Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) pins are pasted upside-down on the cover of Navy Exchange checkout line periodicals. Headlines shout out failures of ships to meet combat readiness standards. Reports by the Bureau of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) detail failures to meet standards. And from behind the scenes come reports of ships failing to meet minimum standards in maintenance material management (3M) programs and failing to pass fundamental unit-level certifications.
News flashes like these lead people to ask, "What is going on in the surface Navy? Have our surface ships sunk to new lows of readiness? Has waterfront enlisted and officer leadership lost focus on combat readiness?"
We must be careful not to over-generalize with such a broad brush the state of the surface force based on some press reporting. Certainly, the force has its challenges, but surface ships are still answering combatant commanders' calls around the world. Whether in support of traditional missions such as carrier or expeditionary strike group deployments or in emerging missions such as anti-piracy, oil-platform defense, theater-security cooperation, humanitarian assistance, or ballistic-missile defense, the surface force remains ready, relevant, and engaged. The challenge for force leaders is to accurately assess the true state of readiness within their organizations and apply resources where required.
The ships and staff of Destroyer Squadron Two (DESRON 2), home ported in Norfolk, Virginia, have tackled the challenges of ship readiness head on. By getting back to fundamentals, the basics of our sea-going profession, as well looking with a critical eye at the organization and execution at the squadron staff level, the greyhounds of DESRON 2 have demonstrated dramatically improved combat readiness across the board. The squadron has adopted an enterprise-like approach and realigned at the tactical level to the challenges of unit-level readiness. This approach can be applied to a variety of small tactical-level commands.
Readiness Imperative
Ask any waterfront Sailor, officer or enlisted, what they think is the most significant readiness issue they face, and the answer usually lies in money and manpower. You could hear a response laced with frustration stemming from a reduction of funds to buy spare parts, paint, and rags. Or hear about reduced or unfocused maintenance availabilities. You might also hear that ships are manned with fewer Sailors than in the past, and they are reporting to those ships with less training than in days gone by. While ships must deal with realities of constrained fiscal pressures, the next question that should be asked is, "what are you doing to be ready for combat, given these challenges?"
As the DESRON 2 staff and ships returned from deployment in November/December 2007 and January 2008, and as the two remaining ships prepared to deploy in March 2008, it became clear that something had to change. After steaming through many different parts of the world, combating pirates, interacting with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, and conducting maritime security operations in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, the squadron shifted focus and started the unit-level training and maintenance phases of employment.
At this point, and after being reinforced by some noteworthy watershed readiness failures within the squadron and the surface force, it became clear that a renewed emphasis on the basics was required. This comprised three main parts: improved self-assessment, proper management of material standards on board ship, and a realignment of the staff to support the efforts of the ships.
How the staff is organized to support the warships of the squadron has a significant impact on how the officers, chief petty officers, and crews improve the ability to self-assess and manage material readiness. The ships attacked the readiness challenge through detailed zone inspections, strict compliance with management of the Current Ship Maintenance Project, and other enhanced readiness initiatives such as the four-day work week in the USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) and Operation Pristine Valor, a ship-wide approach to topside material readiness originated by the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51).
Squadron Staff Alignment
The most exciting part of the story is how the squadron staff aligned to support the ship efforts described here. Following is an insight into the manning of this staff: Working with the commodore and chief staff officer, four SWOs serve on their second department-head tours. These officers spent their first tour primarily in frigates or destroyers and serve on staff in combat systems, engineering/supply, antiterrorism/force protection, or operations. An information professional serves on his department-head-equivalent tour, for a total of five department heads. They are supported by two surface warfare division officers on their second afloat tours, serving as training officer and scheduling officer. In addition, the staff is manned by a helicopter pilot and submariner, an intelligence officer, and a chaplain on loan from the Operational Ministries office. Senior enlisted expertise in information technology, operation, surface sonar, cryptology, and yeoman ratings round it out. Prior to the realignment of the staff, it was broken down into "N-codes."
This organization is relatively flat and fosters rapid communication up and down the chain of command. But it also allows for a degree of stovepiping and decreased communication across the N-codes. Coordination has happened mostly at the commodore/chief staff level. Rather than efficiently working as a single team, the staff acts more as a collection of nine small teams. On a small squadron staff, this is highly inefficient. These teams are smaller still and leave very little "depth on the bench." In this construct, for example, the submarine operations officer and chief sonarman in N7 department are in charge of all things related to antisubmarine warfare: sonar, self-noise, training, and the like. The N4 Material shop is in charge of all shipboard engineering, damage control, safety, and supply management. On board ship, each of these functional areas is challenging on its own, but all become a huge challenge for a small staff.
In this engineering example, then, why would the submariner (trained, examined, and certified in nuclear engineering) not have something to offer the N4? Submarines do not have gas turbines, but they do have diesel engines, compressors, and hydraulically operated machinery. And submariners understand good engineering practice. Similarly, why would the helicopter pilot not be intimately involved in safety, and not just shipboard aviation facilities?
This organizational stovepiping also reduces the depth within each N-code. An example of the inefficiency shows when a staff member goes to an extended school, or a staff officer is called to serve on an individual augmentee assignment. That staff member may have been the only one with a certain specialty or specialized training in a certain area, leaving no one behind to continue the function on the staff. This is a significant daily challenge on board ship, and it is further amplified in a small staff organized in a shallow depth structure. The challenge becomes, then, to determine what can be done to more effectively address what the staff actually does-its lines of operation.
While the staff as traditionally aligned functions smoothly and effectively in an operational deployed environment, it is not entirely suited to respond to the challenges of certifying ships ready for tasking to the type commander. Simply put, the small staff organization as it is currently described is inadequately aligned to support eight or nine warships.
Alignment Along Lines of Operation
A deployable destroyer squadron staff in actuality has two lines of operation: the staff executes maritime command and control under its parent carrier strike group commander, or other operational commander, and it certifies to the type commander ships ready for tasking. Within the carrier strike group organization, the staff acts as sea combat commander, conducting ASW, surface warfare, and screen commander, and also serves the maritime interception operations commander.
When not deployed, working up for deployment, or conducting any of a variety of operations at sea, the staff is focused on the squadron ships' efforts to complete unit-level training, and certifying that they meet Surface Force Training Manual certification criteria. The alignment of the staff should support these two product lines if it is to efficiently execute these functions.
To align directly with the two lines of operation, DESRON 2 abandoned the nine-department Napoleonic-style model and adopted a two-department model; one department in charge of exercising maritime command and control and the other in charge of all things certifying ships ready for tasking. These two principal operational department heads are the Senior Readiness Officer, or SRO, and the Senior Watch Officer, or SWO (reusing a standard term and SWO abbreviation familiar to Sailors). The former aligns nicely with the surface warfare enterprise lexicon and even has a title similar to the Chief Readiness Officer within the enterprise. The rest of the staff is aligned under these two operational department heads, depending on the tasking.
If working toward or conducting an exercise, or acting as sea combat commander during a carrier strike group deployment, then the SWO is the lead department head, with the entire resources of the staff at his disposal. Similarly, the SRO has all the staff resources at his disposal in tracking and preparing ships for certification to the type commander. These lines of operation exist simultaneously, with staff members supporting both lines of operation under the leadership of the SRO and the SWO. Currently, the SRO function is filled by the information technology department head, and the SWO function is executed by the operations officer, although any department head could fill either role.
As mentioned previously, at the department-head level, the staff has four surface warfare officers and one information professional. Each of these heads an administrative department that manages special-request chits, evaluation and fitness reports, and the like. These two lines of operation are headed by the SRO and the SWO. The organization may best be described in a "radiator diagram:"
The diagram here shows the two lines of operation as arrows, supported by the five departments. The lines of operations are led by the SRO and SWO. DESRON 2 discontinued the use of the N-code formulation (which in most cases didn't match higher headquarters anyway), to further break down the original barriers. Air operations is no longer the N9, and the anti-terrorism force-protection officer is no longer the N5. However, certain officers, such as the intelligence officer, retained a convenient alias (N2) although he no longer serves as a department head, but as part of the department supporting operations/intelligence.
Execution and Empowerment
Often one of the most challenging tasks in leading change is to get the organization on board with the change. In this case, the change was developed by the entire staff, which immediately bought into it. Because of this, we saw rapid and innovative change. Empowered by the new organization, the SRO and SWO began holding their own meetings, developing new ways of tracking ship readiness, anticipating upcoming certification events, and coordinating ships and squadron-wide readiness initiatives. The staff was inspired to lead the change.
Some of the most effective changes initiated by the staff included development of a comprehensive weekly readiness brief. This has not only increased the level of attention given to the certification process, it has allowed the squadron to bring all of its talent and experience to bear on individual ship certification events.
The new alignment has stimulated innovative thought and encouraged the staff and leaders on the ships to develop new ideas for improving material readiness across the squadron. Among the most novel concepts are readiness "quick-draw" events that focus each ship on a specific readiness area. Staff and ship force volunteers from across the squadron combine to descend on ships in port at a given, predetermined time to look at a particular readiness issue. Examples of quick-draws conducted by DESRON 2 include 3M (maintenance and material management) spot-checks; arms, ammunition, and explosives compliance; and information assurance. This innovative process, developed at the staff level and executed with staff and ships' forces has increased the level of compliance with standards among the ships of the squadron.
Once the general concept was developed and accepted by the staff, this change in the alignment of the staff had to be communicated to the leadership on each of the squadron warships. This was done by sharing the construct with commanding officers, wardrooms, and chiefs' messes on an individual basis, and by briefing the construct at weekly readiness briefs. The new organization was outside the normal comfort zone and took some time before it was accepted. Once it was, however, it evolved into a tool beneficial to ship leaders, who saw it as a welcome change. The shipboard leaders-commanding officers, executive officers, and command master chiefs-capitalized on the effort and took readiness of the warships to even higher levels.