The great mock battle in the English Channel this week – called The Thursday War – confronted the vessel’s crew of 117 with their most brutal test yet. Captain Guy Jamieson, commander of the ship, said the “real war” experience of the Royal Navy trainers had raised his crew’s skills to “a whole new level”. He said a week’s gruelling battle against an “enemy” submarine — loaned by the French navy — had been “the first real anti-submarine warfare practis ed by our navy for 22 years”. But he said it was the little lessons of the Royal Navy’s war experience that were having the greatest impact.

And so the crew of the Amatola has learnt that Formica table tops can splinter into dangerously sharp shards when broken up on impact; that nylon uniforms melt against the skin in severe heat. In the murky ops centre in the bowels of the ship, operators manning the bank of electronic warfare consoles — so secret that “we can’t even talk about it” — did a strange thing when the “Brace! Brace!” command came in, as another jet simulated an attack. They all lifted their feet off the ground, stretched their heads to one side, closed their eyes, and stayed in that bizarre position until the all-clear was called. “That,” said Warrant Officer Michael Kritzinger, “is to protect them from flying glass from their consoles, a lesson learnt the hard way by the Royal Navy in combat.”

Rather than computer-simulated drills, Britain’s Flag Officer Sea Training organisation attached the Amatola to a real task force of five warships, and pitted a force of real fighter jets, surface ships and a submarine against its warfare team. Meanwhile, an on-board training team simulated damage from the hostile force, while also sabotaging the ship’s systems at crucial moments in the battle. Sneaking around the vessel’s gangways like gremlins in white overalls, the “wreckers” tossed smoke bombs into cabins, strapped gruesome-looking wounds onto sailors’ limbs, and taped announcements to computer consoles, declaring failures which operators would have to fix or work around. Before the war, wreckers briefed Mudimu, who visited the ship for the event. One said: “We’re going to leave exposed explosives on deck — a broken rocket. In wartime, very simple: you should throw it overboard. We’ll see what the crew does.”

Later, Mudimu told the Sunday Times that the money spent on the corvettes would have been “wasteful” without top- level training in war and humanitarian scenarios. “We didn’t come here as a clean slate, but the British navy has been involved in real war situations, so the value of their experience is very important for us,” said Mudimu. “The South African economy depends upon its sea lanes being free [from threats]; we need assets to safeguard our riches at sea, so we are able to trade freely. “Also, we have commitments to Africa and the [Southern African Development Community] region. Mozambique has a coastline as long as ours, but what has it got to protect it? Namibia is in a similar position. ”

Earlier, Petty Officer Derrick Vadevale, manning a machine gun attached to the flight deck, had seconds to choose good guys from bad, as various small craft rushed towards the side of the ship. He “opened fire” on one as a “terrorist threat” when a man suddenly stood up with an RPG rocket launcher on his shoulder. Another speedboat driver escaped “death” when he turned out to be “a trainer playing a drunk guy just wanting to take a look at the ship”. Vadevale, a 34-year-old gunner from Durban, said the terror attack on the USS Cole in 1999, in which a speedboat packed with high explosives rammed the warship, posed a new kind of threat to modern navies, which the British emphasised heavily in their training. “You have to know when not to engage, but you have to watch them carefully — there are dozens of ski boats and curious people cruising around warships in harbours all the time; you never know,” he said.

Admiral Richard Ibbotsen, head of the training programme in Plymouth, said the Amatola crew had been on “a steep learning curve”, but “if you judge the ship’s capabilities over these past short weeks, the progress has been remarkable”. The goal of The Thursday War was for the Amatola and her three fellow warships to enforce a fake UN arms embargo and protect a large resupply vessel from attack by a fictitious rogue state called “Ginger”. Wreckers told Jamieson that the ship’s performance had been judged “satisfactory”. But at the end of the drama —- signified by a PA announcement that “threat levels have gone from red to white; all positions [stand down]; hoods off” — no one seemed to know whether the Amatola had won the war or not. For combat officer Lieutenant Letasha Maree, though, finishing the exercise, after a 70-hour week, was sweeter than victory. She said: “Jis, I just want a shower.”

Source: Sunday Times (via saairforce.co.za forum)

The Super Lynx 300 has been chosen by South Africa for operation with 22 Squadron, SAAF, aboard the new Valour Class frigates and the first of four ordered will be arriving in South Africa early next year.

In order to prepare for the arrival of the new aircraft, personnel from HMS Edinburgh will be aboard SAS Amatola while the Lynx will perform numerous approaches and landings in order to prepare the Amatola crew and develop operational procedures and doctrines.

Read more at: saairforce.co.za

"There are bad men at sea: whether they are pirates... crooks... smuggling drugs... smuggling people... terrorists, this is an international issue we have to work together on," said Admiral Sir Jonathon Band.

He was meeting the Chief of the SA Navy, Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu, during a week-long visit to South Africa.

The SA Navy was an important partner because of its new capabilities - through its new corvettes and submarines - and its role in Africa.

Read more at: Independent Online

The Royal Navy have been training South African Navy officers for the past 18 months on what Band described as ways to bring together man and ship.

"It basically ... makes a crew that can steam the ship properly, look after it, fight fires, deal with natural disasters [and] start to build on integration of weapons system and sensors," Band said.

The training is part of efforts to keep the South African Navy on par with the rest of the world, Mudimu said.

"So we are very proud of the quality of training and support and financial support that the Royal Navy is providing the South African Navy," Mudimu said.

One of the officers trained in Britain is Captain Bravo Mhlana, who is due to take over command of the corvette the SAS Isandlwana. He will be the first black African to command a warship in the South African Navy.

"We got a bilateral agenda so that we can see bring the South African Navy along in the brotherhood of world navies, being an absolute crucial part off it," Band said.

Read more at: Mail & Guardian Online

For the first time in a book on the SA Navy the full story of how the Navy became part of the so-called 'Border War' during Operation Savannah and what the President Class frigates achieved in that operation is told.

The main story of this book is not about the tragic loss of SAS President Kruger on 18 February 1982, however this important occurrence in the history of our Navy does get serious attention and the author does try to explain what happened, hopefully in terms that the non-naval reader will also understand. He also gives some reasonably detailed comment, especially on the official findings of the formal inquest into the death of one of her ship's company as a result of that accident.

There are also many other happier stories from the time of their building in the UK, and on a number of diplomatic visits made by them to Argentina, Australia and Europe. Then there are visits to our own harbours and such incidents as entertaining 'Snow White, the seven Dwarfs and some twenty chorus girls' onboard the President Kruger, and other stories about the multitude of different characters who served in these beautiful ships over the years, some strange, some tragic, but mostly amusing.

The previous Chief of the Navy, Vice Admiral Johan Retief, whilst still in that post agreed to write a foreword for the book, and had the following comment on it:

" I found the draft compelling reading and, from my knowledge, an excellent history of a most important phase of the Navy's history. There are clear lessons to be learnt, stretching from how to man ships properly to how to name ships. ... It is essential that these lessons be retained for future generations as we move back into a large ship era. " and "Conclusion. To repeat myself, I think you have done remarkably well. I have read the draft for contents only and not for style, I am not qualified to do that. I presume that you are discussing the matter with an editor. I enjoyed that the fact that you interspersed the factual history with anecdotes, it keeps one interested. Well done. BZ"
Note: BZ, or Bravo Zulu phonetically, is 'navalese' for 'Well done' and was inked in by hand. It originates from the NATO book of two letter signal codes and means 'Well done'.

This book can be ordered at: Just Done Productions