{"id":469,"date":"2015-10-20T12:36:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T12:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=469"},"modified":"2015-10-20T12:36:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T12:36:59","slug":"hms-defender-deploys-to-middle-east-on-security-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2015\/10\/20\/hms-defender-deploys-to-middle-east-on-security-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"HMS DEFENDER DEPLOYS TO MIDDLE EAST ON SECURITY OPERATIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HMS<\/a><\/p>\n

Crowds of family and friends gathered along the shoreline in Old Portsmouth to wave farewell to the 190 crew, as they left their home port, to take over from sister ship HMS Duncan and spend nine months working with allies in the Middle East and Gulf.<\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s role will be to safeguard the seas and promote UK interests in the region by acting as a deterrent to illegal activities, protecting allied and merchant shipping and helping ensure that global trade can proceed without a hitch.<\/p>\n

HMS Defender\u2019s Commanding Officer, Commander Stephen Higham, said: \u201cDefender\u2019s hard work and commitment over the past six months has enabled the ship to be in a position to deploy again less than a year after returning home from her maiden deployment.<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWe are ready to undertake missions across the military spectrum ranging from counter piracy and disaster relief to defence engagement and high-intensity war fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be working closely with our coalition partners and allies and playing a key role in promoting Britain\u2019s interests overseas and keeping our country safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading Hand Timothy Scrivener, HMS Defender\u2019s Physical Training Instructor, said: \u201cI am looking forward to the deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough nine months is a long time to be away we know that the work the ship is doing is important and helps keep the country and our families at home safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited about my role on-board, which is helping to keep the ship\u2019s company fit and healthy throughout the deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n

HMS Defender is primarily designed to work as part of a carrier task group using her highly sophisticated radars and Sea Viper missile system to protect the carrier from attack by tracking and engaging several aircraft and missile targets at very high speed.<\/p>\n

In addition Defender acts as a floating base for a Royal Navy Lynx Mark 8 maritime attack helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, Somerset.<\/p>\n

The Lynx can hunt submarines and surface ships, act in a search and rescue role and offers force protection to the ship.<\/p>\n

HMS Defender will also carry both Royal Navy and Royal Marine boarding parties which can help to counter the threat from pirates, terrorists and smugglers.<\/p>\n

Image Sourced: Royal Navy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crowds of family and friends gathered along the shoreline in Old Portsmouth to wave farewell to the 190 crew, as they left their home port, to take over from sister ship HMS Duncan and spend nine months working with allies in the Middle East and Gulf. The ship\u2019s role will be to safeguard the seas… Continue reading HMS DEFENDER DEPLOYS TO MIDDLE EAST ON SECURITY OPERATIONS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[33,166,168,44,167,43],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-watch","tag-dcss-news","tag-hms-defender","tag-hms-duncan","tag-royal-marine","tag-royal-naval-air-station-yeovilton","tag-royal-navy","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":472,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}