Exercise Sea Breeze 25-2 has concluded off the south coast of the United Kingdom, capping two weeks of intensive multinational mine warfare operations involving 14 nations.
Naval forces from across NATO and beyond participated in joint mine hunting, explosive ordnance disposal, and robotic system trials between 30 June and 11 July.
The U.S.-led exercise, co-hosted with the UK, focused on strengthening allied coordination and integration in high-tempo maritime scenarios.
According to a U.S. 6th Fleet news release, participating countries included Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Operations centred around Portland Port and nearby waters, where participating forces deployed a broad mix of capabilities including remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater systems, electronic warfare, and live dive-and-salvage teams.
A final demonstration combined mine countermeasures with real-time situational awareness and multi-domain command and control, simulating complex threats and testing coalition response under pressure.
“The U.S. Navy’s mission is to keep the seas open. Mines restrict that. Our MCM force is small, so we rely heavily on partners and allies. These exercises ensure we can interoperate and conduct mine countermeasure operations together,” said Capt William Williams, Commodore of Mine Countermeasures Group 6.
Sea Breeze has been running since 1997, traditionally co-hosted by the United States and Ukraine. While earlier iterations focused on the Black Sea, Sea Breeze 25-2 reflects a growing effort to apply allied mine warfare doctrine in other high-threat theatres, including northern Europe and the North Atlantic approaches.
This year’s exercise was split into two phases: Sea Breeze 25-1 took place in Romania in June, while Sea Breeze 25-2 brought activity to UK waters in early July. According to U.S. 6th Fleet, both phases aimed to expand interoperability across sea, land and air domains at a time of rising concern over maritime access and seabed warfare.
Saw the LV53 Mine Sweeper there alongside the former RV Triton and one of those floating package holiday ships.
Great view from the Prison front gate eating our Fish and Chips.
I could swear I could hear “Do you want to be in my gang” over my shoulder.
Every day is a holiday.
Hang on a minute
Do you know if RV Triton is still around? It’s a nice big hull, I can imagine plenty of things we might be able to use it for.
Ermm, yes, It’s in Portland, that’s why I wrote it ! We were Holidaying there a couple of days back, took a load of photo’s from the top of Portland, next to the Prison entrance. You get a great view of the port from there.
Triton is pretty unmistakable and she looked pretty tired but it was certainly her (not showing on ship tracker).
The ref to “Do you want to be in my gang” is because Gary Glitter uses the prison as a second home, according to a local.
Nice, it’s good that such a unique ship is still doing useful work.
Would be great if it still had a role in Defence, maybe by being a trials ship for Project Cabot?
MCMV.
Assume other nations all self deployed their assets? Unlike the RN, which has prematurely got rid of most Sandown and will eventually get rid of the Hunts.
Kipion in the Gulf almost dead. Maybe they thought it too vulnerable to Iran?
1905= MCMV.
Just sayin !
MCMV mother ship decision soon? Eventually? Never?
Wouldn’t DIP be an ideal decision point?
Prematurely — ok I will bite, what makes you think that….. based on that The RN have gone autonomous now… The Sandowns are all over 25 years old now, and they are showing their age and costing a fortune to maintain. But you state prematurely ??
I would like to have a sensible conversation with you about this…
Hi Dave.
My thinking.
We had 15 Sandown and, what, a dozen Hunts?
Salami sliced over many years, way back to around 2004, to the point we have 1 Sandown and 6 Hunts ( I think ) left.
The last Sandown will soon go, the Hunts I believe remain till the late 2020s?
Where is the capability to replace 27 MCMVs?
Or even what we had till recently?
Their replacement, so far:
Project Wilton with 3 RNMBs out of Faslane, does not deploy, keeps CASD sanitised.
MCMH Stage 1 not even fully in service yet beyond a handful.
MCMH Stage 2 is where? How many assets? What deploys them.
These systems as we know need mother ships. We got RFA Stirling Castle, soon to be HMS due to crewing issues.
How ironic, systems meant to replace putting people in harms way cannot deploy as the mothership bought has no crew!
3 other mothers are planned, with zilch moving on that front till, I read, November 2026!
That T23 in this exercise is now tied up playing MCM rather than off on another tasking.
Meanwhile, Kipion has all but died, as the 4 MCMVs out there are down to 2 and reportedly will withdraw with Lancaster.
1 and 2 MCMV Squadrons have vanished, the crews transferred and a small Group replaces them.
Meanwhile, good enough is okay for other nations who actually have assets to deploy, including many of our discarded MCMVs.
Even our MCMV had Drones and UUVs, and had for years as well as Divers.
Will Divers be in attendance with these autonomous boats? What vessel will carry them?
Hopefully you’re ex RN MCMV force Dave and can put me right and give me more confidence in this.
Their inability to deploy and need of other assets to enable them doesn’t help either. What assets?
What Atlas, C17, T23, RFA is spare?
In years past, these exercises focused on maritime areas w/ suspected unexploded ordnance/mines from previous conflicts (e.g., WWI, WWII, etc.). Still the case? All other aspects equal, clearing shipping channels, ports, etc., would seem a positive goal. 🤔
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!
Seagulls in ‘Finding Nemo’
🤣
😂
I got that, without the explanation. !
It does help to explain on here though, not many fun folk around.
“Just keep swimming”.
👍
4 Ukrainian, 3 Dutch, 1 French, 1 Lithuanian, 1 German and 1 RN vessel were the sea participants:
UNS Chernhiv, Cherkasy, Mariupol (ex Belgian Narcis) and Melitopol (ex Dutch Vlaardingen)
ZrMs Willemstad, Zierikzee and Scheidam
FS Styx
LNS Jotvingis
FGS Dillingen
HMS Iron Duke