Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

Getting the Group Ready: Joint Training

You fight like you train!

Commander Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, USN (Ret.). First U.S. Air-to-Air 'Ace' of the Vietnam War

This statement dates from the spring of 1972, soon after then-Lieutenant Cunningham and his valiant backseater, Lieutenant, J.G. 'Willie' Driscoll, shot down five North Vietnamese MiG fighters and became America's first confirmed Vietnam fighter aces. Cunningham and Driscoll's success did not come out of the blue; their generation of naval aviators had been the first to be given a new kind of pre-combat schooling, called 'force-on- force' training. Simply put, force-on-force training involves training units and personnel against role-players who simulate enemy units at the peak of their game. The first of these programs was the famous 'TOPGUN' school, then located at NAS Miramar near San Diego, California. While the tools and curriculum were rudimentary by today's standards, the results were spectacular. The Navy's air-to-air kill ratio in Vietnam, the measure of aerial fighter performance, improved by an amazing 650 %. Not surprisingly, the other services took notice.

Today, every branch of the U.S. military has multiple force-on-force training programs and facilities, and each of these has been validated by the outstanding combat performance of their graduates.[73] CVBGs, like fighter pilots, do best when they have been tuned up by means of intense force-on-force training-a tune-up that's considerably complicated by the variety and multiplicity of roles a CVBG might be required to undertake. Today's CVBG is more than a group of ships designed to protect the flattop. When properly deployed and utilized by the National Command Authorities (NCAs), a CVBG's mission can range from 'cooling off' a crisis to spearheading the initial phases of a major invasion or intervention.

Meanwhile, preparing a war machine as large and complex as a CVBG for a six-month overseas cruise is a huge undertaking. In fact, the various components of the group spend twice as much time recovering from the last cruise and getting ready for the next as they actually spend out on deployment. And all of this has grown more complicated in the last decade as a result of the changes in the NCA command structure stemming from the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act. Back in the 1980s, and before Goldwater-Nichols, the Navy was the sole owner and trainer of carrier groups before they were sent overseas. Today, that ownership has moved to another organization, the U.S. Atlantic Command (USACOM) based in Norfolk, Virginia.

Led by Admiral Harold W. Gehman, Jr., USACOM is a mammoth organization-in fact, the most powerful military organization in the world today. USACOM essentially 'owns' every Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine unit based in the continental United States. Its job is to organize, train, package, and deliver military forces for the commanders of the other unified Commanders in Chiefs (CINCs)-the heads of the various regional commands responsible for conducting military operations around the globe. Whenever the NCAs need to send an American military force somewhere in the world, the phone usually rings first in Norfolk at USACOM headquarters.

Goldwater-Nichols has also brought practical changes to the U.S. military. For instance, CVBGs now no longer operate independently of other units-or indeed of other services. So an air strike from a carrier may receive aerial tanking and fighter protection from U.S. Air Force units, and electronic warfare support from a U.S. Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler squadron, and have the target located and designated by an Army Special Forces team. This, in essence, is what is meant by 'joint' warfare, and it's far removed from Cold War practices that gave the Navy few responsibilities other than the killing of the ships, aircraft, and submarines of the former Soviet Union. Needless to say, joint war fighting skills don't just happen. They must be taught and practiced before a crisis breaks out. The CVBG must practice not only 'Naval' skills, but also 'joint' skills with other services and nations.

This job falls to the joint training office (J-7) of USACOM, which lays out the training regimes for units being 'packaged' for missions in what are normally known as JTFs or Joint Task Forces. Getting a particular unit ready for duty in a JTF is a three-phased program, which is supervised by individual groups of subject-matter experts. For example, on each coast a Carrier Group (CARGRU) composed of a rear admiral and a full training staff is assigned to prepare CVBGs for deployment. On the Pacific Coast, this is done by CARGRU One, while CARGRU Four does the same job for the Atlantic Fleet. The training CARGRUs supervise the various elements of the CVBGs through their three-phase workups. These break down this way:

• Category I Training-Service-specific/mandated training that focuses on the tactical unit level. Examples include everything from carrier qualifications to missile and ACM training at the ship/squadron/CVW level.

• Category II Training-This is joint field training, in which the various pieces of the CVBG come together in what are known as Capabilities Exercises (CAPEXs) and Joint Task Force Exercises (JTFEXs).

• Category III Training-This is a purely academic training phase, which takes place just prior to the JTF deploying. Composed of a series of seminars, briefings, and computer war games, it is designed to give the unit commanders a maximum of up-to-the-minute information about the areas where they will likely be operating and the possible contingencies that they may face.

These exercises provide a multi-level training regime for every member of the battle group, from the sailors in the laundries to the CVBG commander and his staff. And most participants will tell you that the pre-workup training is usually tougher than the actual overseas deployment. The old saying that sweat in training is cheaper than blood in combat remains true. In a world as uncertain as today's, we as a nation owe the men and women of our armed forces the very toughest training we can provide for them.[74] All of this brings us down to the men and women of the GW group in the summer of 1997, facing a terribly real experience, designed to test the limits of their endurance and skills.

Getting the Group Ready: Part I

The countdown to GW's deployment in the fall of 1997 actually began in February of 1996. That is when the battle group based around the USS America (CV-66) returned from their own six-month cruise to the Mediterranean Sea.[75] Since America had been scheduled for decommissioning and eventual scrapping, this was her final cruise. The GW would replace her. Other ships in this combined CVBG/Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) were scheduled for deep maintenance as soon as they arrived back home. Thus the Wasp (LHD-1) and the Whidbey Island (LSD-41) were headed into dry dock for almost a year of overhaul. Replacing them would be the amphibious ships Guam (LPH-9), Ashland (LSD-48), and Oak Hill (LSD-51). At the same time, a number of the escorts and submarines were swapped out, as the personnel at Atlantic Fleet Headquarters and USACOM packaged the new CVBG. Even though the CVBG would make just one cruise in this form, the plans are to reconstitute it again in a more permanent form for its 1998/ 1999 cruise.

In February of 1996, while the thoughts of most of the group's personnel were on their upcoming leave periods and visiting with their families and friends, at the USACOM and Atlantic/2nd Fleet headquarters planning for the CVBG's training and deployment in 1997 had already begun. For starters, there was the scheduling of minor overhauls for the ships assigned to the CVGB that would deploy in 1997, as well as managing the usual flow of personnel coming and going to new assignments. These months of relative quiet offered a time for getting the new folks up to speed, and a chance for those remaining in the group's units to attend technical and service schools or to take some leave.

By the fall of 1996, the various pieces of the battle group were ready to begin their Category I training. So, for example, the Guam ARG and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable (MEU (SOC)) were beginning their own workups, supervised by teams of USACOM training mentors.