HMCS Toronto will be part of a mission of firsts

[3rd Herd]

The Usual Disclaimer:

HMCS Toronto will be part of a mission of firsts
JENNIFER TAPLIN

For the first time, a Canadian naval ship in a NATO task group will circle Africa.

HMCS Toronto left Halifax yesterday bound for five months of NATO operations and exercises. The deployment will include a two-month, 23,150-kilometre (12,500 nautical mile) journey around the coast of Africa.

It's all part of Operation Sextant, and Canada's contribution to the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 fleet.

Then the group, comprised of six ships from six countries, will head for Africa in August. Along the way they'll provide a presence in the Gulf of Guinea where oil workers were recently kidnapped and oil installations attacked.

When they hit South Africa, the NATO group will train with the South African navy. This is another first for NATO, explained the ship's commanding officer, Stephen Virgin.

"I don't think it's been done before, certainly not a combined NATO-South Africa exercise. The alliance has nations ... that they want to develop ties with so by being in that area, it's just an ideal opportunity to get together with South Africa."

Commodore Bob Davidson, commander of the East Coast fleet, said NATO exercises with non-NATO countries, but never before with South Africa.

The cruise will start and end in the Mediterranean, escorting shipping and deterring terrorism. In between, they'll circle Africa (via the Suez Canal), and conduct exercises in the Indian Ocean..........................http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=46531&sc=89

 

[chiquita]

How very interesting for the crew...the canal, the horn, and 6 other nations.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

How very interesting for the crew...the canal, the horn, and 6 other nations.

In what way?

 

[chiquita]

are you kidding?  The historical significance of the Suez canal makes transiting it interesting, it was kinda a big deal...lead to a Nobel peace prize for a Canadian.  Transit through it also gets crew members a ceremony and a certificate.  Rounding the horn also gets members a ceremony and mess dinner privileges...an elbow on the table (may also have once permitted the wearing of an earring - I'll have to dig a little on that one).  The canal and the horn are interesting as marks of sailing distinction, like crossing the equator, and the arctics.  Your profile mentions 12 years of naval (reg force at that) service, did you not get any sailing distinctions?

Anyone out there more tuned in to naval traditions, feel free to wade in, my folklore is rusty.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

are you kidding?  The historical significance of the Suez canal makes transiting it interesting, it was kinda a big deal...lead to a Nobel peace prize for a Canadian.  Transit through it also gets crew members a ceremony and a certificate.  Rounding the horn also gets members a ceremony and mess dinner privileges...an elbow on the table (may also have once permitted the wearing of an earring - I'll have to dig a little on that one).  The canal and the horn are interesting as marks of sailing distinction, like crossing the equator, and the arctics.  Your profile mentions 12 years of naval (reg force at that) service, did you not get any sailing distinctions?

Anyone out there more tuned in to naval traditions, feel free to wade in, my folklore is rusty.

No I am not kidding as you were pretty vague in your post, so the context you meant was not there at all.The Suez is not regarded as a big thing....been through it now a half a dozen times, no fan fare no certificate, no mess dinner, no t shirt....the Arctic Circle and the Equator Crossings are still celebrated.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

No I am not kidding as you were pretty vahue in your post, so the context you meant was not there at all.The Suez is not regarded as a big thing....been through it now a half a dozen times, no fan fare no certificate, no mess dinner, no t shirt....the Arctic Circle and the Equator Crossings are still celebrated.

We're talking traditions that have by and large gone the way of the Dodo now. It's a long time since we had a ship go round the Horn or the Cape as we use Suez and Panama now. I'd love to see the look on the Formation or Base Chief's face the day LS Bloggins shows up in DEU sporting his new earing and claiming he's entitled to wear it!

Nowadays we are pretty focused on Ops and there is plenty of that on this trip. there's an anti-piracy ex coming up (not OPSEC as it's been reported in the MSM) and a few other goodies to keep the lads and lassies busy. I imagine there will be some good port visits...I just hope it doesn't entail so many dog and pony shows and extra cleaning stations to tiddily up the ship for the "cocktail circuit" that they don't get time to enjoy some well deserved shore leave.
"Excellence with Vigour!" (Toronto's motto)

 

[chiquita]

Sorry transiting the canals have become routine for you, for many they are not, all the more reason why transiting one, or rounding a horn is special.  Unless the ship is ENTIRELY full of old salty dogs, then there are going to be people for whom this will be a first.  A small unscientific poll of local sailors have had ceremonies and certificates for exactly the aforementioned situations..  I certainly enjoyed my arctic crossing ceremony, and possession of the certificate will ensure I don't have to do one again (only fun the first time).  If these traditions have gone by the dodo, that's unfortunate and have only ourselves and senior personnel to blame, they're a great morale booster.  It only takes one person to care and start the movement, there's never a shortage of characters onboard to fill the requisite roles.  I know another unnamed ship is looking forward to their upcoming ceremonies.  Maybe they don't allow the earrings anymore, but the elbows on the table certainly raise some interesting discussion at the mess dinners, and if they've rounded the horns, they're certainly entitled to it.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Sorry transiting the canals have become routine for you, for many they are not, all the more reason why transiting one, or rounding a horn is special.  Unless the ship is ENTIRELY full of old salty dogs, then there are going to be people for whom this will be a first.  A small unscientific poll of local sailors have had ceremonies and certificates for exactly the aforementioned situations..  I certainly enjoyed my arctic crossing ceremony, and possession of the certificate will ensure I don't have to do one again (only fun the first time).  If these traditions have gone by the dodo, that's unfortunate and have only ourselves and senior personnel to blame, they're a great morale booster.  It only takes one person to care and start the movement, there's never a shortage of characters onboard to fill the requisite roles.  I know another unnamed ship is looking forward to their upcoming ceremonies.  Maybe they don't allow the earrings anymore, but the elbows on the table certainly raise some interesting discussion at the mess dinners, and if they've rounded the horns, they're certainly entitled to it.

They are definately still doing the crossing the line ceremonies for Equator and Arctic Circle. I got my Shellback status in Kootenay and then crossed as a shellback in Vancouver in 97. Never been North but a buddy of mine did it last summer and they did the ceremony. I agree that tradition is important and adds a specialness to ones' service. I'm sure they'll do something special for the whole thing as this is the first time a Canadian ship has circumnavigated Africa in recent memory if not ever.
Cheers

 

[SoF]

Well thats one less Frigate for me to be posted to

 

[Sub_Guy]

Well thats one less Frigate for me to be posted to

Oh you can still be posted to the Toronto, just because its gone having fun, doesn't mean that you won't get posted to her. 

 

[PO2FinClk]

I got my Shellback status in Kootenay...

Did you sail the Horn in Kootenay in 95?

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Did you sail the Horn in Kootenay in 95?

Nope...Kootenay 79-81....did Westploy 81 to Phillipines, singapore, Hong Kong et al.

 

[FSTO]

Did you sail the Horn in Kootenay in 95?

I sailed in her. I have a picture of me with a foggy coastline (its Cape Horn, honest!) in the background.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

This in the local rag this am....disclaimers and all that

Navy has high-seas mayhem in sights

Commander sees terrorism, modern-day piracy on the rise

By MURRAY BREWSTER The Canadian Press


OTTAWA — The Canadian navy needs to learn how to fight terrorists and pirates, says the top commander.

As the army has been forced to fight a brutal counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan, Vice-Admiral Drew Robertson says the navy must prepare itself for conflicts where "threats are what-ever your imagination can conceive."

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Robertson said an attack on an Israeli warship last year was the wake-up call.

Most of the 80 crew members of the Israeli corvette Ahi-Hanit were having dinner below deck on a sweltering, sleepy Friday evening 14 months ago when — seemingly out of nowhere — a Chinese-designed sea-hugging missile slammed into the warship’s helicopter deck.

The explosion and fire killed four sailors, but the shock waves of the surprise attack by Hezbollah could be felt well beyond the waters of Lebanon.

It was the nightmare scenario that had kept commanders in established navies all over the world awake at nights.

"Here we have a group that’s not a nation, armed with Mach-(speed), sea-skimming missiles," said Robertson.

"A year ago, no one had foreseen the idea that weapons of that kind could have proliferated to a non-state actor."

Sophisticated armaments in the hands of violent militias and even terrorist organizations represent the biggest emerging threat not only to navies, but to merchant shipping as well, say experts in maritime warfare.

Hezbollah fired three radar-guided shore-to-sea C-802 missiles that day. One exploded just after takeoff, the second struck the Ahi-Hanit and the third exploded and sank a Cambodian-flagged cargo ship. The high-tech weapons, with a range of 120 kilometres, were apparently supplied by Iran.

In case anyone believed the July 14, 2006, missile strike was a fluke, or even a lucky shot in the dark, U.S. intelligence agencies recently reported that the Shiite militia in Lebanon was boasting openly that it had tripled its store of Iranian-built C-802 missiles.

The threat of seaborne terrorism came brutally into focus in October 2000 with the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole as it sat in berth in the port of Aden, Yemen.

The suicide bombing killed 17 American sailors, but it was carried out with a relatively unsophisticated speed boat packed with explosives.

Rob Huebert, a defence analyst, says Hezbollah’s landmark attack heralded a new and more dangerous age of maritime warfare.

"Most of the anti-missile capability our frigates and destroyers have is predicated on shots being taken at them by enemies who are over the horizon. But what happens when you get small vessels within sight — or even disguised?" he said.

"I’m thinking of a scenario where you’ve got all of these little Iranian speedboats and all of a sudden everyone on cue stands up and lets loose with small, cheap missiles. Can you overwhelm the system with numbers?"

Huebert said defence planners will have to pay more attention to so-called close-in weapons systems.

"It’s going to be challenging to meet that kind of threat," said Huebert, a University of Calgary conflict studies professor.

Robertson said that from a planning point of view the navy can do that by setting to sea with the "right mixture of surface ships and submarines."

Beyond the hardware, said Dan Middlemiss of Dalhousie University, improvements in naval intelligence will be needed.

"You work with your allies to know where this stuff is and where it’s going."

There is already a strong network to track weapons of mass destruction, but Middlemiss said NATO and other Western allies may need to extend those intelligence-gathering efforts to "lesser weapons."

In the Ahi-Hanit incident, Israeli commanders blamed the crew for not being vigilant. But there were lingering questions about why the country’s extensive and high-tech intelligence network didn’t pick up the existence of the missiles beforehand.

Just as pressing a concern is a perceived increase in high-seas piracy, especially in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

A series of well-timed precise attacks on container ships in crowded shipping lanes could lead to economic chaos in countries, such as Canada, that depend on maritime trade.

A month ago pirates seized a vessel chartered by the United Nations World Food Program off eastern Africa.

"Piracy is enabled by the current state of the government in Somalia," said Robertson. "You’ve got pirates operating in a relatively unsophisticated manner in those calm waters of the tropics (and) they’ve been able to have quite an effect."

He said NATO recognized the menace a few years ago and recently dispatched a multinational task force to cruise the waters off the Horn of Africa.

Halifax-based HMCS Toronto is part of that fleet.

 

[Bigrex]

Being part of the upper deck defense force, a relatively new requirement for all ships when transiting though dangerous choke points, and having gone through the Suez on several occasions as well, including on the Toronto in 98, it is not a fun event. Maybe 20-30 years ago, yes, but in todays world where everyone is a potential enemy, being trapped in such a narrow passage for so long is extremely nerve wracking. There is no fanfare or ceremonies to speak of, but there are 50. cals loaded and upper deck sentries with C7s. But seeing as when I did my transits, like most sailors for the last decade or so, it was transiting to or from a conflict zone, so our experience might be slightly different than what this crew may encounter. The horn will likely be the same, as along the coast of Africa are high activity areas for pirates, thus the anti-pirating exercise. During my 11 years of sea time, most of the port visits were good, but with this historical trip, they will most likely be 1-2 day stops, with cocktail party every night, which are not very fun for the crew. I remember a few trips where we were standing the normal 1 in 5 watch rotation, but the day before your duty watch, you had to standby for tours and then work the party that night. I had to work the Canada Day party while in Toronto during a namesake city visit, finally getting to bed around 3AM after the cleanup, just to be on the brow as QM for the forenoon watch, not fun. Personally, if I was still in, this wouldn't be a trip i would volunteering for, leave it for the young'ns.