Patrol ship HMS Dumbarton Castle has been proving a tower of strength in her role as command platform for a NATO minehunter squadron.

Dumbarton Castle took over as Flagship of MCMFORNORTH – Mine Countermeasures Force North – on May 24 last year, when Cdr Adrian Cassar assumed the post of Commander of the NATO force at a ceremony at HMS Nelson in Portsmouth.

By the time she is relieved as flagship, Dumbarton Castle – which has spent a good deal of her time over the years as resident patrol vessel for the Falkland Islands – will have spent almost 250 days at sea.

She has steamed more than 10,000 nautical miles since May, providing command and support facilities for 56 officers and 300 ratings in the Force, one of four such immediate reaction groups within NATO.

As the name indicates, MCMFORNORTH looks after the mine countermeasures needs of the northern part of Europe, with MCMFORSOUTH assuming that role in the Mediterranean.

Along with the bigger ships of STANAVFORLANT or SNFL (colloquially known as ‘sniffle’, the Atlantic group of frigates and destroyers, and the Mediterranean version, STANAVFORMED or SNFM (‘sniffam’), these forces are at 48 hours notice to deploy for operations in times of crisis, tension or war.

The activities of the Force are directed by a small multinational staff. This includes a Belgian MCM specialist, Lt Cdr Yvo Yaenen, supported by UK personnel, including Surg Lt Nick Martin, CPO Si Thornley, CRS Pods Podbury, CY Gary Stevens, LSTD Mac Mackie and LWTR Dave Britchford.

Dumbarton Castle herself provides other key members of the small team – Staff Executive Officer Lt Paul Daly, Staff Navigator Lt Lyndsay Netherwood and Engineer Lt Pete Young are all co-opted from the ship.

Hunt-class MCMV HMS Ledbury and HMS Walney have also been attached to the group in recent months.

MCMFORNORTH is a permanent force, usually consisting of up to seven MCM vessels and a command ship.

Formerly Standing Naval Force Channel, since 1973 the group has encompassed ships from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and more recently, from Denmark and Norway.

The newest addition to the team has been the Polish unit – a first for both Poland and for NATO. The trendsetter for the former Iron Curtain state was ORP Mewa, a minehunter which was sworn into the force in a ceremony at Swinousjcie in October, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Navy.

The ships of the force may be classed as minor war vessels, but their importance is reflected in the amount of investment NATO navies put into their MCM operations.

NATO navies need to ensure they can deploy safely from home ports, on passage to operating areas, and can gain access to ports, harbours, anchorages or even beaches.

The threat from mines exists in waters as deep as 300 metres and extends to the beach, with anti-invasion mines just below the surface of the shallow water.

Deep-water mines may contain 560kg of high explosives, but even 10kg in an anti-invasion mine could cause serious damage to a landing craft.

The fate of the USS Tripoli and USS Princetown in the Gulf War of 1991, which were put out of service for months by mines, indicates the potential hazards faced in modern conflicts.

Modern mines use plastics to make them more difficult to detect using sonar, and may have an in-built ‘brain’ which recognises a particular type of ship which it has been programmed to attack.

In such cases the mine will lie dormant as other ships or submarines pass by, and is only activated by the unique acoustic or magnetic signature of its intended victim.

Mines can be sown in deep water, and are propelled at high speed towards a target, like a miniature homing torpedo. Such devices may also be attractive to terrorists seeking to make a high-profile attack.

But there are also the relics of bygone wars – the remnants of old minefields, or the ordnance dumped on the seabed which could still prove a danger to modern shipping.

In NATO circles, the thinking is increasingly that a new generation of remote underwater craft, working autonomously from their control ships, could be used to detect mines with a view to avoiding them in the short term, rather than clearing them immediately.

MCMFORNORTH not only provides a short-notice anti-mine capability, but also acts as a test-bed for the evaluation of new tactics and procedures. It also gives the various navies and sailors a chance to see what is new in the field of mine countermeasures, as new ship designs and equipment are always being introduced to the force.

For example, a recent member of the Force was the Norwegian Oksøy-class minehunter Hinnøy, commissioned in 1995, a distinctive craft which uses an air cushion created by the interaction between the two hulls of the ship.

A ship will usually be attached to the Force for between four and six months.

Since the UK took over the lead in May, the Force has conducted exercises and training with Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST) in Devonport and out of Faslane, and deployments have been made to Spain, Portugal and the Baltic.

Operation Open Spirit took the Force to the bay of Riga, where shipping lanes were cleared of explosives left from the two world wars and the Cold War era.

In this case, 13 nations (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Rumania, Russia and Sweden) under the direction of the German Minesweeper Flotilla, contributed ships, with MCMFORNORTH playing its part.

42 mines were destroyed, largely the old buoyant contact mines from World War I which were laid in dense fields in the region. It is estimated that up to 80,000 mines were laid in the Baltic during the wars, and the Soviets added to the problem by dumping bombs, torpedoes and rockets in the post-war period.

MCMFORNORTH allows for plenty of professional and social interaction in locations as diverse as sunny Lisbon in the summer to the freezing Baltic states in the winter.

Weather conditions from benign to distinctly lumpy test the skills of the sailors, while ‘crosspols’ – exchanges of sailors between ships – help the various navies understand a little more about the way each conducts its business.

Training opportunities are also grasped, from the routine business of minehunting to casualty-handling, salvage and firefighting.

Among the ports visited by Dumbarton Castle so far have been Oostende, Vigo, Porto, Falmouth, Glasgow, Hamburg, Rostock, Riga, Helsinki, Turku, Gdynia and Frederickshavn.

The Danish navy is due to take over command of the Force in May.