MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Multinational Unitas naval exercise in the South Atlantic

Until next Friday naval units from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Spain and United States will be participating in the Multinational Exercise Unitas XLVIII in the South Atlantic.

The Argentine Navy hosted the flotilla of vessels in Puerto Belgrano before beginning the exercise last Friday May 4. According to the official report the Argentine Navy is participating with destroyer ARA "Almirante Brown", corvettes ARA "Gómez Roca" and "Spiro", logistics vessel ARA "Patagonia", submarine ARA "Salta" and the patrol vessel ARA "Teniente Olivieri"; Brazil with the frigates BNS "Bosisio" and BNS "Independencia"; the auxiliary tanker BNS "Gasto Motta" and the submarine BNS "Tapajo". The US Navy is represented with destroyer USS "Mitscher", amphibious vessel USS "Pearl Harbour" and the frigate USS "Samuel B. Roberts"; Spain with the frigate FFG "Santa Maria" and Chile with the frigate FFG "Almirante Latorre". "The exercise is geared to increase the capability of the different navies, a greater regional integration and is also an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences during real multinational operations" indicates the Argentine Navy release adding that coordinated operations between the different navies helps develop compatible systems and thus multinational operations. This is particularly true when uniformity of procedures are needed to ensure what is described as "cultural interoperability" which means the capacity to operate jointly in spite of differences of technology, equipment and languages. Unitas exercises were born in 1960 and originally involved the US Navy with all South American navies but on a bilateral relation.