Five commonwealth nations combine naval power in Southeast Asia

Members of the historic Commonwealth Five-Power Defence Arrangement sent naval forces into Malaysian territorial waters for this year’s Exercise Bersama Lima.

Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK have co-operated on defence in Southeast Asia for 50 years, and the regular Bersama Lima exercises have become a key expression of that co-operation.

Bersama Lima, which means “together five” in Malay, this year saw an appropriate five naval vessels perform exercises and boost their interoperability.

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The five ships of 2024 were a UK Royal Navy vessel, HMS Spey, two Royal Malaysian Navy warships, frigate KD Lekiu and patrol ship KD Terengganu, and two Singaporean vessels, frigate RSS Formidable and OPV RSS Valour.

On reaching Malaysian territorial waters, they united in several complex naval warfare scenarios, including air defence, escort missions and naval gun firing.

The shooting of the naval gun was guided by specialist spotters from 148 Battery Royal Artillery, which has significant experience in operating behind enemy lines.

The Royal Gurkhas Regiment (1RGR), the Royal Navy’s Diving and Threat Exploitation Group’s Echo Squadron, as well as personnel from all three UK Armed Forces, rounded out British participation in the 2024 exercise.

The exercise, which ran over the course of 18 days, also included 38 aircraft from across the five nations, including Australian F-35s, operating outside Australian territory for the first time, Singaporean F-15 and F-16 fighters, and Malaysian F/A-18Ds.

Such a large, multi-force exercise, involving air, sea and land elements, was designed to not only improve interoperability between the navies of the powers, but to help acclimatise them to conditions in the region, and how to perform under pressure.