SAS Amatola (F145), the first Valour Class frigate to be taken into SA Navy (SAN) service, is said to be at “a constabulary level of capability” and will take part in the tri-nation Exercise Ibsamar off the Cape coast starting this week.
Prior to transiting from Simon’s Town to Saldanha Bay for the exercise, she underwent mission readiness training (MRT), according to Defence and Military Veterans Minister, Angie Motshekga. She was replying to a Parliamentary question asked by Democratic Alliance (DA) National Council of Provinces (NCOP) public representative and member of the Select Committee on Security and Justice (SCSJ) Nicholas Gotsell. Among others, he wanted to know how badly SAS Amatola has deteriorated.
Ahead of MRT, Amatola conducted border safeguarding patrols under the operational auspices of Operation Corona on the west coast of South Africa from 8 to 29 August the ministerial reply reads in part.
When the India/Brazil/South Africa naval exercise ends on 16 October, Amatola will return to Simon’s Town, the frigate squadron home port, for preparation and further MRT ahead of a planned three-month patrol. The tasking, according to the Ministerial response, will be a long range piracy patrol in the Mozambique Channel identified as an Operation Copper deployment. That tasking is set down for 30 November to 28 February next year.
Operation Copper, according to the Joint Operations Division of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF), focusses on denying pirates the opportunity to operate within SADC’s (Southern African Development Community’s) Indian Ocean. Incidents in 2010 and 2011 saw South Africa approve anti-piracy operations under the codename Operation Copper with Mozambique and Tanzania.
This “anti-piracy watch”, as per Joint Operations, has seen frigates, an offshore patrol vessel in the form of a refurbished strike craft and the fleet replenishment vessel SAS Drakensberg (A301) patrol the Mozambique Channel using Pemba as a temporary home port. The SA Air Force (SAAF) committed, again as per Joint Operations, a Super Lynx maritime helicopter and a C47TP maritime patrol aircraft for Op Copper.
