No. 11 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wrapped up a deployment to Guam on Tuesday 23 January 2024, following two weeks of participation in Exercise Sea Dragon 2024.
Two No. 11 Sqn P-8A aircraft took part in the multinational exercise alongside various maritime patrol aircraft from India, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States.
Flight Lieutenant Jack Terry, a crew captain with No. 11 Sqn, said that the first week was part training exercise and part competition. During this phase, he said, aircraft were awarded points based on their performance in engaging a mock ‘submarine’ simulated by an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) training target.
Scoring was based on the accuracy and speed of the attacks that the aircraft completed against simulated targets, with the overall winner receiving the coveted Dragon Belt prize. While No. 11 Sqn missed out on the belt this year, coming runner-up behind a Japan Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) P-1 Kawasaki, one of the squadron's aircraft was the “premiere” P-8 crew among a tough field of competition.
The first week of the exercise, though, was more than a friendly competition; it was critical to building interoperability between the partner countries.While No.11 Sqn is quite used to working with the U.S Navy (USN), they are less so with some of the other participants.
The first week of the exercise thus provided an invaluable opportunity for No. 11 Sqn to “actually work” with Japanese, Indian and Korean aircraft and gain an understanding of the technological and people-related nuances of working with them. All-in-all, FLTLT Terry said, he saw a “big improvement” in interoperability from when the RAAF first arrived in Guam on January 8th through to when they completed their last flight on Monday January 22.
The burgeoning tactical and command interoperability, stoked during the first phase of Exercise Sea Dragon 2024, was particularly important during the second week when the participants went up against an actual USN nuclear powered attack submarine. Aircraft from Australia, India, Korea, Japan and the United States were tasked by a multinational command authority with maintaining 24 hour contact with the submarine.
To accomplish this task, FLTLT Terry said, each nation was assigned a roughly six-hour window during which they would keep assets on station in contact with the submarine. At the end of that time, the aircraft would then be relieved by another country, necessitating a roughly half-hour handover period with the arriving maritime patrol aircraft.
These kind of mid-air handovers, FLTLT Terry said, were a particularly “important” part of airborne ASW, because while it's “not too difficult” to track a submarine once you’ve made contact, if you lose the submarine “you're probably not going to find it again”.
During No. 11 Squadrons stay in Guam, the USN organised a static display of the MQ-4C Triton High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) stationed there, however the UAVs didn’t take part in the exercise itself.
No. 9 Sqn RAAF expects to receive the first Australian MQ-4C Triton later this year, which will be operated alongside the P-8As of No. 11 Squadron in the maritime patrol and response role.