Warship Battle Training, Part II

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Setting Battle Training Goals

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series examining ways to strengthen shipboard battle training. Part I in the June Proceedings asked, “How Ready is Your Ship to Fight?” provided a checklist of factors affecting a warship's ability to fight, and focused on “How to Organize for Battle Training.”

Chances are that there were quite a few negative checks in responses to Table I, “A Checklist of Factors Affecting a War­ship’s Ability to Fight,” in Part I. No capabilities should have been marked positively unless they had been tried under “realistic” conditions. (A good example: shifting from Condition III to Condition I after taking a severe hit at night that disrupts structure and commu­nications and kills or wounds people at many stations.) All capabilities in the table should have been evaluated using the standard of “expert,” not just “satis­factory” or “good” or even “excel­lent.”

The next step is to decide what skills to emphasize first, and where and how fast to go from there. For this, you need to: have a complete list of all the battle func­tions your ship is designed to perform; and have a clear definition of each de­signed battle capability, including perfor­mance criteria, so that everyone on board understands it the same way. Using a simple, uniform format, such as a “qual­ification card” (see Figure 1), for record­ing the description of each battle capabil­ity will: help convey a uniform in desks and file cabinets so that people on station can see what they are supposed to do.

In order to strengthen the crew’s moti­vation and help plan training to achieve an expert ability to fight, the following actions are recommended:

►   Prepare a basic disruption skills quab' fication card as shown in Figure 1 ■ B^att control officers may wish to verify h^{sts 0} disruption skills or make changes to sin the commanding officer’s criteria f°^r expertness.

►  Create a full set of mission skill q^ua‘^l

fication cards:                               ,

1.        Secure the official list of the ship ^s required operational capabilities (ROCs)-

2.        Break out the type commander’s h^s of prescribed shipboard training exercise* (in one Type Command, it is called t ^L

This underwater blast that rocked the USS Kauffman (FFG-59) in Octo­ber 1987 tested her systems’ battle shock survivability. The Kauffman— well prepared—passed. Had the blast come in real combat, would every crew in the fleet have been as ready?

understanding of the meaning of each capability; permit the status of qualifica­tions to be easily updated; and enable everyone to see easily what the team and the ship can and cannot do on any given day. The principle here is similar to that of the planned maintenance system, which uses brief cards to summarize key information from voluminous documents

Ship’s Training and Readiness Exercise Manual). This list will tute the foundation for the ship’s se mission skills. The STAR exercise will fit well with the ship’s list of R~ ₍

3.        Open up (or obtain) your local Training Group’s (FTG’s) most up ^ date package of training readiness ^inSP tion criteria and exercise grading she

Marking Factors:

Numerical Scores 1 1A I1I-1 III-2 III-3

Manpower

All assigned personnel are present or accounted for; all are in top physical condition; morale and psychological stamina are high; leaders are qualified; succession to command defined.**

Battle Dress

Clear command policies exist with respect to what uniforms shall be worn on and off every station in every readiness condition, familiarity with Area

Team area specified; individual area responsibilities specified; all Personnel familiar with all installed fittings, with nature and contents of all adjacent spaces, and with limits of chemical, biological, radiological envelope, familiarity with Equipment      .

All personnel familiar with condition of all team equipment and with operation of specified nearby equipments.

Getting Material Condition

Team able to set material conditions in darkness; thoroughly knowledgeable of locations and condition of all tools, fittings, and checkoff lists.

Manning and Shifting

Clear command policies exist with respect to what stations shall be manned automatically in case of sudden unexpected damage sustained in any readiness condition; team able to shift stations rapidly and efficiently under conditions of severe disruption.

Caring for Own Wounded

All members proficient in first aid; all required first aid ma­terials available including water; all hands qualified to handle stretchers; team knowledgeable of most likely injuries; all hands with dog tags; panoramic dental x-rays on file ashore; all hands clean and with minimal hair, including facial, in order to facili­tate care of severe wounds; casualty marking materials available, h'eventing Accidents

All hands aware of local hazards and thoroughly trained in safety precautions applicable to team area.

Communicating Effectively

All hands qualified in telephone talking and familiar with emergency circuits and hand signals; messengers and recorders familiar with special symbols; damage marking materials available; personnel trained to avoid use of MC systems. Performance with Casualties

Team able to perform with reasonable effectiveness with 30% casualties; succession of team leadership firmly established.

Using Backup Procedures

Alternative systems in good working order; emergency proce­dures firmly established; procedures established to coordinate with other teams nearby, operating in Adverse Environments Team able to function in darkness with and without emergency lighting and under conditions of heat, cold, and storm.

Coping with Violence

Team prepared for operation under conditions of severe physical shock, fire, flooding, radiation, biological agents, or chemical contamination.

^Adjective grades; EV: Evaluator's initials.

^Explanatory material optional                                                                               

Pair these with corresponding STAR ex­ercises. Some differences between them may call for on-board command deci­sions. (Up-to-date FTG criteria may be available on board through computer disks.)

4.        Other criteria may be added, such as found in inspection check-off lists, tech­nical manuals, naval warfare publica­tions, directives by higher authorities, the Personnel Qualification Standards sys­tem, and the commanding officer’s own standards. Be sure to recheck your initial list of criteria against the official list of your ship’s ROCs to make sure no critical functions are omitted. (Your ship or some of its systems may be newer than the lat­est update of official exercise criteria.)

Figure 2 illustrates a sample “Mission Skills Qualification Card.” These cards (6 inches by 8Y> inches) need only list key words for each skill (shown in bold­face type on Figure I) to remind person­nel of detailed criteria in official source publications. A well-prepared instructor should then be able to thoroughly explain required procedures, numerical scores, and adjective grades. Some additional details (for instance, explicit criteria ap­plied by FTGs) may be listed on the back of the card for convenient reference.

If time permits, the task of creating qualification cards for all mission skills can be simplified by working closely with sister ships or ships with similar battle systems. Nearly all of the job needs to be done only once for each ship.

►                                           Prepare a visual display of all qualifi­cation cards for each combat team. If the members of each team are to have up-to- date knowledge of their progress, such information must be displayed in a highly visible format. A convenient display is also indispensable in planning future training. Figure 3 illustrates two methods of fabricating simple qualification card holders, which are suitable for display on bulkheads in high-traffic areas, such as mess decks or the ship’s library. Figure 4 shows a qualification card display.

►                                           Determine the current status of Condi­tion I battle skills. Using your most re­cent training status reports to higher com­mands, rethink your current team training

fission Skills: human capabilities to perform battle lections under “normal” or nondisruptive conditions disruption Skills: human capabilities to cope effectively ^w>th conditions of severe stress, extreme violence, and/or ^tempted enemy surprise

^Battle Skills: mission skills possessed in conjunction ^th disruption skills

Expert Ability to Fight: possessing all battle skills at levels of excellence as defined by commanding officers Drill: an assembly of one or more combat or watch teams for instruction or exercise in order to strengthen a ship’s ability to fight

Leading Combat Team: a combat team (with its team leader) assigned responsibility for planning and supervis­ing drills involving coordinated performance by two or more teams

Marking Factors:

1.   Action of investigating party in determining extent and source of flooding (max. 20 pts.)

2.   Action of repair party in determining and establishing flooding boundaries (max. 30 pts.)

3.   Proper dissemination of information and reports (max. 10 pts.)

4.   Action of repair party in controlling flooding and dewatering affected spaces:

a.   Ability of damage control personnel to determine the ship’s capability to control flooding (max. 14 pts.)

b.   Action of repair party in reducing flooding and dewatering the space (max. 14 pts.)

c.   Ability of repair party to use pumps or drainage system (max. 6 pts.)

d.   Dissemination of reports and information (max. 6 pts.)

Numerical Scores I IA III-l III-2 III-3

And

exactly how he will use the time.

ondi'

ship)’

Condition I-A for an amphibious

at

tive conditions (for example people don’t arrive at new stations

munications don’t work, special

► Establish a set of procedures app¹

,rove^u

while in Condition II or III, shall Con

tion I stations be manned in the con¹

information center without further

qualifications in terms of an expert (not just a “satisfactory”) ability to fight; that is, consider disruption skills in every evaluation. Mark each Condition I Quali­fication Card to show the team’s current level of qualification as best estimated on the basis of the most recent demonstrated performance (avoid using symbols like “S” for satisfactory, “G” for good, or “O” for outstanding, which have little to do with winning in battle). Instead, use “N” to signify qualification to perform under “normal” conditions, and “E” to signify expert, or the ability to perform under disruptive conditions—the only qualification that will really count in ac­tual combat.

►  Establish Condition I battle training goals. Next, your Condition I battle con­trol officers should take their respective qualification cards, select those most ur­gently needing training, and meet with their officer and senior enlisted combat team leaders. The job of selecting which training qualifications to shoot for, and when, should entail group decision mak­ing, preferably involving every member of the ship’s company who must contrib­ute to each qualification. (Note that get­ting all hands into this act could not be done without the qualification cards, and can be done most easily when the cards are visually displayed, precluding the headache of having to look through stacks of notebooks, manuals, directives, and inspection checkoff lists.) A battle skill that requires coordinated action by more than one team should never be marked higher than the lowest level of any involved team.

►  Establish training goals for all high- threat readiness conditions. It is unlikely that anyone has ever decided exactly what skills should be possessed by each battle system in Condition II or III, at sea and in port. It is also unlikely that any orderly way exists to decide what each watch team is qualified to do or what each watch team’s next training goals should be. Remember, some of the worst defeats in recent U. S. naval history (Pearl Harbor, Savo Island, the attack on the USS Stark [FFG-31] in the Persian Gulf) have been suffered by ships’ crews in condition watches. Nothing has changed in more than 40 years with re­gard to the fleet’s grossly deficient meth­ods of training shipboard watch teams and keeping track of results. The tech­nique of planning battle training by using visually displayed qualification cards of­fers an ideal procedure to define goals and measure progress.

Planning and Conducting Battle Drills

Recall that “ability to fight” as de­fined in Part I denotes a crew’s ability to perform all designed battle functions under conditions of severe stress, ex­treme violence, and/or attempted enemy surprise. A battle skill as defined here consists of a mission skill in combination with applicable disruption skills and is normally designated by an official exer­cise title. A combat or watch team’s ex­pert ability to fight will depend on its ability to perform all of the designed bat­tle functions that involve the team.

Drills should be designed to make measurable progress, despite personnel turnover and time constraints, which sometimes cause skills to be lost faster than they can be gained or regained. Progress calls for deliberate planning, as opposed to selecting drill topics at ran­dom or on impulse, and for measuring results.

Making good use of every opportunity for drill, whether expected or unex­pected, is a good beginning. For exam­ple, use a high-threat readiness condition on every occasion when you would do so in war, such as when entering or leaver port (instead of setting special sea de tails), and when mooring or unmooring- maneuvering in channels, or replenishing at sea. Further, keep the next drill alway⁵ planned in advance so that every t^eaI*j leader always has in mind beforehai^

always use drill time for drilling—'^neV^ for activities that could just as well accomplished without assembling whole team or group of teams. . .

When shifting stations, aim for proficiency. A warship is at its weak^e^ when stations are being manned shifted, even from one watch section ^

another within the same readiness c°n tion and especially at predictable times- The following drill procedures can h<-"

to reduce this vulnerability; _

► Designate for each drill a starting ^c0,’_t dition, a drill condition, and a securuv condition. First man the starting con tion (for example, Section 2 of Condi¹¹® II); then shift to a drill condition (pert¹¹¹" then lastly to a Securing Condition haps back to Section 3 of Condition U) a final check on stations manned.

► Walk through every shifting process each station and think about how it ^c°^u best be performed under grossly dismt'

when so"* com

is found missing or damaged, or p^e°P being relieved are found wounded or - parently dead).

by the commanding officer for shif^tiajj stations. (If the ship is hit and dam^aA.

pm of

ders? If not, what will off-watch P^L°^_n do? In case of a general emergency^ port before the whole liberty section . returned, what stations will be man automatically to take the quickest ad tage of people not in the duty seed

► Whenever the drill call is sounde ^

Condition I, make it standard practice man stations on the run.            .. _fll)t

► Practice in the dark, with and wit ^ emergency lighting. Simulate disruP _s conditions, keep track of what 8 , wrong, learn from these lessons, update the ship’s doctrine according.^

A warship should always drill _ whatever people are available. P* cancel a drill because certain peopw required elsewhere. Let absentees late battle casualties.

t

Backing Plate Method

Hanging Bar

1 Procure 6" x 9" top-opening vinyl sheet protectors.

2.  Cut Hanging bars ³/4" x 7*/4". Drill and slot ^XA" from each end.

3.  Prepare backing plate:

a.                      Drill ³/$2" bolt holes on lines 6Va" apart, vertical interval 1".

b.                      Insert W ⁴/40 panhead bolts from rear and tighten down with regular nuts. Add wingnuts about every sixth bolt to ensure secure mounting, and burr end threads on bolts to prevent loss of wingnuts.

c.                      Hang backing plate on bulkhead where easily seen.

4.                     Insert qualification cards into vinyl pockets, hang pockets on backing plate, and tighten wingnuts when cards are not in active use.

Sheet Metal Pocket Method

t

T

Cut rectangular sections 15" x 10.5" from sheet metal .025" thick. Mark to bend 9.25" from long edge. Bend each section but do not crease; leave each bend open about Va". Obtain or fabricate .5" U-channels for right and left sides.

Attach sections to side channels by fastening each section with one rivet or sheet metal screw at each side. Space sections vertically 1" apart.

Insert qualification cards (laminated or in 6 x 9" insert sheet protectors) with titles showing.

General quarters on the bridge of the USS Yorktown (CG-48) during a recent CVBG training exercise

Mi,

^ether the equipment available was ^^eclUate for fighting. If not, act to rec- ^niend improvements. (For example; Is (i^e battle dress prescribed to be worn by _v^^s team in this readiness condition the ,_iv^ry best conceivable? Is required protec- ₉ ^e clothing stowed so as to be readily ^essible under emergency conditions ?)

. ^lake it a part of every drill to recover prepare rapidly for anything that 'ght happen next: the next target; the .,^xt maneuver; the next hit. Only when ^ Preparations have been completed is ^e ‘action” part of the drill over. ^Befo_re you “secure from drill.” how- ₍^^er. assess any real damage or injuries, ^en act to get them fixed. Consider

Also, think about whether the spaces and materials used by the team were in good condition and properly prepared for bat­tle. If not, make notes of what needs to be done and pass them to the right people for action. Finally, evaluate what skills were acquired and decide on the objective for the next drill opportunity and on who will plan the next drill.

Motivation to achieve is one of the most powerful human forces on earth. The strongest way to build motivation is to establish definite team goals and then to keep all hands informed of the results achieved. These are among the principal purposes of the qualification cards, the visual displays, and the strengthening of

team cohesiveness.

Efforts that go into building team co­hesiveness can also help to strengthen a sense of responsibility among Condition I combat teams for the condition of the equipment and the areas they man in bat­tle (on which their lives depend) and for the condition and proficiency of people who man corresponding stations in other readiness conditions. A strong sense of team commitment means that battle sta­tion operators will often take the time and trouble on their own—for instance, dur­ing in-port duties—to monitor the condi­tion of their battle stations and to improve their own familiarity with their combat duties. (For more discussion on the roles