Training units for situations like these requires more than the simple force-on-force training that was good enough for the military services during the Cold War. Exercises like Red Flag (at Nellis AFB, Nevada) and those at training facilities like the Army’s National Training Center (at Fort Irwin, California) were always based upon assumptions that a “hot” war was already happening. Because of this, the engaged forces’ only requirement was to fight that conflict in the most effective manner possible. While the services teach combat skills quite well, teaching “short-of-war” training is a much more complicated and difficult undertaking. Only in the last few years (after high-cost lessons learned in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia) has progress been made on this daunting training challenge.
So far, the leader in this new kind of “real world” force-on-force training has been the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana.77 The JRTC staff, for example, was among the first to insert into traditional force-on-force training what the military calls “friction” elements and non-traditional ideas like “neutral” role-players on the simulated battlefield, and to include a greater emphasis on logistics and casualty evacuation. JRTC’s focus on these kinds of layered issues have made it a model for other joint training operations run by USACOM (such as the JTFEX-SERIES exercises, which are run approximately six times a year—three on each coast).
The result of all this thinking has been a gradual evolution in the scenarios presented to participants in the JTFEXs. As little as three years ago, every JTFEX was essentially a forced-entry scenario into an occupied country that looked a lot like Kuwait, and the opposing forces were structured much like the Iraqis. The critics who were complaining that USACOM was preparing to “fight the last war” were making a good point. Today there’d be no justice in that criticism. Now, each JTFEX is made a bit different from the last one, or for that matter from any other. For one thing, USACOM has gotten into the habit of making the JTFEXs truly “joint,” by spreading out the command responsibilities. By way of example, a JTF headquarters based at 8th Air Force headquarters at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, controlled JTFEX 97-2 (run in the spring of 1997), while the first of the FY-1998 JTFEXs will be an Army-run exercise, controlled by XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Now that each of the services has opportunities each year to be the JTFEX “top dog,” the scenarios have tended to become not only more fresh and innovative, but also more fair in the distribution of training responsibilities and opportunities.
The quality of JTFEX exercises has also been improved by means of what is called a “flexible” training scenario—that is, a scenario without highly structured schedules and situations. In more structured scenarios, for example, participants knew exactly when and how the exercise would transition to “hot war” status. In current JTFEXs, there is much more uncertainty. Furthermore, the actions of the participants can affect the “flexible” elements of the scenario, and these actions can be scored positively or negatively. It is even possible that participants might contain a JTFEX “crisis situation” so well that a transition to a “hot” war situation might never occur. But creative work by the USACOM J-7 staff makes this unlikely. Thus when a commander or unit does well, “friction” and challenges are added so no participant gets a chance to “break” the scenario. On the other hand, if a unit has itself been “broken” by the situations it faces, the exercise staff may choose to give it additional support or opportunities to “get well enough to go back into the game,” as it were. You have to remember that exercises like the JTFEXs are designed to build units up, not break them down.
For the GW group, the focus in the late summer of 1997 was getting ready for their particular “final exam,” JTFEX 97-3 (the third East Coast JTFEX of FY-97). With their deployment date scheduled for early October 1997, every person in the battle group was eager to get through the exercise and move on to the Mediterranean. But the USACOM J-7 training staff wasn’t going to make that easy. To that end, several new elements were being added to the scenario in anticipation of new capabilities soon coming on-line. Within a couple of years, for example, the entire force of Ticonderoga-class (CG-47) cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyers will be receiving software and new Standard SAMs capable of providing the first theater-wide defense against ballistic missiles. Thus in JTFEX 97-3, the opposing forces were assumed to have a small force of SCUD-type theater ballistic missiles, some possibly armed with chemical warheads. The U.S. forces were not only expected to hunt these down, but to “shoot” them down with Patriot SAMs or with the Aegis systems on board several of the escorting vessels. The group’s abilities in this area would be closely watched by USACOM.
The activities of JTFEX 97-3 in August and September 1997.
JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD., BY LAURA DENINNO
In addition, CVW-1 was testing procedures for generating more sorties from the GW. This effort was based on a demonstration called a “SURGEX”—or Surge Exercise—run the previous July off the Pacific coast by the Nimitz battle group. SURGEX attempted to discover how many sorties a single carrier/air wing team could generate over a four-day period. By augmenting the air wing and ship’s company with additional air crews and flight deck/maintenance personnel, and by adding the services of a number of land-based USAF tankers to support the effort, the Nimitz and her embarked air wing were able to generate 1,025 sorties in just ninety-six hours. This was almost 50% better than had been planned (though flight and deck crews wore out rather quickly). By the late summer of 1997, the GW/CVW-1 team was already implementing these lessons. Though they wouldn’t have the additional flight personnel used by Nimitz, the flying day would be extended, USAF tankers would be made available, and some new procedures for monitoring crew fatigue would be tried. By doing things smarter, it was hoped that the average of around one hundred sorties a day might be increased by as much as half.
JTFEX 97-3: Players, Places, and Plans
The scenario for this JTFEX 97-3 was inspired by the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, with the coastal waters of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina providing the primary battle arena. But thanks to the magic of today’s electronics and GPS satellite technology, USACOM has been able to dispense with the actual geography of these littoral spaces and invent “synthetic” terrain for this and other recent exercises. Specifically, the USACOM staff created a series of “no-sail” zones off the East Coast that formed a simulated battlespace that looks a great deal like the Persian Gulf or Red Sea—long and narrow, with only a limited number of entrances and exits. It was into this arena that the GW battle group would sail during JTFEX 97-3.
For JTFEX 97-3 the opposing players would be known as Koronans, and the neutral victims of Koronan aggression would be Kartunans. Kartuna’s homeland would be the center of the scenario’s crisis. The Koronan forces would be played by various elements of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 2nd Fleet at Norfolk, Virginia, and some Marine aviation units from the Marine Corps Air Stations at Cherry Point and New River, North Carolina and Beaufort, South Carolina.
While the simulated Koronan military would be nowhere as large as that of Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, it would nevertheless have some distinct similarities. For example, Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighter/bombers from MCAS Beaufort would simulate Mirage F-1Cs armed with Exocet antishipping missiles and MiG-29 Fulcrums equipped with advanced air-to-air missiles (AAMs). Several Spruance-class (DD-963) destroyers and Oliver Hazard Perry-class (FFG-7) frigates would simulate Russian Kashin-class missile destroyers and Chinese missile corvettes. Finally, Marines based at Camp Lejeune would play Kartunan ground units, while Lejeune itself would play the part of the Kartunan homeland.
The forces of the Allied coalition would, of course, be played by the GW battle group and CVW-1, as well as their attached Guam ARG and the embarked 24th MEU (SOC). Though a battalion of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and a number of USAF KC-135 aerial tanker aircraft based at Lan
gley AFB, Virginia, would also play, the focus of this particular exercise was naval and expeditionary. This meant that if combat units could not fly or float into the JTFEX 97-3 scenario, they would not participate.
One of the largest (and most interesting) of the participants was Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAFORLANT). STANAFORLANT, established in 1967, was the Cold War equivalent of a World War II Hunter-Killer (HUK) ASW group—but with a unique twist. Each NATO nation involved was to assign a destroyer or frigate from their Navy to STANAFORLANT, and then the total force was placed under a single joint NATO commander. This arrangement has the advantage of providing the STANAFORLANT commander with an eclectic mix of weapons and sensors, and with personnel whose training, talents, and experiences are widely varied. Ships from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America form the permanent membership of STANAFORLANT (there are usually a half-dozen ships operating in it at any given time); but they are joined periodically by Naval units from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Portugal.
STANAFORLANT carries out a program of exercises, maneuvers, and port visits, and can be rapidly deployed to a threatened area in times of crisis or tension. Throughout the Cold War, STANAFORLANT provided a rapid-response escort group for NATO naval commanders, in case of a sudden “surge” by the submarine and naval forces of the former Soviet Union. Today, STANAFORLANT’s mission has broadened from this Cold War mission. Now STANAFORLANT is one of several NATO ready-reserve naval units that provide sea control services to the alliance (another of these units is in the Mediterranean supporting operations around Bosnia); and it could easily be found enforcing a maritime embargo or providing disaster/ humanitarian relief. During JTFEX 97-3, it would practice all of these missions, and some others that would have been hard to imagine as little as ten years ago.
While STANAFORLANT would not technically be part of the GW battle group, it would nevertheless be attached to it. Since ships constantly cycle in and out of STANAFORLANT, there is no such thing as a “standard” mix of ships and weapons. However, the STANAFORLANT group that participated in JTFEX 97-3 is representative. Let’s look at it:
STANAFORLANT Ships Participating in JTFEX 97-3
As you can see, the STANAFORLANT group assigned to participate in JTFEX 97-3 was a compact, powerful surface action group (SAG) that could bring a wide variety of weapons and systems to bear on a particular threat or mission.
For this exercise, the command of STANAFORLANT fell onto Rear Admiral Peter van der Graaf of the Netherlands, a tall blond bear of a sailor, who was based aboard his flagship, HMLMS Witte De With (F 813). With his vast smile and hearty laugh, Admiral van der Graaf quickly became a favorite of the GW battle group. In fact, he would hoist his flag aboard the George Washington at one point during the exercise. That he was a superb ship handler and leader only made STANAFORLANT’s presence in JTFEX 97-3 the more telling.
One other small, but useful, naval force took part in JTFEX 97-3: a special mine warfare component. This unit would test a number of new ships, systems, and technologies designed to counter what most professional Naval analysts agree are the single greatest threat to naval littoral operations. These deadly “weapons that wait” are extremely cost-effective. They are not only relatively cheap to make, but they don’t have to be high-tech to do the job. In fact, many current mines have basic technologies going back decades. At the same time, like their land-based counterparts, sea-based mines can make areas of ocean uninhabitable for years at a time. The fact that four of the five U.S. ships suffering combat damage in the last two decades have been hit by mines (the supertanker SS Bridgeton, frigate Samuel B. Roberts (FFG- 58), Aegis cruiser Princeton (CG-59), and helicopter carrier Tripoli (LPH- 10)) only highlights the threat. I should note that three of these ships were damaged by mines whose Russian design actually predates the First World War.
Despite the obvious threat presented by mines, over the last two decades mine warfare has been allocated less than one percent of the USN budget. The problem: Mine warfare is not glamorous. Compared with commanding a sleek destroyer or submarine, or flying a combat aircraft, it is considered decidedly “un-sexy” by most naval professionals. Much like infantry combat in urban areas, it is a nasty, dangerous business. Clearing mines takes a lot of time, it’s filled with headaches, it generates casualties, and failure is easy to come by—not a smart career move. All the same, if the U.S. sea services are to become a littoral-capable force, mine warfare will have to become an equal partner with surface, subsurface, and air components of the fleet. The Navy has been taking serious action to make this intention a reality.
For JTFEX 97-3, a “rainbow” mine warfare force of ships, helicopters, and personnel was assembled from units along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. These units represent the state-of-the-art of USN mine warfare technology and doctrine. Under the command of Captain Bruce Van Velle (who would act as the unit’s Commodore and the mine warfare component commander), the unit was composed of the units shown below:
JTFEX 97-3 Mine Warfare Task Force
JTFEX 97-3 was the first occasion that the Navy’s new emphasis on mine warfare was included in a major Atlantic Fleet joint exercise. The core of the mine warfare component was the converted helicopter carrier Inchon (MCS-12). Designed to act as a command ship for the mine countermeasures force of mine-hunting helicopters and minesweepers, the Inchon is the largest, most capable ship to ever take on this task. For JTFEX 97-3, she would act as a mobile air base for eight RH-53E Sea Dragon mine-countermeasures helicopters and four hundred personnel from Mine Countermeasures Squadron Fifteen (HM-15, the “Blackhawks”). Based at Moffet Field near Sunnyvale, California, and commanded by Commander John Brown, the Blackhawks are a mix of active and reserve personnel who fly one of the most interesting aircraft in the Navy inventory. Their MH-53E Sea Dragon, a modified version of the Marine CH-53 Super Stallion heavy transport, tows mine-countermeasures “sleds” and other equipment from a few hundred feet above the sea, and is one of the most effective means of clearing lanes through mine-infested shallow waters. Looking much like their Marine CH- 53E brethren, the Sea Dragon is easily distinguishable by the large side sponsons filled with extra fuel, which the MH-53E guzzles at low altitude.
Along with the Inchon and her mine-countermeasures helicopters, four new Avenger (MCM-1) and Osprey-class (MHC-51) mine-hunters with their reserve crews would participate in the exercise in order to demonstrate new ideas and technologies. These included an autonomous mine-detection vehicle, along with an explosive mine-clearing system to clear lanes for landing craft in the surf zone of an invasion beach. This increased emphasis on mine warfare is long overdue, and the efforts being pursued during JTFEX 97-3 are just the first of what will be many badly needed steps.
RH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters of HM-15 aboard the flagship of the Mine Countermeasures Task Force during JTFEX 97-3, the USS Inchon (MCS-12).
OFFICAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
JTFEX 97-3 was under the control of the 2nd Fleet commander, Admiral Paul Reason, who would watch over the exercise from the fleet flagship, the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20). Aboard the Mount Whitney would be the various warfare component commanders (air, naval, ground, special operations, etc.) that would run JTFEX 97-3, as well as many of the exercise observation personnel. JTFEXs and other large-scale exercises require significant numbers of people to manage and record what is going on. Thus, JTFEX 97-3 required the efforts of several thousand military and civilian personnel to observe, document, and analyze all that went on over the millions of cubic miles of battlespace off the Atlantic coast. These included observation teams from the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA—a U.S. Navy-funded “think tank”) and members of the Senior Officers Observer Team (SOOT). The SOOT team is made up of ship, squadron, and other commanders who are temporarily detached from their own commands and assigned to observe and evaluate the actions of their counterparts.
It was against this backdrop of objectives, plans, technologies,
ships, aircraft, and personnel that John Gresham (my researcher for this series) and I traveled south to the Virginia Tidewater to take in the events of JTFEX 97-3 in late August and early September 1997—almost three weeks. Partly because space doesn’t permit, but even more because much of what I saw concerned operationally sensitive issues, I cannot begin to tell you about all of what went on there. Nevertheless, I’ll show you some of the high points, as well as some of what life is like aboard U.S. warships.
Sunday, August 17th, 1997
August of 1997 was hot and humid in the mid-Atlantic. As if the challenges of the coming JTFEX were not enough, the weather gods were going to make the sailors and Marines suffer. On the afternoon before the group sailed, it was hot. Really hot! So hot that a new high-temperature record of 104° F/40° C had been set that afternoon at the Norfolk Naval Base. In this kind of heat, officers and NCOs had to watch closely for signs of heat stroke and exhaustion in their enlisted personnel as they labored to finish loading supplies and equipment, while ships and equipment had become so heat-soaked that they would stay hot for days to come. Even the heavy-duty air-conditioning of ships like the GW and South Carolina was having a hard time keeping up with it.
To my good fortune, I managed to miss much of the heat wave, since I would fly into the exercise several days later. But for John Gresham, the heat and humidity would become part of his permanent memory of JTFEX 97-3. John arrived late in the afternoon, thus missing the worst of the midday heat. As he pulled his car up to the long row of carrier docks, he could see all manner of ships. Two other big Nimitz-class carriers, the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) and John Stennis (CVN-75), were tied up in the deep-water berths next to the GW. The “TR” was about to head into Dry Dock 12 across the river at Newport News Shipbuilding for her first major overhaul, while the “Johnny Reb” was working up for her first overseas deployment in 1998.