NATO exercise Dynamic Mongoose has seen personnel from 120 Squadron join ships, submarines and aircraft from six nations to hone anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare skills with the new Poseidon MRA1 aircraft in the North Atlantic, say the RAF in a news release.
The RAF say that on one sortie, using the sophisticated sensor suite fitted to the aircraft, an RAF Poseidon launched simulated attacks within 10 mins of taking over contact from a US Navy Poseidon. This sortie, they say, also offered the 120 Squadron crew the opportunity to practise communications, command and control with NATO allies and directed simulated attacks on a submarine by naval vessels.
The Poseidon Captain flying the mission was quoted by the RAF as saying:
“We worked closely with other Maritime Patrol Aircraft in the area to track several simulated targets, relaying this information back to the Task Group on the surface. Commonality between platforms along with shared tactics, training, and procedures means that when we do this for real, we are able to quickly locate, identify, and track targets beneath the waves.”
Vice Admiral Keith Blount, Commander of NATO’s Allied Maritime Command said:
“Exercises today seize opportunities for NATO and Allied nations to sharpen war-fighting skills by focussing on high-end capabilities. Dynamic Mongoose will ensure we remain prepared for operations in peace, crisis and conflict.”
Officer Commanding 120 Squadron, Wing Commander James Hanson said:
“Participation in Dynamic Mongoose offers the trained crews of CXX Squadron a chance to hone their skills cooperating with ships, submarines and aircraft from a number of NATO partner nations, as well as the Royal Navy. The exercise offers my crews a great opportunity to be tested against highly professional opposition in the exercise environment, and I know that the crews have relished the chance to show what they can do with our extremely capable aircraft.”
Great, about bloody time. I still miss the beautiful Nimrod though!. What weapons will our P8s carry to destroy a sub?
The drop speakers into the water playing Des O’Connor at full volume until they surface and surrender.
That would violate the Geneva Convention – or should!
Sounds horrific! I would surrender
Mk54 lightweight winged torpedo ? That’s what the yanks are using guess we will be same until they fund stingray integration
I understood that these had been ordered to equip the P8s…..
Ok cheers ?
Mk54s were ordered for the RAF back in 2018 as part of a wider order from the USN and others.
Better than nothing but they aren’t great when compared to Sting Ray. Our lightweight (its actually 600 pounds so not so lightweight really) has better homing, range, warhead, and propulsion. I really hope the Mk54s are a stop gap to Sting Ray integration.
American Mk54 torpedoes, which if dropped from height, where the P8 is primarily designed to operate, have to be equipped with a glide kit and GPS. Not as good as Stingray but integrating Stingray would be very expensive and the aircraft would have to drop to low level. I don’t know what the exact implications of doing that would be. More to the point, dropping sonobuoys from height requires a GPS guided parawing as well, I believe. We haven’t developed those for our sonobuoys either, I don’t think, but some of our latest sonobuoys are again better than anything the Yanks have. Also the P8 radar does not have 360 degrees coverage and the angle of incidence of the radar beam from height is bound to produce more clutter when looking for small objects than a grazing angle at low level. I know the radar has special modes for coping with that and from a greater height of course you get greater coverage, but physics is physics. I of course have no access to actual information so I’m speculating. More questions than answers I’m afraid.
They’ve been flying at very low level over the Irish Sea for the last couple of weeks. Make of that what you will. I guess they are training for something.
Must be hunting the vast fleet of submarines of the Imperial Irish Navy.
That’s interesting to read, there have been suggestions in the past that Poseidon’s stability at low-level is very poor – certainly not a patch on the Nimrod.
That’s interesting. Probably testing to develop UK specific CONUSE. I suspect what RAF crews have been doing up to now over at PAX River is help the USN with their tests while training on the platform, so will have been operating under USN CONUSE? So i guess this is their first opportunity to develop UK specific tactics? Again, this is pure speculation on my part. The Indian P8 has a MAD stinger fitted, indicating that they would go down low to help confirm a SUBPROB. I’m guessing Oz will use theirs much like the Yanks do. Vast areas of ocean to cover and all that. Would be interested in knowing how the Norwegians use theirs.
The P8 uses the APY-10 X-band multi-function radar, it has a very good pedigree. The APY-10 is a development of the AN/APY-137 originally used on the S3 Viking ASW aircraft. It has the usual weather radar and navigation modes, but also includes synthetic aperture, inverse synthetic, periscope as well as a track will scan modes. It is capping of very good resolution images. But the AN/APS-137 was developed further into the AN/APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar System. This radar can sometimes be seen fitted below a P8 in a canoe like fairing. It is used for ground mapping and producing very high resolution 3D images.
The APY-10 has the capability of detecting a sub’s periscope when flying at altitude. It uses a number of waveform techniques to reject clutter. However, better resolution and clutter rejection can be attained when flying lower. In this respect it is no different to Seaspray or Searchwater radars. All three radars use the X-band as the wavelength is 2.5-4 cm and a frequency of 8-12 GHz. This will give you a much finer resolution, but also increases the amount of data it produces over say a L band radar. This increase in data will therefore require greater processing and memory. But with the right software will produce near photo quality images. Because there is more chance of interaction between a smaller wavelength and a sub’s periscope, there is a greater chance that the transmitted wave will be reflected. Again this will be dependent on the Sea State, but also if the periscope is clothed in RAM. However, because the radar will use a dual synthetic mapping and a pulse doppler. Anything manmade, will stick out against the sea’s background.
Stingray was dropped from both Nimrod MR2 and the MR4 before it was canned. There are a lot of images and videos of the String being dropped from what looks like about 500ft above sea level. Where its decent is retarded by a deployed parachute. Its next to impossible to judge the speed of the aircraft. It is quite feasible to redesign the wing kit used on the Mk54 for a Stingray.
Thanks for this Davey. Still don’t think Stingray will be integrated. We shall have to wait and see.
I have often wondered how the radar copes. Can it be used as a search and weather/air radar at the same time.
I’m sure it has weather and air to air modes as well. Wouldn’t know whether it has a fully coherent mode though, so don’t know how good it would be in detecting fast moving objects against clutter.
Has the MOD actually brought the torpedo/sonar boys needed for p8 to be fully optional? I don’t remember it being confirmed, but might have missed it.
Let’s be honest they probably haven’t….or if so barely enough.
Don’t worry Cam…another case of fitted for but not with 🙂
(RAF over loudhailer) “We know where you are, please turn around or we will write a strongly worded letter to your Embassy. Failing that, we’ll send the French.”
Last time i spoke to someone who knew anything about this the option being examined was to buy the whole package. Whether that actually transpired into contract signature I don’t know and I haven’t a clue on numbers bought. These things get rid of sonobuoys at an alarming rate during exercises. Don’t know how many of those buoys would get recovered.