SEACAT Strengthens Maritime Bonds in Southeast Asia
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS060530-01
5/30/2006
By Senior Chief Journalist Melinda Larson, Destroyer Squadron 1 Public Affairs
SINGAPORE (NNS) -- The Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (SEACAT) maritime security exercise ended May 29 when the exercise task group arrived in Singapore, but for exercise participants, the experience will pay ongoing dividends.
SEACAT is an annual weeklong at-sea exercise - currently in its fifth year - designed to highlight the value of information sharing and multinational coordination within a scenario that gives participating navies practical maritime interception training opportunities.
“We are from the same region and have similar backgrounds and values,” said Royal Brunei navy Maj. Shamsul Bahren bin Hj Taweh, one of 10 liaison officers (LNO) from six nations embarked aboard the dock landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46) during the exercise. “From my point of view, I think the understanding is already there. This exercise helped strengthen the bond by sharing knowledge and experiences. Now that we’re at the end of the exercise, it’s a bit sad to say goodbye.”
The LNOs from the navies of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand embarked Tortuga in Okinawa May 19.
“We train together so we can become proficient at operating with each other. Becoming more interoperable is principally important to being able to accomplish our mission objectives,” Capt. Al Collins, commander of the exercise task group, said to the LNOs during a briefing to close out SEACAT.
Tortuga, the task group’s command ship, also served as an information fusion center where the LNOs communicated individually with their countries’ SEACAT headquarters via the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS) and e-mail. CENTRIXS is a secure computer system allowing real-time chat with headquarters ashore.
“By combining your talents, you were able to create an effective watch situation,” Collins said. “We seemed to have bridged the communication gap and were able to effectively track contacts of interest. We’re at a point where we can effectively maximize resources.”
Sharing information with their headquarters was vital to the LNOs, while exchanging ideas with each other was fundamental to the success of the exercise.
“We exchanged ideas, and everyone’s opinions were widely accepted,” noted Lt. Kirk Lee, the U.S. task group’s SEACAT coordinator who worked alongside the LNOs on the SEACAT watch floor. “Everyone was willing to listen, and that was helpful when they needed to problem-solve together.”
Throughout the week, the LNOs coordinated the tracking and boarding of three simulated suspect vessels by visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) teams from five countries. A total of seven boardings were accomplished successfully and safely aboard Tortuga and MV Sgt. William R. Button (T-AK 3012). USS Salvor (ARS 52) also was continuously tracked during its transit.
“You met and exceeded all of my expectations by locating all of the bad guys,” Collins told the LNOs during the final brief.
During the exercise, as Tortuga and Salvor transited from Okinawa to Singapore and Button transited from Phuket, Thailand, to Singapore, the responsibility for tracking the ships was passed from country to country as the ships passed through the territorial and adjacent international waters of each country.
“The interaction between countries is important to coming up with guiding principles to ensure the sea lines of communication are free of terrorists,” said Republic of Singapore Capt. Ryan Tan Boon Leng.
Visits to other ships in the task group, rides aboard air cushion landing craft (LCAC), and the opportunity to meet SEACAT’s executive agent, Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific and Commander, Task Force 73 Rear Adm. William R. Burke, were also part of the week focused on maritime team building.
The exercise finale May 28 included boardings of Button by a combined USS Crommelin(FFG 37) and USS Hopper (DDG 70) VBSS team, and Tortuga by the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Sherman’s (WHEC 720) boarding team.
The five-ship U.S. task group, under the command of Collins, who is commander of Destroyer Squadron 1, now transitions into the summer-long exercise series Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT). CARAT is a sequential bilateral series of exercises with the armed forces of the SEACAT countries.
For more on SEACAT, visit www.clwp.navy.mil/seacat2006.
To learn about CARAT, visit www.clwp.navy.mil/carat2006.
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