Navies of the US, the UK, Australia and France have successfully conducted the multilateral maritime exercise Unified Trident in the international waters of the Persian Gulf.
Unified Trident demonstrated the successful integration and interoperability between the British Royal Navy, the US Navy and Coast Guard, the Royal Australian Navy and French Marine Nationale.
The exercise was led by the Royal Navy and enabled the naval forces to gain knowledge of every form of maritime operations, and strengthen relationships with partners and allies.
Maintaining readiness, enhancing cooperation and ensuring free flow of commerce were also highlighted as key objectives.
The exercise involved more than 15 ships and several aircraft from across the four navies, and included a gunnery exercise designed to maintain sailors' readiness with on-board weapon systems.
An additional combined anti-submarine exercise was conducted, which involved simulating and overcoming realistic submarine threats, as well as an air-defence exercise to increase proficiency in air and missile defence of the Arabian Gulf.
Commander Task Force (CTF) 50 Royal Navy commodore Andrew Burns said: "This exercise will further develop the way a multinational [naval force] could be generated against threats against the free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation.
"It's really important we continue to [take advantage of] the opportunity to demonstrate how effective we are when we do work together."
The multilateral exercise involved all task forces of the US Naval Forces Central Command and was led by CTF 50 flagship, the Royal Navy’s amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean (L12).
