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News NOVEMBER
Pant 4 of our centenary supplement inside
ROYAL Navy submarines helped launch the global war against terrorism with cruise missile attacks on terrorist targets in Afghanistan.
£1.00
China comes in from the cold n18
Futuresub: inside the Astute-class
RN submarines
2001
on the Taliban with Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles
But as Navy News went to
press, it was business as usual for the rest of the task group
engaged in Exercise Saif Sareea in Oman, although there was mounting speculation in the press that elements
might be switched to operational duties as the campaign developed. Nuclear attack submarines HMS Trafalgar and HMS Superb, part of the Exercise Argonaut deployment which left Britain in August, were detached from the
exercises in the Middle East to join the initial onslaught on October 78. Joining them was HMS Triumph which, like her T-boat sister, is equipped with Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. Since then the submarines have
joined one more strike, on the night of October 12-13, when the two T-boats again fired an unspecified number of cruise missiles. The indications are that a new phase of the campaign has begun, with the Americans announcing that ground troops - including special forces - have been deployed in Afghanistan. The Tomahawk system was first test-fired by the Royal Navy from HMS Splendid in November 1998, and was fired operationally in the Kosovo campaign in 1999. The missile is capable of delivering a warhead with pinpoint accuracy to a selected target hundreds of miles away, giving the Navy's submarines a new tactical capability. Launched from a torpedo tube while the submarine is submerged, the missile flies at high, but subsonic speeds, presenting a low radar signature, and navigates to its target using the satellite Global
Positioning System and the Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation system.Targcting data can be transmitted from Fleet Headquarters at Northwood to a submarine anywhere in the world via satellite links. There has been no change in plan for the 23,000 troops - including Royal Marines of 40 and 45 Commandos - or the remainder of the 24 units involved in Saif Sareea, and the umbrella maritime deployment, Exercise Argonaut 2001, is scheduled to end as planned when the vessels return to the UK before Christmas. U A families page has been established on the Royal Navy/Royal Marines website which will draw together the latest information from Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy sources on Exercise Saif Sareea and events in the Middle East. This facility is also available on the HIVE Internet sites. The website is at www.royalnavy.mod.uk/refercncc
• Left: Royal Marines from 45 Commando test fire their .Sin Browning machine guns during Exercise Saif Sareea in Oman. Above: 40 Cdo fly in from HMS Ocean. Pictures: PO(Phot) sieve Lewis
BUILD-UP IN THE MIDDLE EAST p8, 9, 23 • TRINCOMALEE RESTORED p44