It was not much longer than 12 hours after the British Military Sealift Vessel Hurst Point had sailed from Durban when, on 21 September at 10:00 in the morning, the Danish Military Sealift Vessel Ark Germania (IMO 9609952) arrived off the Durban Bluff, from Kochi in India.
She was kept off port limits for just under two hours, and at midday she entered Durban harbour, proceeding to her assigned berth for what was expected to be a short call for bunkers only.
Built in 2014 by P+S Werften Stralsund GmbH at Stralsund in Germany, Ark Germania is 196 metres in length and has a gross registered tonnage of 33 313 tons. She is powered by two MAN-B&W 8S40ME-B9 eight cylinder, two stroke, main engines producing a total of 24 690 bhp (18 160 kW), and driving two controllable pitch propellers for a service speed of 15 knots, but a capability, when required, to reach a maximum sea speed of 20 knots.
Her auxiliary machinery includes three MAN Holeby 7L16/24 generators providing 700 kW each. For added manoeuvrability she has two bow transverse thrusters providing 1 300 kW each. She has a container carrying capacity of 342 TEU, and has deck plugs for 100 Reefers. For operations to ports which cannot provide crane infrastructure Ark Germania has a port side mounted crane which has a lifting capacity of 40 tons.
She is capable of loading 185 trucks and military vehicles, or up to 250 smaller military vehicles, and her Ro-Ro traffic is loaded through three ramps, with two stern ramps, and a side ramp on her port side. She has three vehicle decks, and provides 3 000 lane metres. She has additional accommodation to carry 12 passengers, in addition to her operating crew.
She is one of two sisterships, ordered in 2010, with Ark Germania being the first to be completed, and with both vessels being built at a combined cost of €128 million (R2.45 billion). They were ordered based on a requirement for the Danish and German military authorities to have a military sealift capability.
This was based on the Prague Capabilities Commitment that was agreed in 2002. In 2003 the ARK Project was formed to operate the new military sealift capability. This joint collaboration is to ensure access and availability to maintain a sealift capacity in accordance with the NATO obligations of both Denmark and Germany.
For the nomenclature aficionado, this will answer the question as to where her name comes from. As well as Ark Germania, her sistership is named Ark Dania, thus both vessels reflect the national military authorities that form the ARK Project. The current ARK Project requires five military capable Ro-Ro vessels to be available. It allows for four of them to be operated on commercial short-sea contracts in Europe, with an availability to the military of between 15 days and 60 days, and one to be available for near immediate military use.
The five vessels in the ARK Project, including Ark Germania, are all owned by DFDS AS of Copenhagen in Denmark, operated by DFDS Seaways AS, and managed by DFDS Logistics Rederi AS, both of Copenhagen. The company name is an abbreviation of Det Forenede Dampskibs Selskab, which translates as The United Steamship Company. DFDS was founded in 1866, when C.F. Tietgen merged three of the largest steamship companies that were operating in Denmark. Today DFDS concentrates on Ro-Ro freight, and passenger, traffic in the English Channel, North Sea and Baltic Sea.
The ARK Project vessels are also available for use by any NATO or EU Force for military sealift requirements anywhere in the world. Use of the military sealift vessels is managed through the Movement Co-Ordination Centre Europe (MCCE), based in Eindhoven in Holland. As a result of recent AUKUS agreements, the MCCE also allows for ARK Project vessels to be utilised by the military authorities of both Australia and New Zealand. The ARK Project have also been called on to provide a military sealift capability for humanitarian missions, and were responsible for the Danish led UN mission to provide medical assistance during the Ebola crisis in East Africa.
The stay of Ark Germania in Durban was, as expected, a short one to allow for only an uplift of bunkers, stores and fresh provision. After just seven, short, hours alongside she was ready to sail and, at 19:00 in the evening of 21 September, Ark Germania sailed from Durban, with her AIS showing that her next destination was to be A Coruña in Northern Spain. The questions as to why an ARK Project military sealift vessel had arrived from India, and was sailing to Spain, can be answered by a look at her voyage since she had left Europe, back in April this year.
On 17 April Ark Germania sailed from Emden in Germany, bound for Los Angeles in the US State of California, which in itself is an unusual route for a DFDS Ro-Ro vessel. After a short call at Los Angeles she sailed on 24 May for Anchorage in the US State of Alaska, where she arrived on 31 May. From there she sailed to Darwin in the Australian Northern Territory, arriving on 21 June, and then sailed to Kochi in India where she arrived on 9 July. The question is what links all of these disparate ports together, separated by thousands of miles, in terms of a possible military sealift requirement.
In July, Exercise Arctic Defender took place out of Elmendorf Air Force Base, located just outside Anchorage in Alaska. This exercise was conducted by the Air Forces of the USA, Germany, France, Spain and Canada, and was a NATO Article 5 exercise. For those not aware of what NATO Article 5 is about, it commits each NATO member state to consider an armed attack against any one member state, to be an armed attack against them all, and all will respond in defence of the nation being attacked. The message of the exercise will have sent a very strong signal to Russia, located just 85 kilometres across the Bering Strait from Alaska.
As well as a massive USAF component, it included 12 Tornado, 12 Typhoon, and 4 Rafale fighters from the three European Air Forces, supported by nine A400M transport aircraft, seven A330 air to air refuelling tankers, and four Special Forces helicopters. Ammunition and logistical support equipment for Exercise Arctic Defender was offloaded in Anchorage by Ark Germania.
This was followed by Exercise Pitch Black, which took place through late July into early August, and was carried out of Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin, and two other RAAF bases, and included aircraft from Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Singapore and the UK. This exercise linked to the ground based exercises that RFA Argus A135, recently in Cape Town, was supporting in the same area with the Marines of the Australia, USA, UK and the Philippines.
Finally, in mid-August, Exercise Tarang Shakti 1 took place out of Indian Air Force Base Sular, which is located inland from Kochi. This was a huge exercise and included aircraft from the Air Forces of India, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, the UK, Australia, Japan, Singapore, the UAE and Sri Lanka. India made it known that only ‘friendly nations’ were invited to participate. The second Exercise Tarang Shakti included Air Forces from Australia and the USA added to the list.
Thus the voyage itinerary of Ark Germania followed all of these military exercises, which included not only NATO forces, but those of those nations who are openly wary of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian, sabre rattling in the Indo-Pacific region. Together with the Article 5 exercise, a very strong message is being sent to all of these nations, and despite BRICS, it is notable that neither Russian nor China was invited to participate in India.
Whilst these exercises were notably for the Land and Air Forces, at the same time Exercise Noble Raven took place in the South China Sea. This was a naval exercise and included warships from the USA, Australia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy. The purpose of the exercise was to enforce the premise of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’. Again, it was clear who the message was aimed at.
To reinforce the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ message, in late August the USN Arleigh Burke Destroyer USS Ralph Johnson DDG-115 made a public transit of the Taiwan Strait, followed two weeks later by two warships of the German Navy, FGS Baden-Württemberg F222 and FGS Frankfurt-am-Main A1412 who also made a public transit of the Taiwan Strait.
This was followed one week later by a destroyer of the Japanese Navy JMSDF Sazanami DD-113, the first time that a JMSDF warship has made such a transit since the end of the Second World War. Finally, just one day after the JMSDF warship completed her transit, two warships from the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Navy, HMAS Sydney DDG-42 and HMNZS Endeavour A11 made their open transit of the Taiwan Strait.
The deliberate transit of the six warships over the period of one month was a clear signal to China that the transits of the Taiwan Strait, at up to 100 kilometres in width, follows the rule of law regarding free navigation in international waters, which forms the central tenet of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’. It also included an air transit of the Taiwan Strait by a US Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft which, not unsurprisingly, was buzzed by fighters of the PLAAF.
As for Ark Germania, her call at Kochi in July was only her first, as she then sailed back to Singapore for R&R and a bunkers uplift, before sailing back to Anchorage, where she arrived on 7 August to backload her Exercise Arctic Defender cargo, then headed back to Darwin, where she arrived on 28 August and backloaded her Exercise Pitch Black cargo, before once more sailing to Kochi, where she arrived on 11 September, and backloaded her Exercise Tarang Shakti 1 cargo, before beginning her voyage back to Europe, via her bunker call at Durban.
It is expected that Ark Germania will discharge some of her Spanish Air Force cargo on arrival at A Coruña, before possibly calling next at a French port, or simply continuing on to Germany to complete her voyage.
Written by Jay Gates for Africa Ports & Ships and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.
