Group Arabian Sea Warfare Exercise Held Under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command

WASHINGTON, USA — The video of American, Belgian, French, and Japanese naval forces participating in the Group Arabian Sea Warfare Exercise 2021 was shared on March 19.

The video with the multilateral maritime exercise was conducted in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman, Asia.

As per the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, this exercise provides a unique opportunity for participating forces enhancing mutual interoperability and capabilities in maritime security, anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare anti-submarine warfare operations.

“By cooperatively training together, exercises like this allow participating naval forces to effectively develop the necessary skills to address threats to regional security, freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce,” wrote the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in a press statement.

“This is one of many exercises in which the U.S. military participates with partner nations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility each year intended to enhance partnerships and interoperability,” the statement said.

Members include a variety of ships and aircraft equipment from the French Charles De Gaulle carrier strike group, auxiliary ship F.S. Var (A 608), frigates FS Provence (D 652) and FS Chevalier Paul (D 621), Belgian frigate BNS Leopold I (F 930), and Japanese destroyer J.S. Ariake (DD 109).

The U.S. Navy shared images of the exercise on their Facebook page, writing, “Enhancing mutual maritime interoperability and capabilities, France, Belgium, Japan, and the U.S. participate in Group Arabian Sea Warfare Exercise.”

U.S. forces include the Makin Island amphibious ready group (ARG) with embarked 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal (C.G. 73), and various aircraft as well as F-35, P-8, MH-60, Air Force F-16s, E-3, and tankers.

The multilateral maritime exercise was conducted in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman, Asia. (DVIDS/Clipzilla)

The U.S. Navy’s research department also conducted airborne research last month in Homer, Alaska, along with the Ocean and Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate and the Scientific Development Squadron (VXS) 1’s UV-18 Twin Otter.

The team’s objective was to measure bubbles using lidar, a laser system for measuring ocean properties. Improved understanding of bubble fields has many applications, including radiance, surface properties, and the ocean’s surface characterization.

“We are characterizing bubble fields to help better predict the ocean environment for Navy operations,” said Damien Josset, Ph.D., an NRL oceanographer and principal investigator of the project who conducted the experiments onboard the Twin Otter in a press statement.

Quantifying the oceanic whitecaps and subsurface bubbles is vital to the Navy’s oceanographic models to characterize the ocean environment’s long-term evolution because bubbles are the primary way the atmosphere and oceans exchange heat, momentum, and gas.

Current remote sensing techniques for ocean research rely primarily on passive observations at different wavelengths, including visible, infrared, and microwave, to estimate water-leaving radiance and surface properties, such as sea surface temperature, salinity, and wind.

“Lidar is fundamentally different because visible light penetrates well into the water body, and it has the unique capability to provide a vertical profile of ocean properties,” Josset said.

NRL’s lidar system consists of a self-contained unit installed in a weatherproof enclosure, designed to be mounted on the Twin Otter’s research compartment with the laser pointed down into the water.

(Edited by Ojaswin Kathuria and Vaibhav Vishwanath Pawar.)



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