AFM's offshore exercise with HMS Enterprise

Last week, the Armed Forces' Maritime Squadron conducted a bilateral exercise with HMS Enterprise off the island's shores.

HMS Enterprise is a Royal Navy multi-role hydrographic and oceanographic survey vessel and is a major improvement for the navy's surveying and general environmental data gathering ability.

She is able to collect information on all aspects of the environment, from the seabed to the upper atmosphere, process and send it to warfare commanders in real time.

The survey ship is 91 metres long, displaces 3,600 tonnes and has a ship's complement of 11 officers, 14 senior ratings and 25 junior ratings.

While in Malta on a routine visit, its bilateral training exercise, with AFM assets, included winching drills using a 2nd Regiment's Alouette SAR-helicopter.

Maritime Squadron's Protector-class patrol boat P-52 engaged in a series of tactical manoeuvres, which later culminated in a simulation of a ship-boarding operation conducted by joint amphibious elements from the two forces.