. Whats the point building overly expensive subs that lack range endurance needed and who the potential peer threat knows everything about. They should build an Aussie Astute class and… Read more »
I hope they were not simulating defence only against 500m distance fast boats with RPG’s… that is passé.
You can expect fast boats to have a stabilized sight and mount for an heavy class ATGM with thermobaric or general propose warhead.
Good point Alex, we can’t always train against yesterdays threats, tomorrow’s could well be more as you describe and considerably more dangerous.
Something like the old Soviet version of Milan, a widely distributed system in the third world would be an order of magnitude more dangerous than an an RPG.
While tricky to guide in rough seas, get close enough to a large target and such a system could be guided straight at the Bridge, causing massive damage.
It would be a suicide mission, but as we know, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for these crackpots.
The military from both sides continue their joint cooperation in a professional manner, as it should be between close allies, while the politicians on both sides choose to play silly buggers. Led by donkeys!
Brexiteers would be naive if they thought exiting the EU would not come with a decade of complications and mess, and shrinking economy ,especially when the EU is our biggest trading partner ,I’m for global Britain but Boris is only backing it up with words and no substance .
Well Dave, he’s doing his best…. The EU have have taken an extremely hostile line with the UK ever since the vote to leave. It’s very telling and insulting to the UK in two ways, firstly to the country that liberated Europe twice at a huge cost (some respect and gratitude would be nice) and secondly, it drags the real EU out of the shadows and shows ‘precisely’ what they think about the very principles of Democracy.. It absolutely proves we were right to leave an increasingly authoritarian, controlling and bullying organisation. We will have economic hiccups to deal with… Read more »
Bravo.
We do need to remember though, how much we benefited economically from our years in the EU. Now we are going on a different path, which is fair enough… But not all was bad about being in that organisation.
Hi John, I absolutely agree, we benefited from our EU membership tremendously over the decades, as they benefited from us. My issues with the EU are regarding the rather dark turn things took when we had a democratic vote and decided to leave. The EU’s almost intimidate aggressive and very hostile stance towards us was very telling in my option, it appears to have crossed the line from an organisation of like minded Nation States, to a Federal Europe in its stance, with the increasing loss of National Control, year on year, among its members, as power and control is… Read more »
Thanks for the detailed reply, John. Appreciate you’re comments.
Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.
How bizarre we are exercising with a country we are on the brink of war with…
the americans think the french are their greatest friends,
the british prime minister says they are our greatest friend,
????? has anyone asked the French if we and the americans are their greatest friend,,,,,just wondering..