Maritime Patrol in the JMC by Marco P.J
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Maritime Patrol Aviation Maritime Patrol in the JMC by Marco P.J. Borst It is 0823 hrs on a sunny morning all RAF Coastal Command Shackleton and, of course, host- country Great in June. A Norwegian P-3C UIP Orion squadrons attended a JASS course once Britain have been taking part in the takes oÍf Írom RAF Kinloss in Scot- a year. From the beginning foreign par- JMC. The nature of the exercise fol- land. The Orion is part of a task Íbrce ticipants were allowed to take part in lows reality. During the Cold War the of the Blue Alliance, while Kinloss is the JASS courses. Norway, the United JMC scenarios were based on the per- situated in the middle of an area occu- States of America and Canada were ceived danger from Eastern Europe, but pied by Yellow in Greenia. But that amongst the original JASS participants. the JMC's of today are multi-national does not counl now. What is important Given the political climate in operfltions to control a crisis: a scenario is what happens from the moment that Northern Ireland. JASS moved to RAF that looks like what happened in and the Orion is on task. Joint Maritime Turnhouse in the early seventies. around countries like Iraq and former Course 2000-2 has started for Crew 2 Almost at the same moment, new ele- Yugoslavia not too long ago. Every of the Norwegian Air Force's 333 ments were brought into the exercise. year three JMC's are organized: JMC I Squadron. With strike attack fighters and tankers in January/February, JMC 2 in June and JMC 3 in October/November. Central coordination of the JMC moved to Faslane (a British submarine base) and the exercise is conducted around Scotland since then. Participat- ing Maritime Patrol aircraft are operat- ing off RAF Kinloss most of the time. The local JMC Cell at Kinloss is responsible for coordination between Faslane and the MPA crews, and sup- ports daily operations by preparing the missions and brieÍing the crews. Joint Maritime Course 2000-2 (JMCo02) For JMC002 ten MPAs were available at RAF Kinloss to provide round-the-clock operations: a P-3C UIP :l* ;ji;À:i:i:llilli!il:.r:il!ilil:lt: Orion (Norway/333Sqn), a P-3C-II Orion (Australia/l0Sc1n), a P-38 Orion French Navy Atlantique 2 (Marco Borst) (Spain/221Sqn), two CP-140 Auroras (Canada/14 Wing), an Atlantique NG JMC's History taking part, the character of the exer- (France/23Sqn) and four Nimrods The early history of the Joint Mar- cise changed Írom an ASW exercise (Great Britain/120Sqn, 201Sqn and itime Course starts during World War into an exercise with a much broader 206Sqn). The Norwegians and the lI. Because of the threat from German perspective. This was the reason to French each came with two crews. thus U-boats, the need to train crews of change the name of the course from using their aircraft more often than ships and aircraft in antisubmarine war- Joint Antisubmarine School into Joint those of the other participants. fare operations was recognized. Shortly Maritime Course. JMC missions usually become after the war, the Joint Anti-Submarine more complicated during the course of School (JASS) was established in Lon- JMC Today the exercise. The first mission for Nor- donderry, Northern lreland. At HMS The JMC still is an exercise which way's crew 2 is a relatively simple Sea Eagle crews of bombers, sub- is organised by the Royal Navy and the CASEX-B in cooperation with a Nor- marines and surface ships were taught Royal Air Force, but it has many inter- wegian submarine: the HNOMS by Royal Navy and Royal Air Force national participants, since NATO and Uthaug. It is more or less up to the officers. Every course was completed other partners are invited to take part. Orion's crew to decide what and how with an exercise to practice the theory. Throughout the years, ships and aircraft they want to practice their skills with At the time. the aircraÍ't were operating Íiom Norway, Canada, the USA, Portu- lhe submarine. Less then twenty min- Íiom RAF Ballykelly, while the ships gal, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, The utes after take oÍf "XSF" reached the operated Íiom Londonden-y. Crews of Netherlands. New Zealand. Australia operation area and descended from 26 Maritime Patrol Aviation Yellow leaders became more pop- ular in 1999. They directed political demonstrations supported by terrorist action\ against the Greenian govern- ment and properties of the loyalists. In January 2000 a revolution followed. The Yellow leader took control over the greater part of the army. Strong Íighting lasted a couple of days, and resulted in an almost equal division of the army into a Yellow and a Green army. The navy came almost entirely under Yellow control, and also a large part of the air Íbrce came under Yellow command. Surrounding nations (Blue) declared their support to the Greenian government, but were not very willing Nimrods on the RAF Kinloss flightline (Marco Borst) to start a military intervention. ln April Blue condemned the Yellow actions in 12,000 ft to 1,000 ft. Here the search crew bereft of important information. a UN resolution. A Temporary Exclu- Íbr the Uthaug started, and it lasted a The wet- sensor stations remained sive Zone (TEZ) was established in the bit longer then expected since the sub- operational and, with the help of paper, Greenian territory. A Blue Alliance marine appeared to be rnuch more to pencils, a calculator and the good old Support Plan had to ensure Íiee move- the south then expected by the Orion's Eyeball Mkl the attack on the Uthaug ment of ships along the most important crew. At 0940 hrs the pilots on the could continue with success. Mission routes to Greenia, and free access to the flight deck had their tirst visual contact "X8F" was completed and the Orion port of Loch Eve until Greenia resolved with the periscope of the submarine. returned to RAF Kinloss where it land- control over its most important port, The crew of the Norwegian 333 ed at 1245 hrs. The Norwegian ground and effective presence in the TEZ to squadron can rely on the perfect tool crew started to make the Viking ready support Green and to be able to evacu- for the.job: their Orion (#3298 for another mission immediately ate Blue citizens out of Greenia if nec- "Viking") went through the Update because the other crew needed the air- essary. The Yellow Revolutionar-y Air Improvement Program (UlP) at Lock- craft that same evening. Force with 120 aircraÍl, together with heed-Martin's Greenville (SC) Íacility the navy, was the biggest threat for last year. The P-3C UIP has brand new JMC002's Scenario Rlr-re. sensor stations at the TACCO. NAV- The scenario for this exercise COM, radar and ESM positions. Large could have come l'rom a morning news- and clear tactical displays and user- paper. The only non- realistic part of it Íriendly touch control keyboards pro- were the names of the countries vide the crew with a good picture of the involved: "Greenia" was the country situation. An important part of the around which everything revolved . It is detection equipment is the APS-137 a large country at a strategic location radar. lt is with this lnverse Synthetic with a lot of industry and rich mineral Aperture Radar that the submarine's wealth. The Blue Alliance is formed of periscope was first detected. The air- a number of nations interested in the craft descended to 200 ft and dropped a political, economic and military stabili- passive-sonobuoy pattern to enable the ty of Greenia. The population of Gree- wet-sensor operators to follow the sub nia is divided as a result ofreligious and for a while. Shortly after they changed cultural diÍferences: Green is loyal to to active tracking, the most Íiustrating the elected government, and has Blue as thing that can happen to a hard-working their natural allies and trading partners. ASW crew happened: the Orions cen- Yellow is the opposition formed by reli- tral processing compLlter tioze and re- gious radicals who want to break all booting was the only option. This connections with Blue. Yellow has a lot meant that the TACCO, NAVCOM and of unemployment and has only tradi- radar stations, and the tactical display tional industry, while Green has hi-tech Major Tobjorn Haugen (333 Sqn on the flight deck, went unserviceable industry in which the government has Norway) at the new TACCO station for a couple of minutes, leaving the invested a lot over the years. on the P-3C UIP (Marco Borst) 21 Maritime Patrol Aviation RAF Kinloss'Role and ESM equipment. During this mis- some kind of an adventure for the pho- It looks a bit complicated, but sion it was very interesting to see how tographer: the crew opens up a window according to the JMC002 scenario the seriously the crew worked along the and one of the crew members sticks his flying and floating fleets of Blue and lines of the exercise scenario. The Nim- head out of it, operating the hand-held Yellow are exactly the same. Depend- rod crew cooperated with a Blue camera while the aircraft passes the ing on the mission, participants can be frigate. On board the aircraft, commu- shipl Aircraft 9XK went off task at tasked with a Yellow or a Blue mission. nication between the Blue ship and the 1450 hrs and returned to RAF Kinloss The aircraft at RAF Kinloss were part Yellow sub was monitored.