Royal Navy's smallest ships having a big impact on Exercise Tamber Shield in Norway
Some of the smallest ships in the Royal Navy have been upping their operational capability on exercise in Norway.
Four of the fleet’s P2000 vessels have been taking part in Exercise Tamber Shield to enhance the Navy's ability to help provide maritime security for the UK and its allies.
HMS Biter, HMS Trumpeter, HMS Exploit and HMS Blazer are some of the Royal Navy’s fast training boats and are primarily used for officer training and seamanship.
On Exercise Tamber Shield they have been operating with the Wildcat helicopters of 815 Naval Air Squadron and the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Skjold-class Corvettes to develop the effectiveness of the ships and their crews.
The exercise was a giant game of hide-and-seek along the Norwegian coastline, with these small nimble ships showing what Royal Navy's Coastal Forces Squadron can offer on deployment.
Lieutenant Sophie Tulloch, the commanding officer of HMS Biter, said: "For us it's very much a real-life scenario in terms of operating in a new area out of our comfort zone far away from home.
"Some of the challenges for the exercise for HMS Biter is probably maintaining good communication with the aircraft.
"Safely navigating ourselves up the fjord due to the topography, we are able to get quite close to the shoreline while remaining in very deep water.
"The P2000 is quite suitable for the environment they were operating in, but we're also being able to identify lots of areas where small amounts of change can make a massive difference.
"Our biggest asset is definitely our people as we're quite small team were able to constantly discuss problems and come up with new ideas.
"Everyone brings a different skill set to the table, so it's just identifying what everyone skill sets are and moving forward with that to battle any challenges that we face."
The vessels and their crews were developing the fast boat operations and supporting their Royal Navy colleagues and allies around the UK and northwest Europe.
This exercise sees the ships and sailors of the Coastal Forces Squadron going back to their roots.
Able Rate Bailey Jackson said: "Operationally we can get into a lot smaller places deeper into the fjords than the frigates and [Type] 45s can get in there.
"So we can actually go out deploy units to the ground aiding towards the operational capability.
"We have got a couple of extra personnel on board – it gives them training into what the Navy is like and how we can impact the operation going forward."
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