First exercise of Atomic Fist goes well

The first of a number of attack exercises in the Atomic Fist series of training exercises has gone well. The first exercise was called AF1 and included an attack on a mocked up "enemy base" on a planetoid in the Rim Worlds. The base was constructed by the Aritans for the DDS and the Atomic Fist deployment did not have any information as to the location or layout of the enemy base other than the planetoid it was on.

Thus the first part of the exercise was reconnaissance. D101 Panther and F112 Holocene went in first to find the base, the Panther using it's Tactical Reconnaissance Module. Then 3 Pulsar bombers C103 South America, C106 Africa and C110 Eurasia supported by F141 Sulu Sea and K119 Titus made the attack run, EW ship E105 Fleming providing electronic countermeasures and data collation.

The target was "destroyed" using computer simulated "missiles". Later exercises will use real missiles, some with nuclear warheads. A DDS spokeswoman said the exercise attempted to be as real as possible and the exercise had been a total success.

It was also revealed that a Missileer carrier will join the deployment soon and provide an "enemy defending fleet" using Ferret-Es. Rome corvette K107 Pliny is understood to have problems with it's reactor cooling system which is restricting reactor output to 18% (which is not enough for anything other than staying still). A DDS Engineering team is currently en route to see if the problem can be fixed in situ otherwise Pliny may have to pull out. Another Rome has been put on standby. Three Romes are required for the deployment as some exercises will use the ground attack module which typically is used in groups of 3 ships.