US, Australian Boarding Teams Conduct Joint Training for Deep Sabre II: "U.S. and Australian forces conducted a joint training exercise in the South China Sea Oct. 29 to sharpen their ship-boarding skills and enhance the two countries' interoperability.
Boarding teams from the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and the Australian patrol boat HMAS Bundaberg (ACPB 91) joined a maritime law enforcement/force protection team from U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team San Diego (91109) to conduct a sweep of a suspect vessel.
Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS Walter S. Diehl (T-AO 193) served as the staging vessel for the exercise.
The Fitzgerald visit, board, search and seizure team and the Coast Guard team disembarked a rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB), boarded Diehl and began conducting a security sweep of the weather decks and the bridge.
The Australians disembarked a second RHIB and joined their U.S. counterparts on deck. The joint team swept the engineering spaces and located mock weapons and hazardous materials found in topside connex boxes.
The exercise concluded with the two countries' teams comparing notes and reviewing the day's events."
