This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
In May 1972, the commanding officer of the USS Sterett (DLG-31) included in the report of his ship’s engagement in Dong Hai Gulf the statement, "The Commanding Officer who tries to run a 'one man’ show will lose his ship.”
That 15-word sentence could serve as the motto of a unit I commanded from 1969 until my retirement in July 1973. My command was known as the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center (FAAWTC), Pacific, until July 1972, when it was redesignated as the Fleet Combat Direction Systems Training Center, Pacific. And, at FCDSTC, Pacific, we had become convinced that the greatest threat to the Sterett and every other surface warship in the U. S. Navy was the missile-launching submarine. We were just as convinced that we were on the right track toward thwarting that threat by training an entirely new breed of naval officer—the Tactical Action Officer.
If there are those who would call the TAO a ship’s "co-captain,” so be it. Before we are through, we will look closely at exactly what he does in relation to his skipper but, first, we ought to understand why we need him. We need him because of the awesome arsenal of missiles that are being carried on, above, and under the sea by the Soviet Navy.
The Soviet Navy has replaced the bomb with the missile, the gun with the missile and, to some extent, the torpedo with the missile. These missiles are designed for massed, coordinated attacks from air, surface, and sub-surface platforms in a highly sophisticated electronic warfare environment. This is the conventional threat which is facing our Navy today.
During the next decade the growing tactical forces of the Soviet Navy will almost certainly contest the diminishing tactical forces of the U. S. Navy in sea- power confrontations. Possibly, such engagements will be limited, with objectives carefully controlled and escalations cautiously avoided. Nevertheless, there will be decisive outcomes. The Cuban missile blockade was, perhaps, the first confrontation of what may become a "home and home” series. We must recognize that, after almost 30 years of total domination of the seas, the U. S. Navy is now in a new ball game, the outcome of which is in doubt.
There is a growing feeling that, in a future confrontation with the Soviets at sea, the first 24 hours will be the most important. For those hours will determine if our Navy is ready to contest and defeat the Soviet Navy at sea, which has been our ball park these past three decades.
Our Navy is enamored of technology and technological answers—and, let it quickly be said, with very’ good reason!
Industry has provided us more and better "black boxes” which represent highly sophisticated electronic warfare and radar sensor systems, automated threat reactive systems, third generation tactical data systems, and complex long range, medium range, and point defense missile and gun systems. We need them all, desperately, even with their multi-billion dollar price tags. An unhappy corollary of our black box obsession is that our existing surface combatant ships are not designed, constructed, organized or trained to meet the Soviet missile threat. It is evident that we must build or rebuild surface ships which can function as totally integrated combat systems, as do our combat aircraft and submarines. Of course, the multiple missions of our modern surface combatant ships make such designs incredibly complex but it can, and must, be done. The Long Beach (CGN-9), the first U. S. ship to incorporate all-digital Tartar and Talos missile systems, digital, three dimensional, electronically-scanned, fixed-array air search radar, and a digital sonar system, all fully integrated with the Navy Tactical Data Systems, was and is a giant step in the right direction. So, too, are the Spruance Class DDs and the LHAs being designed and built from the keel up as integrated combat systems ships.
But, regardless of how our surface combatant ships are built, they must be fought by humans who perform their functions in one centralized command area, the Combat Information Center, or CIC—which may prove to be more of a challenge than our personnel are presently capable of responding to.
It was this latter realization which led FAAWTC, Pacific to recognize the urgent need for a more com- 1 prehensive training program for CIC evaluators and decision-makers on board ship. The necessity to compress drastically the time required from recognition of a threat through its evaluation, consideration of weap- ( ons capabilities, weapons assignment and analysis of I weapon performance, until final kill; made it evident ^ that bold steps must be taken. Henceforth, reactions would be measured in seconds rather than minutes- Decisions, as well as evaluations, would undoubtedly | be required from the officer "on scene” at the time the threat evolved, since time would no longer permit the old "detect-evaluate-disseminate” routine established in World War II.
Concurrently, it became apparent that the luxury' o‘ independent, fractionalized instruction in anti-air warfare, antisubmarine warfare, and electronic warfare bV individual schools could no longer be accepted. A1 FAAWTC, Pacific, electronic warfare has been moved to the "front burner” and made an integral part of $ other forms of tactical naval warfare. These change5, coupled with the flexible and expandable capability5
TAOs: To Fight the Ship 57
of the FAAWTC’s complex, digital-computerized training simulator, called the Tactical Advanced Combat Direction and Electronic Warfare (TACDEW)[1] training system, capable of presenting air, surface and subsurface targets in a real-time environment, have set the stage for a new approach in the training of a Naval Officer—showing him how to cope with future "real world” multi-threats. The Chief of Naval Operations in 1971 directed the detailing of 60 qualified officer students from ships of the First Fleet to courses at FAAWTC, Pacific. Additionally, the Center was required to continue the support of operational commanders in the evaluation, development and analysis of new naval warfare doctrines and tactics.
Instructors responsible for the training of evaluators also became convinced that in the next war the CO would be required to fight his ship from the CIC and not from the wing of the bridge. It was their further belief that in "high threat” situations the CO would also require the support of condition watch "command duty officers” stationed in the CIC, on a 24-hour basis, because the majority of encounters involving the use of antiship missiles would be fought by the condition watch teams.
When first briefed on the concept of the course, the Chief of Naval Operations had approved the title of Tactical Action Officer (TAO) as the name of the watch officer who was to be trained in these classes. By definition, the TAO would be a multi-threat evaluator and decision-maker who, in a high threat situation, could be authorized by the commander or commanding officer to direct the use of any or all combat systems at his disposal in quick reaction to an evaluated, rapidly developing threat to his ship or force. The instructors were to teach the students those portions of tactical naval warfare needed to adequately "fight the ship.” These included, among others, knowledge of the threat, U. S. ship and force capabilities, U. S. aircraft capabilities, electronic warfare, anti-air warfare, antisubmarine warfare, communications, air intercept control, tactical data systems and command and control.
Generally speaking, prerequisites established for the prospective TAO student dictate that he be a lieutenant or lieutenant commander with a minimum of four years experience in a surface task force environment or in an operational squadron for aviation officers. These officers must also possess a better than average understanding of surface/subsurface/air naval warfare. In the case of surface officers, each is required to be a qualified CIC watch officer and Fleet officer-of-the-deck; for the air community, a like qualification must be held.
An analysis of tests given to the first TAO students showed that they, in common with all U. S. Naval officers, did not have an adequate knowledge of tactics or naval warfare subjects. Other tests administered over the past seven years confirm this. Using a base of 100 as the minimum level of knowledge required by a commander in order to adequately fight his ship, it was determined that the typical line officer, ensign through rear admiral, scores about 33% overall of what he should know for his rank. Although an officer may score well, perhaps even 100%, in some areas of subspecialization or experience, almost without exception, he was extremely weak in one or more of the other areas of naval warfare. Current Fleet training courses raise the knowledge level only a small amount.
Thus, even though the specialty of the general line officer is tactical naval warfare, his knowledge of his specialty falls far short of what might be expected. The most important deficiency is in the use of information provided by equipment or by its operators. Officers are not being taught proper, tactical, real-time decisionmaking based on available information. This became even more evident under the pressure of simultaneous external threats.
Furthermore, testing revealed that our Fleet officers are consistently weak in their ability to recall and apply warfare knowledge. These are the men who must fight our ships if we go to war today.
The brain center of our ships, the combat information center, should really be called the combat direction center. For instance, the Naval Warfare Publication Anti-Air Warfare NWP-32, the AAW Bible, directs the commanding officer to ensure that his ship has a 24-hour-a-day AAW capability but it doesn’t tell him how to perform such a task. NVC'P-31. the antiship missile defense doctrine, specifies that commanding officers should delegate firing authority to evaluators during a high threat situation. Of course, no one wants to delegate authority to start World War III. However, COs do need to know how to delegate authority to defend their ships in rapidly developing, high threat situations. The entire Navy must train in such a manner that, if we do go to war or are faced with a threat of force, we are prepared on a moment’s notice to execute a preplanned "delegation of authority” policy.
Out of all this came the realization that our surface ships had an urgent requirement for a new watch- officer to be called a tactical action officer, selected by the commanding officer to make, immediately, any or all of the required tactical decisions if circumstances so dictated. We needed, then, a methodology in order to properly train this TAO to carry out these new and most responsible tasks.
In its search for an entirely new system for the formal training of junior officers in real-time decisionmaking, the Navy discovered that there was and is very little literature extant among the military services. However, such literature did exist in the private sector, particularly in management schools. Fortunately, the Naval Personnel and Training Research Laboratory entered the picture early to translate the private sector’s experience into a meaningful methodology for the present TAO course. The decision maker in CIC must be aware of an overwhelming amount of displayed information and be capable of acting upon it. There is no longer time for him to consciously verbalize every information bit which is displayed. He must be conditioned to react almost instinctively to a developing situation. The parallel to flight training is striking.
At the Destroyer School, Newport, Rhode Island, prospective TAOs first stretch their cerebral muscles on Tactical Situation training—constantly changing status boards projected on screens—before moving on to realistic CIC mock-ups, right, to solve real-time battle problems posed by simulators and other training devices.
Early on, the student aviator is taught that there, are several instruments which provide reports on his aircraft’s ability to fly, and that he must constantly scan these instruments and react to their information in order to maintain his desired flight profile. If he observes a decrease in altitude, an experienced pilot would probably adjust his power setting and attitude, and the aircraft would again return to the desired level. If he i were asked to explain what he did, and why he did it, he might not even recall having done it. His training would have conditioned him to respond to given stimuli in a certain manner as part of an overall evolution in the operation of a warfare platform. Oversimplified, this is the objective in the TAO course—to condition the student to react to learned stimuli as part of the overall picture of the total threat, without the intervening conscious verbalization of every information bit presented. The medium chosen to do this is the tactical situation, or TACSIT. This technique calls for development of evolving tactical problems which are visually portrayed by projecting multi-status board displays on a large screen in the classroom. The displays portray on status boards the data being generated, duplicating what a TAO would observe in his CIC aboard ship. By timed-sequencing of multiple slide projectors, the status boards are changed, thereby adding or deleting information as called for in the problem scenario. Further j realism is injected by correlating taped, sound-powered,
internal communications and radio circuit reports with the changing data displays. Thus, the classroom has been converted into a decision-making laboratory.
At crucial points, as each problem or TACSIT progresses, the students are queried as to what decisions they would make, and why. Other questions are designed to require recall of specific data regarding threat capabilities, weapons employment, etc. As the students become more proficient in this training environment, the timing of display sequencing is increased until real-time demands are placed on the students and they are forced to operate in "pressure” situations. Finally, in the latter stages of the course, the students move to the TACDEW supported mock-ups and perform eval- uation/decision-making functions in the real-world atmosphere of the trainers. Thus, the TAO student is gradually conditioned to react to the threat. The course is competitive with some attrition. As an adjunct and re-enforcement to the TACSIT methodology, decision making is practiced under peer and faculty pressure, with critiques from both. Students are required to attain a course average of 80% in order to graduate.
The course has been divided into two segments. In the initial four week segment, the primary emphasis is on imparting that knowledge essential to the recognition of the threat, on capabilities and limitations of our assets, and on the trade-offs obtained when countering the threat withf those assets. During this period,
the student practices the evaluation of, and reaction to, the threat; the objective is the introduction of new material. In the latter phase of the initial portion of the course, a sophisticated scenario is used, based on the previously imparted knowledge. This takes the form of a transit of an aircraft carrier and her escorts, formed into a task group, departing CONUS for overseas deployment. A complete op-order has been developed for student use to support the transit scenario. The primary objective of the scenario is to teach U. S. weapons systems employment (capabilities and limitations) in countering a particular threat and to provide a review of the overall threat.
During this phase of the course the student moves between different class ships and among various type staff assignments in order to give him the broadest possible horizons. Having imparted threat knowledge in the earlier part of the course, this phase provides the first re-enforcement for the student. He is expected to recognize the threat while concentrating on learning his own capability to counter it. The final two week segment is also devoted to exercising the student in the evaluation of, and reaction to, the threat. However, here the objective is total re-enforcement of the material. This is done in the classroom and also in the mock-ups of the tactical advanced combat direction and electronic warfare (TACDEW) simulation training system.
Included is a general war game in which half of
60 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1974
the students represent the enemy Fleet and the other half represent U. S. Navy units; this is intended to re-enforce the overall picture for the student. To optimize the training and make it completely realistic, there are practical situations in which students are assigned as TAOs in individual CIC mock-ups to run real-time battle problems with full use of the simulators. There are two students and one instructor per mock-up, with the students performing as TAO by turn and when not assigned as TAO, serving as CIC or ASW Officer. The instructor conducts the critiques. Thus, in the final stage, the whole subject is brought into focus by practicing real-time decision making under pressure. However, upon completion of the course he is not the surface warfare "man for all seasons.” In these six short weeks a determined effort has been made to fill the "knowledge gap” but, realistically, one can’t hope for complete success. What is desired is the exposure of the student to the broad spectrum of required professional knowledge in order to develop the motivation to increase his knowledge and skills on his own when he reports to his operational command.
To return to the analogy of the naval aviator, upon receiving his wings, the aviator is qualified to operate the warfare platform, but his actual warfare skills must yet be honed by his operational flying experience, perhaps for the rest of his career. Likewise, the TAO upon graduation will be equipped with the basic skills which his commanding officer will hone and enhance with his follow-on shipboard operational experience.
It should be noted that, simultaneously with the course development, a listing of performance standards for the TAO was produced by a blue ribbon panel of operationally experienced officers at all command levels. So far as is known, this has been the only explicit, detailed listing of performance standards for any operational officer billet presently in use in our service. Moreover, a set of milestones and a stringent funding profile were established. The highly successful pilot course was completed in November 1972 and all subsequent milestones have remained on track. The initial Fleet courses began at each of the Fleet Combat Direction Systems Training Centers in early 1973.
Several other separate projects are ongoing or in development within the Navy to further the concept and progress of the TAO concept. One of the most important of these is the directive by the CNO to incorporate the definition, status, and command relationships of the tactical action officer, particularly in respect to the officer of the deck, in the forthcoming revision of NWP 50, Standard Organization and Regulations and NWIP 50-1, Battle Control. This official delineation of status and responsibility will have the full stature previously reserved for U. S. Navy Regula
tions and should eliminate any reservations of commanding officers or commanders as to the authority or delegation of authority provided for the TAO. A cost review is planned and the funding profile of over one million dollars, which includes costs for staff and student billets, will be revised in light of further course development and staff instructor augmentation. The inability of the two Fleet Combat Direction Systems Training Centers to provide enough TAO graduates to meet the general OPNAV requirement of three TAOs per combatant and three per major staff resulted in a directive to the Destroyer School to incorporate the TAO course in its curriculum. An examination of comparable curricula indicated that many of the TAO criteria could be validated in the Destroyer School and, as a result, in August 1973, TAO certification was added to the qualifications of the Destroyer School graduate. As of this writing the combined output of the three schools has exceeded 200 TAO graduates for our Fleet.
In order to establish a proper training interface with the Fleet and to make course materials adequately responsive to Fleet requirements, the need for special intelligence data in the course became evident. Steps i have been taken to obtain appropriate clearances for the teaching staffs to fulfill this need. Finally, in addition to the certification of the graduate as a TAO, a recommendation has been made that this important qualification be reflected in the individual’s officer data and by the assignment of a special qualification/ special designator (SQ/SD) code, and by a descriptive additional qualification designator (AQD) when this system is fully implemented. These actions will identify the individuals for management. More important, in view of the stringent requirements leading to the selection of the TAO, the level of proficiency required in the TAO training course, and the special trust and con- 1 fidence which his knowledge of tactical naval warfare should engender in the commanding officer, it must be expected that the official designation of TAO will soon become a fundamental and highly coveted prerequisite to later shipboard assignments leading ultimately to command at sea.
Therefore, once an officer has completed the TAO training course and has met the requisite quality standards, he is certified as a tactical action officer. However, this does not automatically mean that he will be assigned the TAO watch on board a ship or on a staff The fact that an individual is certified as a TAO through graduation from a formal course does not alter the fact that all ships and staffs have uncertified officers who may be designated as TAO watchstanders in CIC whenever conditions so require. The tactical action officer is merely the currently required descriptive title of the watch officer who, in high threat situations, may be
TAOs: To F)ght the Ship 61
directed to take charge and oversee the combat information center (or combat direction center), just as the present-day command duty officer is the title of the watch officer who, under certain situations, may be directed to take charge and oversee the bridge watch.
The directive of the Chief of Naval Operations, to reduce the size of the bridge watch team, emphasizes the fact that the commanding officer or, in his absence, the tactical action officer must fight his ship from the combat direction center, not the wing of the bridge. Professional thinking is gravitating more and more in this direction. A note in a recent issue of the Proceedings[2] could well have been written with the TAO in mind. The author’s conclusion is worth repeating: "It remains only to accord the evaluator the prestige he merits. Qualification in this watch station equals or surpasses in significance that of the officer of the deck. Without doubt, this is the most challenging watch that an officer can stand at sea. Equally without a doubt, the evaluator is able to contribute to the combate effectiveness of the command in a manner reserved, heretofore, to the commanding officer himself.”
Our new ships are being built to reflect these concepts with combat direction systems being integrated into the combat direction center. What we must have now are the multi-faceted, trained officers to operate these ships, and the tactical action officer is in the vanguard. But what about the future? Some principles which all naval officers need to think about, and assist in implementing, are briefly postulated here. First, education in tactical naval warfare must return to the grass roots of officer training at the Naval Academy, NROTCs, and the Officer Candidate School. Some
agonizing reappraisals are going to be required and some important trade-offs accomplished in order to make it so, but it must be done. Our Navy currently has a Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, designed to give basic training in surface operations to newly commissioned officers going into surface ships. This school answers an urgent need, but the curriculum must be expanded to include not only the very sound and most necessary division officer training now conducted, but tactical naval warfare in full measure as well—a form of basic warfare course, for which the present TAO course will evolve for the warfare postgraduate. Also, all newly commissioned surface warfare officers should attend the school, in the same manner as all naval aviators are required to attend flight training. Only in this way will junior officers’ surface warfare training be something other than accidental.
In summary, in the forseeable future with fewer but far more sophisticated ships—and less time spent at sea—we, in the Navy, must consciously direct our training so that our specialty as naval officers remains and re-emphasizes "a knowledge of tactical naval warfare.” This is the fundamental concept in the development and training of the tactical action officer—the first step in providing our surface forces with "around the clock” readiness.
A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy in 1943, Captain Pettitt served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was Aide to the Com- mander-in-Chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet and attended Naval Postgraduate School (Ordnance Engineering). Sea assignments included tours in destroyers and carriers and command of the Charles R. Ware (DD-865), Escort Squadron Ten, Prairie (AD-15), and Galveston (CGL-3). Shore assignments included Armed Forces Staff College; Staff, U. S. Naval Gun Factory, Washington; Polaris program planning at the AEC and Poscidon/ABRES program liaison with the Air Force at Norton AFB. He had dual command of the Fleet Computer Programming Center, Pacific and the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, San Diego from 1969 until retirement in July 1973.
Nothing But The Best
In the past few years, Marine Corps recruiters have been using the slogan, "The Marines Are Looking For A Few Good Men.” The car driven by our local recruiter had been parked in front of his office, with this slogan displayed prominently for several weeks—to the apparent annoyance of the Navy recruiter who shared the same office.
Navy chiefs have always been seagoing semanticists of sorts, and this recruiter had his own way with words. One day, his car appeared next to that of the Marine recruiter, with a large, neatly lettered sign saying, "The Navy Is Looking For Nothing But Good Men!”
—Contributed by Thomas French Norton
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)
[1]Sce T, W. Goad, "The Eight Worlds of TACDEW”, Proceedings June 1969, pp. 130, 133.
[2]Sec Cdr. N. Brown, "The Changing Role of the Officer of the Deck,” Proceedings, September 1972, pp. 112-113.