Greenwood role expands in ’25 ex
14 Wing Greenwood participated in Canadian Fleet Atlantic’s bi-annual, multi-national anti-submarine warfare Exercise CUTLASS FURY 2025 (Ex CF25) June 9 to 18.
When we say “14 Wing Greenwood,” we mean it: while almost all personnel in the secure operations zone directly participated, with aircrews alone involving over 80 members; a major, in-house exercise such as Ex CF25 involves Military Police, Accommodations, Food Services, Pass Control, ground technicians, logistics and operations support – even the base gym provided visiting allies access for downtime exercise.
“We don’t host a lot of domestic, multi-national exercises. I’m glad to see involvement in this one from the whole wing,” says Captain Cédric Arseneau, deputy liaison officer for Ex CF25. Coordinating multi-asset, multi-national scenarios of this scale requires a great deal of effort, and Ex CF25’s success belongs to the entire 14 Wing team.
“It’s been challenging – very busy on all sides, compared to routine operations on the wing. For how many moving pieces there are, I’ve been very satisfied with how well the exercise has unfolded.”
Unique, complex tasks test allies’ readiness
Strengthening interoperability between the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), the United States Navy (USN), the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Danish Navy (RDN), in a variety of multi-threat operational scenarios, Ex CF25 showcased the expertise, capabilities and warfighting skills of Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) aviators, sailors and soldiers.
The focus of this year’s exercise? Tactical level anti-submarine warfare, with one of the two primary scenarios tasking aircrews to find and track the evasive USS Albany submarine.
“The second type of scenario involved broader collaboration between long range patrol (LRP) aircraft and the surface fleet,” says Arseneau. “The USS Albany was tasked with engaging the fleet with a high value unit (HVU) as its primary target. The task group would then aim to protect the HVU from the submarine through a series of fleet manoeuvres and containment tactics from the LRP aircrafts involved.
“It was excellent training for the crew, maximizing crew effectiveness for accomplishing those tasks.”
Dramatic change in the global warfare domain in recent years demands the practice of increasingly unique, high-tempo warfare scenarios with international partners across air, land and sea.
“We’re really excited to be able to train with the RAF,” says Arseneau. 14 Wing crews trained alongside the RAF’s P8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, as the RCAF looks to its own P8 transition in the next few years. The RAF invited 14 Wing crews along for familiarization flights, providing an opportunity for Greenwood members to experience the P8 from an ally’s perspective, and then share their newly-acquired knowledge with peers.
“It was a great opportunity to have that real-time interaction with the RAF as PAX (passengers),” says Arseneau. “The 14 Wing PAX were ready to absorb all the lessons learned for their particular trade; to soak in as much of the formation as possible to see how our allies do business, and how it differs from our standing procedures.”
Aurora crews then returned the experience, taking RAF crews aboard the RCAF legacy aircraft.
“I think they were really impressed by the capabilities we retain on an aging aircraft, and our aircrew’s proficiency – in their individual roles and as a team achieving the mission.”
Many of the RAF members had never before flown on the Aurora, and the skills 14 Wing members showcased demonstrate why Canada is such a strong and reliable defence partner for its allies.
Professional prep, put into practice
While Greenwood’s skills in the air made an impression on Canada’s allies, a big part of the exercise also involved the ground planning, coordination and debrief before and after serials.
“We’re able to have discussions as the ex unfolds,” says Arseneau. “During these mission briefs, our allies were very impressed with the package our mission support personnel put together and how it’s delivered on the ground.”
Indeed, discussions on the ground play a huge role in helping the CAF and its allies learn from each other and fine-tune current procedures.
“The little things that we could be doing different end up having a great impact on accomplishing the mission,” says Arseneau.
Blending the new, the virtual and the real with SAR inject
New to this CF iteration was 413 (Transport and Rescue) Squadron’s involvement: what if, during an international mission, or if our allies need help, search, rescue and transport support was needed?
“This year was a huge opportunity to do an integrated, joint SAR exercise,” says 413 Squadron Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Norris. “There were so many cool things: the scenario we set, the use of Greenwood’s virtual trainer with a live Aurora crew, with a live connection from them to the live ex: the Navy saw the virtual scenario as a real Aurora ditch, and that kicked off the exercise.”
413 Squadron prepped for its role with test ocean drops of mannequins in the days ahead of Ex CF25, checking how well they’d fare hitting the water. During the ex scenario, they dropped 20 mannequins to create real search objects for Navy and air partners reacting to the virtual scenario being fed to them from the trainer back in Greenwood.
“They found all 20 – so, a positive.”
413 crews also responded, flying from Greenwood to the off-shore scene and lowering three SAR-Techs to the MV Asterix, a Canadian Naval fleet replenishment vessel that also has a hospital role. Twenty simulated plane crash victims would overwhelm the Asterix’s capabilities, but SAR-Techs come in as trained paramedics, with additional equipment, and can boost that support.
All of that happened under the on-scene command of a British P8 crew: so, long range patrol language and experience, translating to support search, rescue and transport efforts between international partners; further demonstrating to RCAF Aurora crews what they can look forward to with P8 capabilities.
With files from Sara White
