The frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’ carries out a damage and control exercise in the Gulf of Cádiz

The frigate ‘Christopher Columbus’ prepares to leave the port and enter the open sea. She is towed by two small cargo ships. It is a sunny morning in May, the ocean is calm, there is hardly any wind. The ship is in a country at war. Before heading to the open sea, an anti-mine ship has verified that the chosen route is clean of any device in the sea that could explode and significantly damage the frigate. From the ship’s bridge it is checked and certified that the frigate does not leave the dredged channel, the path that the frigate must follow at all times and which has been proven to be clean of mines. The state of red mine clearance is declared, the ship’s crew must be thrown to the ground and in silence, since many mines are activated by noise.

Suddenly, From a small boat, seemingly harmless, several terrorists throw a mine into the sea so that it explodes and damages the ‘Christopher Columbus’. The crew quickly realizes the threat, they notify the bridge and the ship deviates slightly to avoid it, always without leaving the dredged channel. She opens fire on the boat that had launched the mine and it is neutralized.

The ship reaches the high seas and once the threat of the mine is overcome, everything seems to be under control. Even so, the crew is on alert even if there is any danger. Minutes pass, the atmosphere is somewhat more relaxed, but tense, they continue near the border of a country at war. It’s half past ten in the morning, it’s time for a snack. The frigate’s crew rests, just as work, speed and efficiency are important in the work within the ‘Cristóbal Colón’, it is also important to feed and hydrate, but after the calm, chaos arrives.

The radar detects the launch of a missile from an enemy ship that will hit the ‘Cristobal Colón’ in ten seconds. Start the count down. Ten, nine, eight, seven six. Through the public address system, the entire boat is notified of the imminent impact and they ask that they take extreme precautions, hold on tightly and prepare for the impact. Five, four, three, two, one… the enemy missile hits the starboard beam.

The missile has caused serious damage. The frigate has lost power, The equipment does not work, although some remain on because they have batteries. The first step is to check the condition of the boat. There is no internal communication, and the status of the frigate is notified from the bridge. The different crew teams begin to work.

Five casualties have been detected, there are five injured. One of them has serious burns, another a head injury, a sailor suffers an open fracture in her leg and another soldier has his guts open. In parallel, a fire and smoke have been detected on the frigate, and some areas of the ship are completely dark. The Central Control Chamber is in charge of taking a photograph of the state of the frigate, The areas restricted by smoke and fire are marked, the injured are located, and all the information received by the different teams is transferred, such as Health, Artillery, Energy and Propulsion, Navigation or Internal Security, among others, and is only disseminated by public address those messages that understand that the entire boat must know.

The ‘Cristobal Colón’ is damaged inside, but the danger continues outside. The boat has been left without propulsion for a few minutes, the threats persist. There may be a second attack, which is why it is important to recover the attack system. Primordial.

Various repairs are made inside the frigate, the injured are moved to a safe area through a safe evacuation route, leaking pipes are fixed, the support group puts out any fire to declare a space a safe area . Finally, after several hours that pass as quickly as if they were seconds, the frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’ overcomes the missile attack and manages to neutralize the enemy vessel.

The CEVACO Operational Qualification

The entire attack on the frigate ‘Christopher Columbus’ described above has not been real, it is a simulation of a situation that the ship may suffer during a mission in such conflictive and dangerous points of the globe as the Red Sea, the Black Sea or the outskirts of Somalia. The frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’, docked at the Rota Naval Base, has undergone a control and damage exercise in the waters of the Gulf of Cádiz, an examination of the ship’s crew in which an enemy attack is simulated, in which the frigate is put in a “stress” situation to see the response of all the personnel, analyze what things have been done well, and what They can and should be improved.

For two weeks the frigate has been carrying out the evaluations scheduled by the Center for Assessment and Support for Operational Qualification for Combat (CEVACO) of the fleet in order to be able to achieve the level of isolation and training necessary to face the different missions and tasks entrusted to it during its period in High Availability.

During the Operational Qualification (CALOP), The ship will carry out the various activities within the scope of a simulated operation in a high intensity scenario, characterized by containing threats of various kinds. In this context, the ship must undergo multiple exercises, including damage control actions, combat operations and towing or supply maneuvers at sea. In this way, for six weeks, the frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’ will try to obtain level A1 certification, the maximum required for a Navy warship.

He Commander of CEVACO Mr. Juan Carlos Gamundi Fernández explains that CALOP is “in general an audit or examination of a ship through inspections or exercises for the different tasks for which we are preparing them.” They analyze “the organization, the material and that the staff is prepared for any situation.”

The CALOP has a duration that varies depending on the type of ship, “on a large one like this (frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’) they last up to six weeks”, although on other smaller vessels the exercises end earlier.

In the control and damage exercise that the ship has undergone and that was described previously “we have designed a fictitious scenario but that resembles a real situation in which there is a threat of mines at the exit of the Base port, it has had “There is also the threat of a drone attack and a missile attack has been simulated along the route.”

The impact of the missile occurred on the starboard beam. “We choose an area of ​​the ship in which consequences are generated that are difficult for the crew to manage to see their response capacity.”

A ship like the frigate ‘Cristóbal Colón’ undergoes an evaluation like this “every two years.” There are two evaluation and certification bodies, one in the Bay of Cádiz (EVADIZ) and another in Cartagena (EVACART). In EVADIZ, vessels such as amphibious ships, frigates, oil tankers, etc. are evaluated. while in Cartagena they work mainly with submarines and patrol boats.

«With this type of exercises we seek to evaluate the entire team, see how the crew responds to the incident,” says the CEVACO commander, in order to “check that our ships are ready.”

During the CALOP exercises, the heads of each department or section ‘examine’ their team. “We see the critical deficiencies that are appreciated and if necessary the exercise is repeated.”

From CEVACO “we advise the Admiral of the Fleet (ALFLOT) on safety matters, we investigate accidents. Each new ship or equipment that the Navy acquires requires it to pass an evaluation so that the requirements demanded of the manufacturer are met. A staff with a lot of experience works here.

The damage and control exercise begins with a small briefing in which all the team leaders participate and in which they inform the commander of CEVACO and the chief-commander of EVADIZ about how the activity will be developed. Each section leader details a brief chronology of what will affect his group of sailors, exercises designed several weeks ago. The expected time of the missile impact, the key moment of the exercise, is at ‘Z+00’, so if, for example, a suspicious vessel is detected ten minutes before the missile impact, it would take place at ‘Z-10’. ‘, and if the vessel runs out of propulsion two minutes after the missile impact it is named ‘Z+02’. This way, each area manager presents in detail everything that is going to happen and the exercises to work on with his or her staff.

Once the exercise is over, there is another meeting between all the team leaders with the CEVACO commander in which all errors are reported, but also the good work of the crew during the exercise for final evaluation. Subsequently, another, shorter meeting takes place between the CEVACO commander and the Navy Captain to report the results of the exercise.