ARCS in Asia Piracy Exercise

Admiralty Raster Charts covering the Singapore and Malacca Straits have been electronically customised by the UK Hydrographic Office for use in NATO exercise Multi National NCAGS Exercise 05. This took place in late September, aimed at responding to the threat of piracy, robbery and terrorism in the Far East. The bespoke electronic charts are on CD, taken from data extracted from ARCS and were used by 140 players in three ‘playrooms’ sited in Norway, Denmark and Brest. The exercise, which involved plotting incidents electronically and planning and orchestrating a response, were monitored from Stavanger in Norway by senior officers who stepped in when the action slowed down in one of the sites. Chief players in the exercise were Norway, Denmark and France. Other countries taking part were Poland, Germany and the UK. The CDs would be of great benefit to auxiliary command centres like logistics and Naval Co-ordination and Guidance To Shipping (NCAGS) cells, complementing the Navy’s sophisticated main operation and planning system, known as ‘Henry’. The bespoke software would also enable Commanders to make faster decisions because they would have instant access to a chart via a laptop, better situational awareness and could monitor the operation more effectively without having to resort to paper charts or contacting the operations room.