Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

stateroom), he discussed his vision of CVBG operations. Back in the Cold War, he explained, the Navy feared that the Soviet Union would try to eliminate the U.S. naval presence by sending multiple regiments of Tu-22M Backfire and Tu-16 Badger bombers armed with huge air-to-surface missiles (ASMs). The idea was to kill the CVBGs, after which Soviet submarines and surface groups would clean up the survivors with their own SSMs. It was against this threat that systems like the F-14 Tomcat fighter and Aegis were developed; their function was to shield the CVBG from waves of incoming missiles.

Today the world has greatly changed. With the bomber regiments of the Soviet Union a thing of the past, the threat of air attack on a CVBG has been so reduced that it is no longer necessary to maintain standing combat air patrols (CAPs) of airborne fighters. At the same time, the once-formidable fleet of Soviet submarines and missile ships is now either rusting at anchor, or else has been cut up into scrap metal. At this point the new CVBG tactics now practiced by Admiral Mullen and his contemporaries take the stage.

Today's CVBG tactics revolve around the reality that in the post-Cold War world very little threatens U.S. naval forces. The only navies in any way capable of hurting us are not likely to do that, since they are already friends like our NATO allies and Japan. Even if the friendship were somehow to cease, we could probably beat all of them together in a fair fight. All of this means practically that we can greatly reduce our commitment of aircraft and vessels to self-protection, and their resources can now be dedicated to the projection of offensive power. Now that they are relatively unconcerned about the military threat from other nations, CVBG commanders like Admiral Mullen want to be the military threat in a theater of operations. Obviously, Admiral Mullen does not plan to ignore enemy threats. To do that would be both foolish and irresponsible. Rather, he plans to leverage his best systems so as to defend the fleet with the greatest possible efficiency and effectiveness.

The practical consequences of all this doctrinal thinking is that the 'Outer Air Battle' concept that drove fleet air defense tactics in the 1980's is dead and gone. Instead of massed CAPs of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornet fighters, backed by a wall of SAM-armed escorts directed by the Aegis cruisers and destroyers, a more modest defense plan has been adopted. To that end Admiral Mullen now planned to depend on the SM-2 Standard SAMs aboard the Normandy, South Carolina, and Carney to project an air defense 'bubble' over the battle group and ARG, while continuing their other jobs of keeping naval and submarine threats at bay. This would allow him to reserve the sorties of his Tomcats and Hornets for the job of delivering ordnance onto land and naval targets. In other words, the escorts would be doing a kind of 'double duty' so as to allow the rest of the force to project offensive power into the littoral regions that would be their operating areas. Tomahawk and Harpoon cruise-missile strikes would be used wherever possible on fixed or naval targets, so that manned aircraft sorties would be saved for more mobile or more difficult missions.

For JTFEX 97-3, he would take the fullest possible advantage of both STANAFORLANT and the USAF KC-135 tankers he was being supplied with. Also, wherever possible, he would make use of special operations forces (from his own onboard SEAL (Sea-Air-Land) team and the 24th MEU (SOC) as force-multipliers and reconnaissance assets. Finally, though he was discreet in his references to them, Admiral Mullen planned to make full use of the two available SSNs, the Toledo and Annapolis. Both represented immensely capable platforms for a number of missions (such as intelligence-gathering, ASW, and Tomahawk cruise-missile attacks), and he clearly had big ideas for their use.

Just before our visit came to an end and we headed back down to Wardroom 3 for lunch, Admiral Mullen told us what he would stress the most in the coming exercise: safety. He had good reason to be concerned. There had been numerous deaths during the previous three East Coast JTFEXs. In JTFEX 96-2, for example, which was run in May of 1996 by XVIII Airborne Corps, thirteen deaths had resulted from the collision and crash of two USMC helicopters at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. For the JTFEX about to begin, Admiral Mullen had just one simple objective: to bring every one of the participants home alive with all the important parts attached and in working order! He planned to accomplish this objective by a variety of means, ranging from 'buddy system' checks of deck crews for fatigue, to regular drills for damage control and battle stations. As John and I left, we could only pray that these plans would work.

Friday, August 22nd, 1997

JTFEX 97-3-Day 5: As the Koronans continued their threat, the United Nations Security Council voted the first of a number of sanctions against them, in the form of a maritime embargo on weapons and petroleumproducts. This embargo was to go into effect immediately, and would be enforced by the military forces of the U.S. and her coalition allies. To support this operation, the coalition naval forces will move into the Gulf of Sabani immediately. Also, the Guam ARG and 24th MEU (SOC), supported by elements of the GW CVBG and STANAFORLANT, will begin to conduct the planned NEO from the American embassy compound in Temal.

This morning John and I were extremely busy, as we were about to move from the GW to the Aegis cruiser Normandy, where we would spend time with the 'small boy' sailors of the GW battle group. As luck would have it, our rushing around turned out to be unnecessary. A heavy squall line had moved through overnight, leaving behind rough seas, high winds, and heavy patches of rain-and delaying our departure. Meanwhile, the high summer heat continued, with peak temperatures over 90deg F/32 Cdeg. All of this meant that flight operations around the battle group and ARG were extremely dicey.

Before our departure, we had a scheduled meeting with three of the CVW-1 squadron commanders down in the air wing ready room. Joining us for coffee and a chat in the comfortable, leather-covered ready room chairs were Commander Curt Daill of VF-102 (flying F-14B upgrades), Commander Robert M. Harrington of VFA-86 (flying the Block 10 F/A-18C Hornet), and Commander Michael Mulcahy of HS-11 (flying SH-60F and HH-60H Seahawk). The three men's comments about the aircraft they flew and the units they commanded turned out to be both candid and informative.

Curt Daill is every inch the classic F-14 Tomcat driver, with all the ego and ambition that go with the job. As commander of VF-102, he headed a squadron that was rapidly acquiring new and useful capabilities. Already flying one of the most powerful warplanes in the world with its F-110 engines and AWG-9/AIM-54 Phoenix weapons system, the 'Diamondbacks' had recently added two new systems to their aircraft. These are the new Digital Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System (D/TARPS) and the AAQ-14 Low Altitude Navigation (LANTIRN) pod. The four D/TARPS pods assigned to VF-102 allowed them to take and transmit near-'real-time' targeting images while still over the target. This capability would allow Admiral Mullen to plan a strike on target just minutes after the D/TARPS-equipped F-14 locates it. The AAQ-14 LANTIRN pod (which has a built-in GPS/INS system) gives the F-14 community the ability to conduct day and night precision strikes with Paveway LGBs, as well as accomplishing wide-area reconnaissance with GPS positional accuracy. Both of these new capabilities made VF-102 one of the most desirable air units that a CinC might be assigned in a time of crisis.

Commander Bob Harrington, a quiet, intense man, who lets his squadron's actions speak for him, heads VFA-86. Another long-time Naval aviator who has seen his chosen flying community move in surprising directions, Commander Harrington has gone from operating A-7 Corsairs armed with 'iron' bombs to taking up the F/A-18C armed with the most advanced PGMs.

Our third squadron leader, Commander Michael Mulcahy of HS-11, arrived just a little late. Though he didn't tell us then, we later learned that the skipper of the 'Dragon Slayers' had just flown one of the first missions of the UN-mandated maritime embargo of the Koronan forces. Flying an HH-60H loaded with a SEAL team, he had swooped down on the fleet oiler Merrimack (AO-179), which was being used by USACOM to simulate a merchant ship transporting concealed arms and other sensitive cargo to Korona. Hovering over the oiler's deck, the SEAL team had 'fast roped' down to the ship and conducted a simulated 'takedown' of the suspected weapons cache that intelligence sources had reported there. After seizing the ship, the SEAL team had called for a prize crew from one the battle group escorts and turned the ship over to them.

'I haven't really been up to anything important this morning,' Commander Mulcahy remarked as he coolly joined us in the ready room.

HS-11 is one of the few carrier aviation units that fly two different aircraft. In addition to the SH-60F variant