Practise Makes Perfect!

It is good to have maritime warfare exercise with foreign armed forces and during the week before Merdeka the Royal Malaysian Navy and the Royal Australian Navy conducted a combined maritime warfare exercise in the Malacca Straits called MASTEX 7/2009 . Malaysian navy ships KD Lekiu, KD Laksamana Hang Nadim and KD Mutiara joins their Australian counterparts Adelaide Class Frigate HMAS Darwin and Replenishment ship HMAS Success for the week long exercises. According the Joint Press Release by FOC RMN,this exercise is conducted annually and in this year it will start at Lumut Naval Base, for the Harbour Phase and the Closing Phase will be conducted in Port Klang. Last year it was held in the waters off Darwin Australia with the Adelaide Class Frigate HMAS Melbourne with an embarked Seahawk helicopter and Armidale Class Patrol Boat HMAS Maryborough, alongside Royal Malaysian Navy ship KD Jebat with a Super Lynx helicopter.

The bilateral exercise will provide the opportunity for both maritime powers to improve their interoperability and mutual understanding in common aspects of naval warfare. HMAS Darwin will also demonstrate the Royal Australian Navy's damage control and fire-fighting lessons learnt from recent work-ups and operational deployments. It is hoped by jointly practising maritime security exercises and anti-surface, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare techniques, the Navies of Malaysia and Australia will improve their effectiveness for any common taskings in the future.