MEDICS IN PNG - Royal New Zealand Navy

FLEET PROGRESS
HMNZS CANTERBURY
BY LT DUNCAN MACKENZIE RNZN
OUR SHIP - the Navy’s largest and newest - sailed from DNB early
on 6 August for an intensive few days of sea trials. Much to the
delight of local boaties who regularly ‘buzzed’ past, CANTERRBURY
anchored near North Head to train in the launch and recovery of
the Landing Craft.
During the next day, machinery trials were conducted, with the
ship’s marine control technology being put through its paces; subsequently
full power trials went well, with the ship reaching a top
speed of 20.1 knots!
The ship’s gun, radar, navigation and radio systems were thoroughly
tested by the trials team - the trials officer, LTCDR Andrew
Curlewis, said, ‘The trials period has been a great success in terms
of beginning to explore the boundaries of HMNZS CANTERBURY’s
capabilities. It has also allowed the ship’s crew to gain valuable
lessons in operating the ship. CANTERBURY is now well placed to
begin the next phase of her introduction into service in the Navy.’
AMPHIBIOUS
FAST CRUISE
It may seem a relatively simple task to
embark a couple of hundred people and take
them and their vehicles from one port to another.
The Inter-island ferries, for example, do
it every day! When looked at in further detail,
however, our job of ferrying people around
is an altogether different task. A normal
ferry, for example, sails into an established
port, drops her stern or side door onto the
wharf, loads on the passengers and their
vehicles, then raises her doors and departs
for the next established port – only a few
hours away.
Contrast that with the need to be able to
undertake this loading or unloading people
and vehicles in a tactically challenging environment,
while five miles out to sea, at
night, and you get closer to imagining what
CANTERBURY will soon be capable of.
Given the varied conditions in which we
may be required to operate, our methods
of force embarkation may vary:
• from craning vehicles and equipment onboard
via our flightdeck hatches,
• to anchoring some distance out from the
shore and having our Landing Craft and Heli-
copters embark personnel, their vehicles and
equipment - not to mention a large cache of
weapons and ammunition.
One of the major tenets of Amphibious
Sealift operations is that, as much as possible,
everything must be rehearsed. PHILO-
MEL kindly helped out, with some 30 members
of the Naval Personnel Resource Centre
(NPRC) and a small number of vehicles from
Navy Transport loaned to us as ‘clockwork
mice’. In addition, 40 visiting soldiers from
the NZ Army’s 2nd Logistics Battalion were
also pressed into service. Everyone was very
patient as we practised our drills and tried
out a few ‘what-ifs’.
Embarking one of the ship’s permanently assigned forklifts;
these are used for moving palletised loads within the ship.
The relatively small number of personnel
allowed us to confirm our procedures for
embarking to full capacity (250 embarked
force - plus ship’s company), but on a
smaller scale and in a benign environment.
The easy part was getting them onboard,
providing them with safety briefs and moving
them into their respective accommodation
areas.
More difficult will be how the ship handles
unexpected emergencies, with the added
concern of ensuring that those extra personnel
onboard are adequately accounted and
cared for. What is second nature to sailors,
such as “hands muster by messes” in the
event of a Man overboard, or acting as an
“initial attack” in the event of a damage control
emergency, is completely foreign to the
many Army, Air Force and civilian personnel
that we can be expected to have onboard at
any time. Try mustering 450% of your regular
Ship’s Company in the “Fleet Standard”
7 minutes!
Now that the ship has passed the first
hurdle of welcoming just a few ‘extras’ onboard,
the next step will be a full embarkation
of a Motorised Infantry Company of 220
Army personnel, along with their vehicles
and equipment. That will happen when CAN-
TERBURY participates in Exercise Wolf III in
Napier this month.
AVIATION
INTERFACE
TRIALS
AUGUST SAW another milestone - Helicopter
Interface trials. While CANTERBURY’s
flightdeck is capable of supporting a range
of different helicopters, the two that we will
primarily embark (until the NH90 comes online
around 2010) will be the Navy’s SH-2G
Super-Seasprite and the RNZAF’s UH-1H
Iroquois (better known as the Huey).
The interface trials involved CANTERBURY
embarking a Seasprite and an Iroquois for a
day each, with each of those day being dedicated
to the movement of the respective
The two cranes in use alongside at DNB
helicopters in and around the ship’s Storage
and Maintenance Hangars. We ensured that
not only do they fit (they do - with room to
spare!) but also checked that their securing
arrangements are appropriate.
CANTERBURY’s Flight Commander,
LTCDR Wayne Theobald was the first to land
a Seasprite on the ship - during our inaugural
visit to Lyttelton in June. At the beginning
of August he was responsible for the successful
trial with the Seasprite, then was
also involved with the Huey Trial on Thursday.
LTCDR Theobald said ‘It’s impressive
that in such a short space of time we have
proven such a good level of interoperability
between two distinctly different helicopter
types and CANTERBURY. What will be
more impressive is CANTERBURY’s aviation
HMNZS CANTERBURY
capability in 12 months time, when it will
have reached maturity’. Running concurrent
to the Interface trials was the introduction
of the Remote Aircraft Mover (RAM). An
interesting-looking piece of equipment, the
RAM is used to manoeuvre the helicopter in
and out of the Hangar without the traditional
requirement of winching wires.
Now that CANTERBURY has successfully
embarked and proven a storage ability for
the helicopters, the next step in increasing
our aviation capability will be this November,
when the ship will spend the month at sea
further training onboard personnel in all areas
related to helicopter operations, from Aircraft
Controllers to Flight Deck Officers, Bridge
Watch Keepers and all the teams involved in
any helicopter emergency response.
Interface trials: LEFT: the Iroquois
on deck; ABOVE: the Seasprite being
moved into the hangar.
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