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Monday, August 5, 2024

Train Like You Fight

The Captain set the message down after reading it to the officers assembled in the wardroom.  Setting aside all the navalese language, it directed him and his Burke class destroyer to divert from their current assignment, take aboard some observers, which they had already done, and transit to the Navy’s new live fire training area located well off the west coast of the United States and engage with live weapons – he had read that part to his officers with an incredulous voice - any valid target detected.  The Captain and his ship were about to be subjected to the Navy’s newest training exercise.  His would be only the second ship to undergo the training and he knew nothing about it;  scuttlebutt was non-existent.  Still, one Navy training exercise was like the next, he was sure.  He assumed he would be given detailed instructions – Navy training exercises were nothing if not highly scripted.  Oddly, though, he had been directed to choose his own course, time and speed to enter the training area and been told only to enter the area by a certain date/time and remain in the area until specifically notified that training was over.  He had no idea how long the training would last.  He assumed that it would be a few hours based on previous exercises.
 
“All right, gentlemen, here’s what we’re going to do.  We’ll be entering the training area in about one hour.  I want to complete this exercise in a timely fashion and set the standard for the ships that follow.  We’ll go to General Quarters when we enter the area.  I expect we’ll receive detailed instructions at that point.  Let’s make sure all our systems are ready and let’s have our best people in place. Questions?”
 
“Captain, that’s not a lot of time to run system checks,” the XO pointed out.
 
“I know it, XO.  Make it happen anyway!”
 
Acknowledging the Captain, the XO grimaced inwardly.  No amount of desire or enthusiasm was going to get some of those Aegis computer system spare parts installed that the ship didn’t have on board and had been on order for almost six months.  Similarly, the CIWS which had been spontaneously resetting on occasion during checks wasn’t going to be miraculously fixed in the next hour.  Still, he’d do everything he could.
 
Unnoticed, or rather ignored, the observer in the back of the room made a quick note on his clipboard of documents.  The Captain thought the training exercise wouldn’t begin for another hour but it had actually begun the moment he had received the notification message and, so far, the Captain wasn’t doing well.
 
An hour later, the ship entered the training area.  The ship was at GQ and the best sailors were in place at each critical post.  The Captain waited impatiently in CIC for his instructions.  The observer simply stood quietly in the background, making an occasional note.  As time passed with no additional instructions forthcoming, the Captain’s impatience grew.  After an hour, the Captain radioed for instructions.  The reply was short and succinct – “continue training”.  What training, the Captain wondered sarcastically?
 
All right, the Captain thought, someone is trying to screw with the normal training procedures.  Well, he wasn’t about to be caught flatfooted.
 
“Listen up, people.  We’re going to stay at GQ until whoever’s running this exercise gets their act together.  We’re not going to relax and get caught by surprise.  Let’s stay on top of things.”
 
Nine hours later, the Captain and crew were exhausted and frustrated by the complete lack of activity.  Nothing had happened.  True, sonar had generated their usual litany of non-specific contacts that had been aggressively pursued only to vanish – biologics, probably.  The ship’s helo was now down for maintenance after spending the last several hours chasing spurious contact reports.  Utterly disgusted at the wasted time, the Captain finally decided to call it quits for the day.  Whoever was running this exercise had obviously screwed up badly and he’d attempt to sort things out tomorrow.  With that, the ship secured from General Quarters. 
 
“XO”, the Captain called out, “get that CIWS torn down tonight and figure out what’s wrong before we try this exercise again tomorrow.”
 
Again, unseen, the observer’s mouth twitched in what might have been a small grin.
 
Three hours later, with most of the crew having just settled in for some much needed rest and with the ‘third string’ manning the watch stations, the ship was ripped awake by the sound of the General Quarters call.  Staggering to his feet, the Captain ran to CIC.
 
“Report,” he yelled as he entered.
 
“We’ve got an unidentified contact inbound bearing 265 relative, 20 miles out, speed Mach 1.3.  It’s right down on the waves.  Collision course.  Impact in just over 1 minute.”
 
“ESM indicates it’s a Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn.”
 
A target drone, the Captain assumed.  “Put the CIWS on it,” he shouted.
 
“CIWS is down for repairs per your orders, sir.”
 
“Well, get it back up”, the Captain yelled, frantically!
 
Unfortunately, there was no time.  The missile was approaching at over 16 miles per minute and impact was now less than 30 seconds.
 
“What’s going on?”, the Captain yelled to no one in particular.  “This is supposed to be training but that thing is going to hit us!”
 
At that moment, 1 mile out, the drone missile pulled up, angled just over the top of the destroyer, and passed overhead with a shattering boom.  The CIC watchstanders were shaken while cups, papers, tools, and other items were knocked onto the deck.
 
“What the hell was that?”, the Captain again asked of no one.  “That wasn’t training.  That was a reckless safety violation!  Someone’s going to pay for that.”
 
The Captain immediately sent out an urgent message demanding to know who had screwed up a simple training exercise.  The instant reply was, “Continue training.”
 
The Captain had no time to wonder before his thoughts were again rudely interrupted.
 
“Multiple airborne contacts bearing 135 relative, 78 miles, speed 480 kts.  They’ll pass about 10 miles off our starboard side if they continue on course.  No emissions but they’re squawking civilian.”
 
“Let ‘em come”, the Captain replied.  “This is a test and I’m not going to Vincennes them.”
 
The Captain was all too aware of the Vincennes incident where an Aegis cruiser had badly misinterpreted its sensor data and shot down a civilian airliner in the belief that it was an attacking aircraft.  That incident had become part of Navy institutional memory and it was ingrained in every Captain never to repeat that event.
 
In the background, the observer frowned slightly and made more notes.
 
Minutes passed as the aircraft got closer and then came the half-expected announcement.
 
“Surface contact, bearing 334 relative, 21 miles, speed 24 kts.  Contact is coming straight at us.”
 
“There”, the Captain said, a note of triumph in his voice, “That’s the real target.  They were hoping we’d focus on the aircraft and miss the real threat coming from the surface.”
 
“Weapons, put a couple SM-6 missiles on that surface ship.”
 
Lacking Harpoons or the recently canceled LRASM, Standard missiles were the only anti-ship weapon available.
 
“Captain, we don’t have a positive ID on the target, yet.  There are no emissions and we don’t have a visual.”
 
“It’s the real threat”, the Captain answered. “They tried to fool us.  Designate and launch.”
 
Unprepared for the command, inexperienced, and inadequately trained, the ‘third string’ operators took over two minutes to designate the target, prep the launch cycle, and execute the launch.  Moments after the two missiles launched, the EO sensor operator announced that he had a visual on the target.
 
“Sir, it appears to be a civilian yacht of some sort!”
 
The Captain blanched.  Had he just executed a Vincennes on a civilian yacht that had wandered into the training area?
 
“Direct hit.  The target is gone.”
 
“Stand down”, the Captain frantically yelled.  “Secure all weapons.”
 
The observer shook his head minutely and made another note.
 
Suddenly, the Captain heard another announcement. 
 
“New targets inbound.  Bearing 110 degrees relative, speed Mach 0.8, altitude 20 meters.  They appear to be missiles launched from the civilian aircraft.”
 
The Captain was dumbfounded and froze.  He had been certain the aircraft were civilian, trying to fool him into doing a Vincennes.  Instead, it appeared that they were the real threat and had been from the start.  All the ship’s weapons were in standby and there was nothing available to defend.
 
Even more stunning, the incoming missiles (target drones, he assumed) did not turn away.  Instead, at the last moment, each elevated slightly, separated a small, inert, frangible ‘warhead’, and passed closely directly over the ship.  As they did, he felt several thuds as the inert ‘warheads’ impacted the ship. 
 
“What was that?”, he called frantically.  “Did we just get hit by a target drone?”
 
Before he could get an answer, another contact report came.
 
“Torpedoes inbound.  Range one mile.  Speed 55 kts.”
 
“What?!  How did torpedoes get so close without being detected?”, he yelled.
 
The third string sonar operator, who was still trying to get qualified, was unable to answer before more reports started flooding in.
 
“Damage Control reports several fires.  Smoke spreading throughout the ship.”
 
The various observers scattered throughout the ship had designated areas as hit and on fire and, in addition, had ignited multiple smoke bombs.  They couldn’t start actual fires but they could replicate the smoke that would be filling the ship if this had been real.
 
“Aircraft are turning and re-engaging.”
 
“Turn to unmask the CIWS”, the Captain yelled, forgetting that the CIWS was down and coughing as smoke from an adjoining compartment began filling the space.
 
The ship began to turn to bring the single CIWS to bear on the aircraft’s threat vector but part way through the turn the Captain corrected himself.
 
“No, wait.  We need to run from the torpedoes.  They’re the bigger threat!  Put us on the same course as the torpedoes.”
 
Part way through the turn, the Captain again corrected himself.  “Wait, it’s too late.  We can’t outrun the torpedoes.  They’re already too close.  Unmask the CIWS!”, he yelled, his voice rising in pitch.  It was too much.  He was being overwhelmed with information and threats.
 
Moments later he felt the impact as four inert torpedoes slammed into the hull.
 
“Radar is down.”  An observer had directed the operator to shut down the radar to simulate damage.
 
“Damage Control reports at least four underwater impacts and one leak from a cracked hull plate.”
 
The leak was substantial and real.  The torpedo warheads were inert but the lightly built Burkes could not absorb even an inert warhead impacting at 55 kts.  The damage control reports were confused, panicked, inaccurate, and real.
 
With that, the power flickered and cut out.  One emergency light came on and two others did not.  An observer had disabled them prior to the exercise to see if anyone could repair them.  As it turned out, no one even tried.
 
And so the exercise continued with the ship’s condition and the crew’s performance rapidly deteriorating.  The scheduled debrief was going to be brutal.  The Admiral in charge of this training program had directed the observers to be unfailingly objective and to spare no feelings.  No one had expected the exercise to go well but this was poor even by that standard.  Still, considering that the Navy had not conducted realistic training for decades, it wasn’t surprising. 
 
The ship now had several dents from the various inert ‘warhead’ impacts and a handful of minor damage to repair but that was an acceptable part of achieving combat readiness and the forced drydocking would be used to accomplish various equipment undates and long deferred maintenance.
 
Painful as it might be, this was the first step in returning the Navy to an actual warfighting organization.
 
Forty eight hours later, after a continuing series of very realistic events and with an exhausted crew staggering through actual damage control efforts, the exercise concluded and the lead observer completed his final on-board paperwork;  a full report would come later.  The last two questions on his checklist were the most important.  The first concerned the ship’s combat readiness, which the observer unhesitatingly checked as ‘Not Ready’.  The second asked for his recommendation on the Captain’s fitness for continued command.  The observer sadly shook his head slightly and checked ‘Unfit’.  The current Captain would take the ship into drydock but someone else would be taking it back out.  As much as this exercise had been a training and readiness test, it had also been a combat mentality assessment of the Captain and he had failed, badly.
 
 
 
Discussion Points
 
-We need to allow a mild degree of risk and physical damage In our training through the use of inert or frangible warheads.  Military service does not come with a guarantee of safety.  As a point of historical interest, pre-WWII training saw the use of bags of flour dropped on ships as surrogates for bombs.  Once upon a time, Infantry training used live machine gun fire as an incentive to keep one’s head down.
 
-Training needs to be unscripted.
 
-Training needs to be continuous and prolonged.
 
-Training needs to be realistic.
 
-There needs to be negative consequences for poor performance in training while recognizing that training is the time to make mistakes and must be consequence free.  In other words, we need to distinguish between correctable mistakes and uncorrectable poor performance (lack of combat mentality).

34 comments:

  1. The allies lost 942 men in Operation Tiger--the training exercise for D-Day. Granted many were lost in an attack by German E-boats (their equivalent to PT boats) but that can itself be blamed on lack of training because one of the escorts was off schedule and poor piloting of the LST's-both something you train realistically to avoid.
    A couple years back I read a great column by gCaptain begging for training for the merchant marine in running a convoy in wartime. And it was greeted by both the Navy and Coast Guard with stunned silence and no action whatsoever

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    1. Wiki claims 749 deaths were due to German E-boat attacks.

      The only pertinent question is how many lives were saved in the actual D-Day assault thanks to the lessons learned? of course, it is not possible to answer that question. However, the exercise accomplished exactly what it was supposed to. It revealed major flaws in the assault plans and methods that were subsequently corrected. That two hundred men died is tragic. That untold thousands were saved in the actual assault is noteworthy. Had the Allies attempted to launch the actual assault without any rehearsals, the likely outcome would have been disaster.

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  2. We used to do training somewhat like this at GTMO. We stopped that because...?

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    1. I was on a Gearing 69-73 my only ship) as an EM and went to Gitmo twice. In 70 on a Unitas cruise (South America) we had a fire at 1am in the after fireroom as we were steaming with 1 boiler cross connected so we lost all power. We had emergency power up in less than 5 min from both E-Diesels, the repair parties had the fire out in about an hour or so, while other boilers were lit off and main steam restored to the ships service generators. Another destroyer stood off ready to lend assistance but was not needed. In 72 we went to Vietnam and were involved in night and daylight raids on the North Vietnam coast including the daylight mining of Haiphong Harbor May 8&9 1972. Looking back those training periods were invaluable.

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  3. I often make the point that once inbound sea skimming missiles are detected, engagement time is just a couple of minutes and crews not in GQ may not reach their battle stations in time.

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    1. Of course, basic sensors and weapons stations are always manned, most assuredly during war. Thus, the ship can defend itself. Other functions, such as damage control might not be manned but this immediate defensive reaction is intact.

      This is also why combat software has a full auto option. Aegis has such an option and, when enabled, can run the engagement by itself. Similarly, CIWS has a full auto mode.

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  4. The USN needs to do something like the inter war Fleet Problems every year. First year Pac Fleet could build around a Chinese invasion of Taiwan scenario, and Lant Fleet could build around some sort of large scale terrorist plot in southern Europe. Do it, take your lumps, learn your lessons, and come back and do it right. One big problem I see is that lessons learned are not shared widely and trained on.

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    1. The key point you're missing - or to be fair, not explicitly stating - is that the Fleet Problems were DIRECTLY taken from our war planning (War Plan Orange) for the anticipated war with Japan. We weren't just randomly exercising whatever kind of attacks and defense somebody threw out in a meeting; we were REHEARSING specific elements of the War Plan Orange-derived military strategy.

      We couldn't implement a Fleet Problem today, even if we wanted to because we don't have a War Plan China. Lacking that, there are no specific elements of a military strategy to try out. We need a War Plan China before we can do Fleet Problems. If we had a War Plan China, the content of the Fleet Problems would become instantly clear and obvious.

      Lacking a War Plan China military strategy, what little training we do has nothing specific to do with a China war strategy. Instead, we just exercise technology. We've substituted technology for strategy. It's like a basketball team just randomly practicing whatever they feel like as opposed to game planning and practicing specifically for the upcoming opponent. The former is nearly useless whereas the latter is directly beneficial.

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    2. Seems like starting with just how you defend your ship, as you outlined in your story, would be a good start.

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    3. Been thinking about this more. The captain had the weapons he was given, a radar system missing replacement parts and single buggy close in weapon system. Does he have the authority to return to port under those circumstances? Then, no argument that he made a series of bad decisions to the circumstances he was confronted with, BUT, if the whole point is to fight like you're trained, didn't he do just that? Isn't that the reason to do this training?

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    4. "Been thinking about this more."

      Not quite sure what point you're making but I'll attempt to provide an answer, regardless.

      "Does he have the authority to return to port under those circumstances?

      A captain has the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the crew. If the captain feels that he is being asked to sail with inadequate equipment that unreasonably hazards the safety of his crew, he is OBLIGATED to refuse to sail. Of course, that would probably end his career but that's the price of that kind of responsibility. We want captains who place the safety of the ship and crew above pointless deployments. If enough captains refused to sail, perhaps the Navy would get the message. You might review the Revolt of the Admirals episode.

      "didn't he do just that"

      Good grief, no! The point of such a training scenario is to see how you use the resources you do have. For example, instead of wasting the helo chasing spurious contacts, the helo could have been held for a reasonably solid contact and would have been available to possibly check out the aerial contacts or the surface contact.

      In the story, every decision the captain made was incorrect.

      One of society's problems today is the tendency to try to excuse every mistake or failing. Nothing is anyone's fault. We've removed accountability and consequence from action. The kind of reasoning you're attempting to apply is an example of this.

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    5. My point was "didn't he do just that" reflected the training he HAD received, not the training he SHOULD have received. Maybe I didn't write that clearly.

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    6. Perhaps you missed the entire point of the story which was to describe how training should be done and, secondarily, to illustrate how bad current training is and what would happen when better training was implemented? Are you attempting to defend the current training process? If not, then I'm not sure what your point actually is.

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    7. NOT defending the current training, my point is that his failure was perhaps the result of training he'd received. Garbage in and garbage out. I certainly didn't miss the point of the story, instead I'm emphasizing that why would anyone expect a different result than what you described under the circumstances?

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    8. "instead I'm emphasizing that why would anyone expect a different result than what you described under the circumstances?"

      I certainly would not - and did not - expect a different result as evidenced by this passage from the story:

      " No one had expected the exercise to go well but this was poor even by that standard. Still, considering that the Navy had not conducted realistic training for decades, it wasn’t surprising."

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    9. "my point is that his failure was perhaps the result of training he'd received."

      No. His failure was the result of having been promoted and selected for command by criteria other than warfighting ability.

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  5. Absolutely love the scenario, and think itd play out just like that on most ships today. I'm all for this level of training, even though it'll certainly park a lot of ships, and bench a lot of COs, TAOs,etc, if the observers and reviews stay honest. But that's fine, it's needed. Great post CNO!!

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  6. Fleet Problem XXIII, held a decade ago, was rather instrumental in exposing a clear deficit in USN ability. the REDFOR carrier was assigned to launch an attack at a known target, the Navy bombing range off Hawaii. BLUFOR carrier was assigned to intercept, and was further assisted by MPA based out of Hawaii, and could call on HANG F-22s.

    On day 3 of the excercise, the umpires called up BLUFOR and notified them that they were looking in the complete opposite direction of REDFOR CSG, which had already sucessfully made an unopposed airstrike.

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    1. You seem to have knowledge about this exercise that I've not seen anywhere else. For example, my understanding is that only the Vinson was involved, not two carriers. Do you have a reference or link to details about this exercise?

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  7. A great post, CNO! I would only add that skippers need this kind of testing & training at the several layers of command they *should* have (Coastal Patrol Ship at Lt. then Corvette or Frigate at Lt. Cmdr., etc...) before they take command of a Burke.

    The pressure against testing like this (and against ANY free-play exercises) is so great because most commanders fear their careers will be destroyed. If they had passed at a much lower level, they would be more confident, more skilled and much better officers.

    On the other hand, a skipper who can't hack it at a low level should be able to have a thriving career in a non-command track, but that's also not possible in our current system.

    The first casualty of our up or out system is the lack of this type of assessment you described. Too many careers would be killed.

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    1. Are there enough small ships in the Fleet for officers to take command and weed out those that cannot hack it?

      How long should the tour of a CO should be? Last time I was in, COs change every year. I feel that encourages short-term thinking just to have good bullet points on the FITREP. "As long INSURV is not during my term, I'm fine"

      If we want to change how we fight, then career management has to change alongside. Would DOPMA be a problem?

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  8. One other idea that might help is to institute something like the RN Perisher course for all prospective COs, and they have to pass before taking command. Perhaps this could be reserved for ships over as certain size, so they could get command experience on smaller combatants first. Serve a CO tour on a patrol boat or corvette or sweep--if we had such things--and then go to Perisher before taking over a frigate or destroyer or larger.

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    1. I know you're enamored with the RN training but there is nothing magic about them. We have more training courses on more topics and that includes all kinds of prospective command courses. The 'magic' in the RN training is that they're willing to set standards and fail students who don't meet the standards. In contrast, no one fails any USN training. A US Perisher course would be just as worthless as every other US training effort unless we set standards and ruthlessly fail those who don't meet the standards. Of course, if we did that, we wouldn't need a US Perisher. As I said, we have more than enough courses and training now.

      Has any deploying group ever failed to 'qualify'? As best I know, that's never occurred no matter how badly they perform and how poorly maintained and prepared the individual ships are. We've got the training but we refuse to set and hold standards.

      Remember the flurry of INSURV failures a decade or so ago? What was the Navy's solution? They first classified the results so no one could see them and then changed the inspection from pass/fail to advisory only.

      Again, to hammer the point home, the 'magic' of Perisher isn't the course or the actions or exercises, it's the willingness to set and hold standards and fail people. You need to stop thinking that there's something magical about Perisher and that it would somehow turn the USN into a competent force. There isn't and it wouldn't.

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    2. "The 'magic' in the RN training is that they're willing to set standards and fail students who don't meet the standards."

      Exactly.

      "Again, to hammer the point home, the 'magic' of Perisher isn't the course or the actions or exercises, it's the willingness to set and hold standards and fail people. You need to stop thinking that there's something magical about Perisher and that it would somehow turn the USN into a competent force."

      I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that there's anything magical about Perisher--or FOST (Fleet Operational Sea Training, like our old Gtmo) or the old Springtrain--except the willingness to hold people accountable to standards. I recall one of their carriers, I think it was QE, had to complete FOST immediately prior to deployment. It failed, and the deployment was postponed until it could pass. Can you imagine the USN postponing a deployment because a ship failed a training event?

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    3. " I'm not saying that there's anything magical about Perisher"

      And yet you keep calling for it. Why? If you know there's nothing special about it, why do you keep calling for it?

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    4. "And yet you keep calling for it. Why? If you know there's nothing special about it, why do you keep calling for it?"

      Because they are willing to fail non-performers. Same for FOST. One of their carriers had to delay a deployment until they could pass FOST. Can you imagine the USN doing that? And Springtrain was a mini version (mini because the RN was by then a mini navy) of the inter-war Fleet Problems.

      Training where everybody gets an A is not training. Training where some people get Fs, and where those Fs have consequences, can prevent those Fs happening when people are shooting at you with real bullets.

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    5. So, you recognize that calling for Perisher, itself (meaning the syllabus), is pointless. What you're really calling for is standards and consequences which, if applied to US training programs, would instantly make all of our existing training equally as effective as Perisher. Now that's perfectly reasonable.

      You now recognize that calling for Perisher is analogous to calling for more laws on some subject when we don't enforce the laws we already have.

      I'll offer one further thought ... anyone who fails a course should have to stand a review board to assess their fitness to continue serving even in another area. There may be many who can productively serve elsewhere (people who fail SEAL training, for example) but failure should be a red flag requiring a review - and a harsh and critical review, at that. This would be somewhat similar to Perisher where the failed student is banned from serving in submarines altogether.

      When you set incredibly high standards, like SEALs, by definition you'll have a very high failure rate and most of those people can continue to serve. However, when a SWO fails basic Mariner's certification, you have to really wonder why you'd want to keep them, at all.

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  9. If we had Perisher or equivalent for all CO's, annual FOST or equivalent for all ships, and an annual Fleet Problem for the fleet as a whole--with serious accountability standards for each--I think we'd see a remarkable improvement in readiness in a hurry.

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    1. You're aware that we currently have a submarine prospective commanding officer (PCO) training pipeline? If we set and held standards, we wouldn't need Perisher. The only thing that sets Perisher apart is their willingness to fail students.

      The only thing that sets SEALs apart is their high standards and willingness (some might say eagerness!) to fail students.

      The only thing that sets Army Rangers apart is ... oh wait, nothing sets them apart now that they've dumbed down standards to get women through the course. But, I digress.

      I don't know how to get this through to you. Set and hold standards and we don't need no stinkin' Perisher. Fail to set and hold standards and Perisher is worthless.

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    2. "I don't know how to get this through to you."

      I don't know what you need to get through to me, since I agree with everything you said. My only point is that Perisher and FOST (or Gitmo) and Springtrain (or Fleet Problems) are useful tools to build and evaluate. But if and only if, as you say, there is a willingness to fail PCOs and ships and even fleets that don't perform.

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    3. "The only thing that sets Perisher apart is their willingness to fail students."

      That's kind of all it needs to set it apart.

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    4. That's all ANY training needs to set it apart.

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  10. While at NPGS back in 1988, for a class we did a board game where the carrier teams had a clear objective get to a point to cover an assualt group and teams were given different levels of threat information. Very insturctive as the teams with the most and best threat information made the most cautious diecitions and missed thier objective.

    My point is these are the kind of exercises that are easy to conduct and teach and evaluate the people commanding our ships. Today with inexpensive PCs you can have the entire bridge/CIC crew at stations running a simulation to throw many different scenarios at them. Or even better all of the battle group COs fighting the campaign.

    I have worried about this for years. We have people deciding how to fight the next war when they have maybe one scripted exercise per year to let them determine what works and what doesn't. And much of what worked is due to the scripting and what didn't work is maybe becuase of poor performance of subordinates that haven't been trained enough or expected to think in new environments.

    Very few people challenge the status quo. It takes intelligent, bold, driven, almost fanatical professionsals, to shake up the system. Think Joshua Humphreys, Ericcson, Halsey, Nimitz, Rickover, Guderian, the early Napolean, etc.

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  11. I love this! It's not just that this kind of exercise is the best form of training. It weeds out incompetent (but politically adept) officers. It challenges our doctrines. It delivers realistic systems tests.

    And ideally, down the road, a more competent officer corp with a more realistic grasp of how their ships, sensors and weapons actually perform would be better (and more tenacious) at procurement. These would be the folks less willing to "go along to get along" and more interested in building an effective fleet. This, combined with (exercise) combat experience, would change the whole culture of the Navy.

    You can get some of this out of simulators, but it's not the same. Even if you're good at Gran Turismo on the PlayStation, there's still a long way to go before you can actually race on a real track.

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