Exercise Suman Protector 12 - A group of British service personnel has taken part in a major “Commonwealth” exercise in the Asia-Pacific region in support of the Five Power Defence Arrangements.   The Five Power Defence Arrangements Headquarters (or Headquarters Integrated Area Defence System) is based in Malaysia.   Some 38 personnel from all three Services, including a number of reservists, deployed to Changi Naval Base in Singapore for the command post exercise, which is held once every five years.     Working alongside their allies the Army, Navy and RAF officers spent nearly three weeks immersed in a fictional environment in the South China Sea, employed in both kinetic and disaster relief operations, in order to develop the knowhow of their Asian counterparts.   The British Team was lead by a Royal Navy Commodore (Clive Walker), a Commander Joint Force Logistics at the Permanent Joint Headquarters, Northwood.    The team was made up of logisticians, and included air traffic control, engineering, fuel, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), legal and media specialists.

The British Armed Forces Team worked alongside a similar number of Malaysians and New Zealanders, and some 80 Australian Defence Force personnel, with the bulk of the numbers coming from the Singapore Armed Forces, who, as hosts, were particularly keen to test their knowledge and military systems, and to learn from their colleagues' operational experience elsewhere in the world.