ComNavOps has often complained about the unrealistic, worthless exercises the Navy engages in and also the worthlessness of multi-national exercises. Well, here’s yet another example.
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) is scheduled to join the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) during a multinational group sail from waters near Hawaii to Guam beginning Sept. 9, to conduct integrated, multi-domain operations. (1)
A group sail? Is that like a group hug?
A group sail from Hawaii to Guam? Will they be serving Pina Coladas on the fantails during this photo-op, sightseeing, group hug cruise?
Why are we doing this cruise?
U.S. naval forces routinely participate in multinational group sails in order to operate alongside regional allies and strengthen our shared commitments to regional stability and a free and open Indo-Pacific through integrated training and cooperation. Operating together alongside allies from the RAN, ROKN, and JMSDF strengthens each nation’s collective commitment to international rules-based order. (1)
Well that was a lot of buzzword bingo that says nothing!
What will the participants in this group sail be doing, other than sunning on the fantail?
Throughout the group sail period, participants will operate and train together, exercising integrated maritime operations in a multi-domain warfighting environment. Professional integrated engagements allows the U.S. Navy and allies the opportunity to build upon existing strong relationships and improve collective readiness and response to any situation. (1)
Ah … okay. We’ll be ‘exercising integrated maritime operations in a multi-domain warfighting environment.’ I should set up some kind of prize for any reader who can tell me what, specifically, that means.
 |
| USS Barry - Drinks On The Fantail |
If we want this exercise to be worth anything – and the fact that it involves a single Burke says that even the Navy recognizes that the exercise is worthless – we should have a submarine intercept and attack the group and see if they can defend themselves. And then, while the group is busy floundering around with a submarine, send a few dozen aircraft to conduct a no-notice attack and see how the group handles that.
Anything less is an utter waste of time.
___________________________________
(1)Commander, US Pacific Fleet website, “U.S. Navy joins Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea for multinational group sail”, Lt. Mark Langford, 8-Sep-2020,
https://www.cpf.navy.mil/news.aspx/130720
Sunbathing on the fantail is massively overrated.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the ROK and JMSDF are sailing together is actually a pretty big deal. The exercise, not so much.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that. Just getting those two to be in sail about is a good thing. The US has been doing a shat bad job of keeping its two key allies in the region on the same page. A little tick back away from their bickering is a good thing and worth one Burke on PR duty.
DeleteAlthough theoretically if the LCS was eliminated and USCG better funded the same diplomatic aim could have been done with the countries coast guard ships patrolling fisheries together or something or gaming out disaster relief.
Delete"The fact that the ROK and JMSDF are sailing together is actually a pretty big deal. The exercise, not so much."
DeleteAs a political exercise this may have been a success. Keeping tensions as low as possible between allies is generally a good thing. What is scary is that this might actually be the best that our navy is capable of.
Perhaps it’s because it’s a nice sunny day outside today, but I feel more optimistic for a change! would we expect to be informed if a sub was going to intercept them in the exercise? Perhaps if long range aircraft were going out to find/ intercept/ tail them we will see the data online but I would imagine that isn’t the case for submarines, nor would I expect to be told if they were. I don’t doubt some of what you’ve said is true, but how much detail about what they will do while out there would we reasonably expect to know?
ReplyDeleteI'd be thrilled if they were running realistic, challenging exercises and simply not telling us. However, I've heard from lots of current and former sailors who describe the utter lack of any worthwhile exercises. There have been dozens of former COs who similarly describe the dearth of exercises and the complete lack of realism and value that that the ones we do run, have. Finally, the Navy makes no effort to hide the exercises and elements thereof. They don't describe the minute details but they certainly do describe the participants and the general nature of the exercises.
DeleteWith all that said, I'm pretty confident that there are no secret aspects to the exercise - though I'd love to be wrong.
I have noticed a lot of Navy press recently that is just like this. It comes across as bragging about things that frankly are not newsworthy!!
Delete"Cruiser A shot its gun. Twice!"
"Carrier B launched a plane while in allied waters"
"Destroyer C did figure eights without anybody falling off"
Almost seems like the Navy is in 'participation trophy' mode...
Yeap, wasn't it in last few months RN was doing an intensive training exercise and it was: loading some weapons and rescuing overboard sailor, etc??? That's what my first thought was: lots of big words but nothing on what really was accomplished!?! Showing the flag and managing not too hit each other?!? Big whoop!!!
DeleteWhen is the last time the Navy has run any of the following exercises:
Delete1) An air strike by carrier-based air against a shore target defended by sore-based air?
2) An opposed amphibious assault?
3) A convoy transit escorted by AAW/ASW ships through a contested environment?
4) A carrier task force operation with multiple (ideally, Marc Mitscer's four) carriers?
5) An anti-submarine hunter-killer operation?
6) Enforcing an exclusion zone?
CNO - thank you - the piece of the puzzle I was missing was the feedback directly from Navy personnel! That certainly puts the above post in a different light & I would agree with you then. As I've suggested previously - why not go all out & war game with at least the non-classified systems in clear sight of *someone* to demonstrate that even the *basic* systems have serious prowess, and leave 'em wondering about what the secret sauce weapons can do.
DeleteIf you cant do that (for whatever reason), at some point, someone will call you on it - and it will cost some poor serviceman/woman their lives...
"exercising integrated maritime operations in a multi-domain warfighting environment."
ReplyDeleteI believe it translates to "We can soon perform the same maneuvers that every other merchantman but we have guns, we are not there but we are close.
How are the navy thinking they will get good commanders if don´t let the leaders practice and make mistakes, nothing is as good a teacher as mistakes. Also the officers need experience to get the "feeling" for command and familiarity.
This is beyond me.
"I believe it translates to "We can soon perform the same maneuvers that every other merchantman but we have guns, we are not there but we are close."
DeletePilots train on simpler aircraft than the fighters and transports that they eventually fly. I was thinking that the Navy having a set of simplified trainer ships that do nothing but teach crews basic seamanship might be a good idea.
"I was thinking that the Navy having a set of simplified trainer ships that do nothing but teach crews basic seamanship might be a good idea."
DeleteIt might be a great idea, not a good one! One can't help but think that if a few Spruances had been retained, prospective COs and crews could take them out for training and make mistakes to their heart's content and learn all about the basics.
Really great comment!
I was thinking more corvette sized and designed to be maintenance friendly (cheap) and cheap to operate. Although keeping the Spruances would be wonderful idea if wasn't far too late. The other option is to have models of the ships actually used just without weapons other combat systems. This would save maintenance dollars on the ship. This would give the ship identical handling characteristics to the combat models.
DeleteWell, there's always the LCS. For short duration, basic seamanship training, they ought to work just fine. In fact, the Navy has announced that they're retiring the first four LCS so ...
DeleteSounds like a good bird in the hand solution.
Delete"Well, there's always the LCS. For short duration, basic seamanship training, they ought to work just fine."
DeleteEmphasis on SHORT duration, I suppose.
"Emphasis on SHORT duration, I suppose."
DeleteYes, one or two days out to work on basic seamanship and then back to port. Of course, the LCS powertrain, handling, etc. are all radically different from other ships of the fleet so they training benefits may be too limited to be worthwhile but they could, at least, work on basic 'rules of the road' which the Navy clearly doesn't know. They could also work on watch standing, target tracking, CIC-bridge coordination, and so on.
My first naval exercise as a young Ensign was Midlink, a combination of USN, RN (Brits still had a big footprint east of Suez back then), and the Imperial Iranian Navy (Shah was still on the throne, and we were still friends). Two things were very obvious from the start--we were drastically slowing down our operating tempo to accommodate the Iranians, and the Brits were slowing down their tempo to operate with us. Brits were not hesitant to send out zingers if we screwed something up. I don't know whether the RN is still as professional as it was then, but we were all very much impressed with their performance. As one of my fellow officers commented, "We've got better equipment, but they've got better sailors."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call it much of an exercise. I would liked to have seen what an exercise looked like if it had been just us and the Brits, and we had been pretty much out through the paces. But it was pretty clear that intensive training was not the intent of the exercise. And that was 50 years ago.
Remember an ASW exercise in the early 1970’s - 2 DD’s vs a Brit. It wasn’t even close. Finally the Brit fired off a noise maker so we would at least have an idea which direction to look. The debriefing was great- numerous photos taken through a periscope showing how many times we had been sunk.
ReplyDeleteAnd just think, 60s, 70s and 80s ASW was practiced a lot by specialized units and had trouble locating a sub....how well HONESTLY would a Burke do today with I bet most of training going towards AEGIS and air defense??? They might not find the sub EVEN WITH the noise maker!!!
DeleteNow, we were able to track a Soviet sub, with two other DD's and a P3. A sonarman buddy of mine - one of the guys who couldn't find the Brit boat said the Soviet sub was easy. I sounded like a broken washing machine.
DeleteConsidering how well the exercise with HMS Gotland went, where the submarine manage to sink USS Ronald Reagan on several occasion i think the navy need to practice the ASW more. It would be interesting to know the rules of engagement during the exercise.
Delete" submarine manage to sink USS Ronald Reagan"
DeleteI would be very careful about drawing any conclusions from that. For one thing, the exercise gets repeated many times and you didn't hear about the times the sub was stopped. In addition, the exercise is artificially constrained in so many ways: fixed locations, known locations, were escorts used?, were helos used?, and on and on.
At many exercises, there is a designated 'loser' whose job is to lose so that the student can learn. As you noted, we have no idea what the purpose and constraints of the exercise were. All we see is a photo op that everyone immediately latches on to to proclaim how the carrier is a relic and submarines are invincible.
"HMS Gotland"
DeleteHSwMS Gotland. We don't want to insult our Swedish friends!
I agree, without the "rules" it is hard to know what was done and why.
DeleteThe fact that a submarine was shipped from Europe to San Diego says something about the effort that went into the training.
Also, having participated in both scripted and free for all exercises (on land), for company and up there is usually no training for the officers if there is a script. The "true" combat commanders are usually performing very well during unscripted.
I assume the same would be valid for the navy.
HSwMS is actually "wrong" since the ship is called HMS, it´s just the Brits that uses the extra to see the difference between there ships and the Swedish...
DeleteAh, interesting. I'm going by the Wikipedia designation.
DeleteHere, under Sweden its stated why it differs.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty%27s_Ship
"I would be very careful about drawing any conclusions from that. For one thing, the exercise gets repeated many times and you didn't hear about the times the sub was stopped. In addition, the exercise is artificially constrained in so many ways: fixed locations, known locations, were escorts used?, were helos used?, and on and on."
DeleteOn one hand, those are great points.
On the other, asides from the subs themselves ASW has atrophied to a ridiculous level in the USN.
At least the "Italian frigates" are coming, I guess.
"On the other, asides from the subs themselves ASW has atrophied to a ridiculous level in the USN."
DeleteOh, absolutely. I'm by no means suggesting that the US Navy is a master of ASW! I've got a post on this, coming up.
(Don McCollor)...The exercise probably was not completely useless (if lessons arising from problems of different languages, equipment, and tactics are learned). Better than when ABDACOM (American, British, Dutch, Australian Command was thrown together early in WW2 with different political objectives, equipment, and training - and no experience in operating together...
ReplyDeleteAlthough the small scale likely limits even those gains.
DeleteTo really get the interoperability benefits I would think you would need larger groups of ships doing some joint maneuvers for a longer time. And with some kind of stress even if not combat simulation something like a simulated fire and response or loss of GPS with a change in destination. But I would up vote the need for at some point entering a range zone where the group could be tested with non scripted potential treats to a minimum see if all the fancy DDs on display can talk to each other and identify threats or non threats.
But that would require expending aircraft time and missiles simulators etc. Seeing as the navy does not even like buying actual missiles. What do you suppose the budget is to shoot off a few missile simulators and automate some airplanes out of the bone yard for this - zero.
I still going to vote just getting a Japanese and ROK ships in the thing makes it a cheap and useful venture that is worth it. But I doubt it does much to make the 4 navies well oiled interoperating machines.
Almost any exercise has some utility. Even one that is totally scripted to the point of absurdity can teach some basic skills. But being ready for combat means more than having basic skills.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is some regular training cycle to go with employment cycles. Say a ship comes out of major maintenance, you have so many months of basic (including simulator) training to develop basic skills. Then you have a number of months serving as enemy forces for training up fleet units. Then you go to being one of those fleet units training to advance to top readiness. Then when fully trained and ready, you can deploy for a period. Back home, major maintenance, then repeat the cycle.
I would like to see a couple of Royal Navy ideas implemented. For individual ships, do something like FOST to measure individual ship readiness. Do we still do Gitmo? I haven't heard about it in years. Then for groups of ships, do something like Springtrain, where you actually go against a simulated enemy force. I'm not sure whether the RN does Springtrain any more. As I understand,it was something like our Fleet Problems between WWI and WWII. Sandy Woodward talks about it in his book. A lot of the ships that went to the Falklands had just completed Springtrain, and Woodward gives the resulting readiness a lot of credit for the quality and professionalism with which they operated during that campaign.
I'm not sure we know how to train any more. Gitmo was really, really good for damage control training. I'm not sure we have anything for task group strategic and tactical training.
I haven't heard of ships going to Gitmo in a while. Thatd be too bad, because it was an excellent pre-deployment workup. Went multiple times and always learned somthing...!!
ReplyDelete