MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- U.S. Air Force
Senior Airman Garrett Stevens, 6th Security Forces Squadron marine patrolman,
operates a jet ski in Tampa Bay, Florida, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida,
March. 7, 2022. Marine patrol Airmen utilize boats, jet skis, and all-terrain
vehicles to patrol and enforce all of MacDill’s coastal restricted area. (U.S.
Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Hiram Martinez)
SMYRNA, Tenn. – Members from the Tennessee National Guard,
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, Nashville Fire Department, Rutherford
County's StormPoint Emergency Response team and others participated in a joint
water rescue exercise April 9.
Tennessee's Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team, a joint rescue
crew with a Tennessee National Guard UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter and aircrew
with rescue personnel from the Nashville Fire Department, practiced rescuing
drowning victims in Stewarts Creek.
"It's critical that we all train together," said
Lt. Col. Jay Jackson, the military liaison for TEMA. "Doing this with
people you've never met would be dangerous during a real world emergency,
especially in hazardous conditions. That's not when we should be working together
for the first time."
During the training event, the Tennessee National Guard
helicopter crew lowered a Nashville Fire Department diver into the lake by
hoist. The diver swam to the victims, provided aid, and readied them for
rescue. Strapping the victims to the rescue strop, diver hooking themselves to
the rescue cable and hoisted out of the water into the hovering helicopter. The
crew simulated first aid as the survivors were airlifted to the nearest
hospital.
"These exercises allow us to streamline the process and
strengthen the relationships between the Tennessee National Guard and our state
and local partners," said Jackson. "It is all meant to ensure that we
are ready to respond to emergencies and protect our fellow citizens. Some of
these maneuvers can be dangerous, especially during inclement weather, and we
need to be ready."
This year's exercise included an additional element: an
unmanned aerial systems team from StormPoint Emergency Response who provided a
live feed of the training to the state operations center. Additionally, the
team completed a mission delivering life vests to the simulated drowning
victims before the HART team's arrival."Our job during this training
exercise was to provide situational awareness for the water rescue exercise,"
said Russell Bradshaw, StormPoint Emergency Response executive director.
"We were able to use the drone to locate the victims and provide
coordinates and information for the inbound rescue team."
This new capability enhances the Tennessee National Guard's ability,
along with local and state partners, to respond to numerous situations,
including difficult-to-reach accident sites and major natural disasters,
rapidly.
"This new joint capability for Tennessee not only
benefits Tennesseans in the event of a disaster but will also be a deployable
resource to neighboring states in the event of a disaster out of our
area," said Jackson.
The HART team has already completed a successful mission. In
October 2020, an injured hiker in North Carolina was successfully hoisted and
transported safely to the nearest hospital.
Shared from the US
Army
Ever wondered how the Navy would pluck wounded special
forces operators from an enemy beach, fast? Getting off an exposed beach in one
piece, under incoming fire, is surely one of the most dangerous operations
imaginable. It requires speed and great confidence in the personnel and
machines involved. Surprisingly perhaps, commercial off-the-shelf water
scooters, similar to the personal watercraft used by water sports enthusiasts
the world over, are a popular solution among special forces.
Naval Special Warfare Command’s love of the humble Jet Ski,
and they call them that even in official documents, has gone under the radar
for many years. But they are now cropping up more and more often in the public
domain. The Navy released photos of Jet Skis being used by Special Operations
Forces in Greece in 2017, and with Thai forces during Exercise Tempest Wind
2019 in June. Most recently U.S. Special Operations Command issued a request
for three Jet Skis to replace ones worn out during training. These will be used
by the Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command in San Diego, California to
prepare future Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) who will operate
small boats for the US Navy SEALs.
Jet Skis have the advantages of being quick and agile, and
can operate in extremely shallow water including through the surf zone to a
beach. Their main task is to extract special forces, and they can be used to
pick up casualties, downed pilots or prisoners, or be used in counter-terrorism
missions. To get where the action is they can be carried by larger boats or,
for long range covert missions, in the hangar of the secretive SEAL Insertion,
Observation and Neutralization (SEALION). These high speed stealth boats are
semi-submersible meaning that they partially sink in order to reduce their
radar signatures even further.
The US Navy is not alone in appreciating the merits of water
scooters and several NATO special forces units also have them in their
inventories. The Navy’s preferred model is the Yamaha FX Cruiser SHO, although
other countries use a wide array of competing makes and designs. In Navy
service the two or three-seat jet skis are highly modified and fitted with
inflatable anti-roll collars and rescue sleds so that equipment or special
forces can be towed behind. Naturally the crew can be armed, and machine guns
can be fitted to help suppress enemy positions.
In the Persian Gulf the Iranian IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps) use water scooters armed with rocket propelled grenades for
reconnaissance and nuisance attacks on commercial shipping.
Special Forces are always experimenting with new ideas and
technologies so new adaptions of the Jet Ski have been developed at Sofwerx, a
Florida based innovation center which provides rapid prototyping of potential
solutions for US Special Operations Command. Earlier this year they tested a
submersible personal watercraft which can operate like a regular Jet Ski on the
surface, but can also hide beneath the waves. This could allow it to be
launched and recovered from a submarine, a capability which currently no Navy
has.
Shared from Forbes by H Sutton
K38 and Shawn Alladio-Lead Instructor conducting military
training working on our offshore echelon operations with a full load of
personnel in rough water.
It is mid-August 2016, and Louisiana is inundated with a
flood of Biblical proportions. According to press reports, the ceaseless
rain has killed at least 13, and forced tens of thousands more from their
homes. More than two feet of rain has fallen over the course of five
days, and forecasts show more possibly coming, which can lead to
even more flash flooding. There is basically nowhere for the water to go.
Press reports have also stated that more than 30,000 people
have been rescued in the flooding, surely making it one of the country’s
largest water rescue operations in history, though I have not seen the
statistics to back that claim up.
As a currently-serving member of a municipal water rescue
team myself, by way of my city’s paid-professional fire department, that number
sounds incredible. In this author’s head, I envision countless water
rescue teams, augmented by many civilians in their own boats, spread across the
state of Louisiana, picking people off of submerged cars, the roofs of
submerged houses, and possibly even from half-submerged trees.
Read more; SOFREP
Although there’s nothing official coming from either camps,
being the OEMs or any branch of the United States Armed Forces, we know that
the American military is 1) the most well-funded peace-keeping mechanism to
have ever existed on this spinning ball we call home and 2) is not against
using any form of technology that would provide them the best tactical upper
hand.
That being said, high speed insertion/extraction vehicles
have been in regular use for decades. According to a report on a special operations page, “One
example of these activities occurred during the early 80’s, when Maritime
Branch personnel trained Nicaraguan Contras to use of high speed boats for
attacks against Sandinista shipping. They also stood by to launch underwater
sabotage attacks against ships docked in Managua’s harbor. Another example
occurred in early 1991. This time Maritime Branch operators instructed US
military SOF in the use of modified jet skis for a possible hostage rescue
mission during Operation Desert Storm.”
Read more; The Watercraft Journal
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. WAVY- On Sunday down at the 1st Street Jetty at Rudee Inlet, crews fought back against fierce rip currents and 15-to-20 ...
