Gidget Fuentes – December 2, 2024 6:01 PM
Sailor observes as the Canadian Halifax-class frigate HMCS Regina (FFH-334) transits San Francisco Bay as part of a Parade of Ships evolution during San Francisco Fleet Week 2024, Oct. 10, 2024. US Navy Photo
NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The Canadian warship HMCS Regina (FFH-334) visited California last month for something of a sailor’s ideal day: Killing a target at sea.
The crew did just that, albeit on the second try.
The Halifax-class frigate fired a Harpoon Block II anti-ship missile at a surface target in the Navy’s Point Mugu Sea Range off the California coast Oct. 23 during a U.S. Navy Joint Littoral Targeting Exercise 2024, Canadian Armed Forces announced last month.
The initial strike, though, didn’t exactly go as planned. The missile lost communication with the intruments that measure the . “Without getting into too many of the technical details, there was an issue with the first missile,” the frigate’s commander, Cmdr. Jeremy Samson, told Canadian TV on Oct. 24. “When you fire a missile on a range, there are safety procedures to make sure the missile is doing what it’s supposed to, and losing that communication can cause you to order the missile to destruct.”
Sea range operators tracking the missile terminated its flight less than a minute after Regina launched the Harpoon, Royal Canadian Navy officials confirmed to USNI. A second Harpoon II missile launched and flew without issue and successfully struck the target, officials said.
“HMCS Regina’s crew were well prepared for this possibility. Live-fire naval exercises are partially conducted to test a warship’s adaptability to changing circumstances,” Commodore David Mazur, the Canadian Fleet Pacific commander, told USNI in an email response to questions about the missile exercise. “After the destruction of the first missile, HMCS Regina’s combat team rapidly launched a follow-on missile that successfully reached its target.”
“Safety is paramount during any military live-fire exercise, with communications with the missile and range facility verified before launch,” Mazur said. “If communication is lost – even temporarily, and for any reason – the range will terminate the missile in flight. In this case, the range lost tracking of the missile about 15 seconds after launch and immediately initiated the Command Destruct process.”
The scenario-driven exercise put the crew, along with embarked fleet staff, through the paces of coordinating with their joint U.S. counterparts through the processes from identifying threats and targets, developing targeting packages and doing the actual strike mission in the Navy’s instrumented sea range.
“These exercises allow Canada’s ships and sailors to advance important skills under immersive conditions,” Mazur noted.
The live-firing drill wasn’t just about killing the target. Rather, it focused on “tactical development” and training the crew and commanders on current threats at sea, officers said.
The ship’s RGM-84 Harpoon Block II missile “can fire surface-to-surface, but it can also do surface-to-shore. We’re testing out some capability and targeting processes for Canada and to respond to a situation that you might see like what’s going on in Ukraine right now,” Mazur said during an interview last month aboard the 440-foot patrol frigate at the San Diego 32nd Street naval station. “So we’re trying to push the envelope.”
In training with the U.S. Navy to hone the ship’s strike capability, Regina sailors and Mazur’s command staff worked through the intricate details, planning and processes at the tactical and operational level that a live-fire strike at sea requires.
“It’s the development of the intelligence pictures, the development of the situational awareness that gets you to the point where you can say, ‘I’m in danger and I need to shoot at something.’ We don’t practice that very often,” he said. Regina fired a Harpoon during a 2020 Rim of the Pacific sinking exercise.
The targeting enterprise, he added, was “the very first time we’ve done it in this depth, using our operational headquarters, going all the way up to our strategic headquarters.”
Regina operated on the Point Mugu range and responded to the threat with two other Canadian ships in the navy’s simulated live, virtual and constructive environment.
“So we’re doing it all up on our own,” Mazur said, “and that allows us to test our own chain of command without full integration and reliance on someone else’s.”
They deliberately operated closer to shore, rather than farther out to sea, Mazur explained.
“You can see how Ukraine is targeting things in the Black Sea. We have focused mainly on, I would say, the very tactical level. There’s a box ashore and the ship gets an order and fire[s] at the box ashore,” the commodore said. “We’ve done those kinds of shots and we fired at sea during [Rim of the Pacific exercises] and other things where the ship develops its own picture with an aircraft and shoots.”
It’s historically rare for an RCN frigate crew to fire live Harpoon missiles. HMCS Vancouver (FFH-331) did the previous run during the summer’s Rim of the Pacific exercise, Mazur said. “We’ve never really done the complexities of littoral and targeting” that involve the complex coalition environment with aircraft, artillery, forces ashore and friendly shipping in the mix, he said.
“We learn something new every time, particularly how to be more interoperable with more partners,” said Cmdr. Tyler Smith, a missile exercise planner.
The Esquimalt, British Columbia-based Regina had traveled to join in San Francisco Fleet Week activities and get equipment and communications installs for the missile exercise as the crew prepared intently for the live-fire exercise.
“We’ve been studying like crazy here,” Sub-Lt. Adam Beaupré, a junior officer aboard Regina, said a few days before the exercise. “It’ll be really awesome to see that go off.”
Regina’s crew averages 167 but nearly maxed out its berthing with 236 for the missile exercise. The crew routinely trains for missions involving humanitarian aid, disaster relief and search and rescue, said Chief Petty Officer First Class Timothy King, the senior enlisted sailor and equivalent to a command master chief.
“As we progress… we become warfighters,” King said.
Ahead of the rare live-fire missile drills, the crew focused on technical skills and the required missile readiness inspections, torpedo readiness inspections and weapons certifications.
“Harpoon, we don’t fire often,” King said. “We’re more of a support role and a first-line defense against submarines… That’s the bread and butter.”
Lt. Cmdr. George “Scott” Dyson, Regina executive officer, said the frigate is optimized for anti-submarine warfare.
“If you add us to an American task group, you get a ship that’s not so super awesome at shooting down aircraft,” Dyson said, “but we’re good at hunting and fighting submarines.”
King noted that Canadian patrol frigates routinely are invited to the Navy submarine commander’s course in Hawaii to give submarine commanders practice evading detection.
“We’re a more frustrating opponent. I mean, they still kill us all the time,” said Dyson. Los Angeles or Virginia-class U.S. submarines they encounter during training are “formidable opponents. They make us put the ship through the full envelope of its capabilities.”
While in San Francisco, Regina exchanged some crew with amphibious transport dock USS Somerset (LPD-25). The ships first met at sea while lining up with other vessels for Fleet Week’s parade of ships, an initial handshake between the bridge teams.
While trailing Somerset, “we were communicating back and forth, trying to get us off each other,” Beaupré said. “But now that I know exactly what’s going on in there, it’s just so much better. We know who’s going to talk to you, how that communication is going to go.”
Navy Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Antonio Castro, who spent some time embarked aboard Regina, said both ship crews’ seamanship skills were equally matched, a benefit if they were to meet at sea or during an underway replenishment. Somerset sailors “would adapt very, very well” if they were aboard Regina, Castro said, and vice versa. “That’s important for our relationships.”
Sailors also spent time standing watch on the other ship’s bridge.
“Now when I’m working with a Canadian warship, I know exactly what’s going on in their heads, how they’re operating, what they’re thinking,” said Lt. jg Jacob Pratt. “I think that’s very important, especially because we’ve demonstrated such a close partnership that we are going to be working with each other continuously in the future.”
Partnerships and defense
The Royal Canadian Navy’s relationships with its U.S. ally and other partners are expected to strengthen across the Indo-Pacific with continuing deployments, a defense policy update that includes more military investments in force modernization and Arctic security.
Last month, the frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH-341) deployed to support multinational sanctions against North Korea. “It’s going to be integrating with (USS) George Washington (CVN-73) and carrier battle group off Guam and the Japan area for a period of time,” Mazur said, noting that “more and more out-of-area deployers between Russia and China [are] going up towards the Arctic, doing research and training together.”
Regina and her crew are no stranger to China’s PLA Navy and its expanding influence across the Pacific.
In late July, while in the Bering Sea, the frigate encountered the Chinese research vessel Xue Long 2, one of three Chinese icebreakers routinely operating in the Arctic. Regina “was shadowing the Chinese,” Mazur said. Xue Long was reportedly part of a four-ship Chinese task force the U.S. Coast Guard cutter encountered, and it was tracked and monitored by the Royal Canadian Air Force CH-148 Cyclone helicopter embarked on Regina.
The recent Bering deployment – described in an official Facebook post as an “Arctic awareness and sovereignty mission” – was notable for another reason: In reaching the Bering Strait, Regina reached Latitude 69 degrees and became Canada’s “first West Coast frigate to cross the Arctic Circle.”
Such treks may become routine as China’s presence and Russia’s activity in the Arctic, Ukraine and in the Baltic Sea ramp up, said Mazur. “Everything’s slowly coming closer to North America, and we just have to … make sure there’s no seams between us, the U.S. Coast Guard, and [the] U.S. Navy.”
“You will see our ships continuing to deploy, at times integrating with the U.S. Navy, at times integrating with other friends and allies in the Indo-Pacific and achieving our own national objectives. You’ll see ships coming down here on a regular basis and going back up north,” he added.
The newest addition to the Pacific fleet is the HMCS Max Bernays (AOPV-432), its first Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessel, and a second OPV, the Robert Hampton Gray, will deliver “in about 18 months,” Mazur said.
The six ships in the class will do maritime, sovereignty and surveillance operations in Canadian waters, including the Arctic, according to the RCN. They also “provide a little bit of deterrence… and demonstrate we have a capability up there,” Mazur said. “We’ll build that depth of knowledge going up north, working with the U.S. Coast Guard.”
The DeWolf class “brings us a capability of a ship that has extremely long range, which frigates do not necessarily have, so you’re always having to worry about resupply and fuel and all these things, whereas our Arctic patrol vessel can go extremely long range and not need resupply,” he said. “So they will give us a capacity to transit long distances throughout the Indo-Pacific.”
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