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Before 1987, few outside Navy circles had heard of this one of a class of 51 U.S. guided- missile frigates. That all changed—fast. In an attack by an Iraqi aircraft, U.S. sailors lost their lives in the Persian Gulf. Why? Lack of proper training was the major reason that no one knew the ship was under attack ... until it was too late.
By Senior Chief Donald G. Freeman, U.S. Navy
Five years ago an Iraqi Mirage F-l nearly sank the Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class guided-missile frigate Stark (FFG-31) in the Persian Gulf. Ignoring radio warnings, the Mirage fired two Exocet missiles at a presumably unidentified ship, and 37 U.S. bluejackets died. A board of inquiry chaired by Rear Admiral Grant Sharp attributed the Stark's inability to defend herself to a series of failures and miscalculations by key officers, including the commanding officer, the executive officer, and the tactical action officer (TAO). But more lessons remain to be learned from this tragedy.
The investigation quickly found negligence and dereliction in the actions of the ship’s officers. Beyond its primary objective, however, the investigation did not fully evaluate the combat systems pipeline training to identify any deficiencies. Neither did it examine the formal training system designed to prepare the enlisted watchstanders for combat. Consequently, the board drew no conclusion about training but noted that all officers involved had attended the required pipeline courses. The truth is that the training establishment had poorly equipped those officers and enlisted men. Some actions taken by the combat information center (CIC) watchstanders could have resulted from only two things: negligence or abysmally ineffective training.
We know about the negligence. Now, what about the training?
Serious training deficiencies among the watchstanders accumulated to deny the TAO critical information from his sensors and strong, informed recommendations from his subordinates to defend the Stark.
The former commanding officer expressed his concern in an open letter to the Navy Times, saying that all the questions about events on board the Stark had not been answered. He contended that none of the sensors performed as he and his officers had been taught to expect. And he had a right to be deeply disappointed in the course °f action chosen by his watchstanders. The commanding officer quite rightly called for further investigation, to determine what other factors may have contributed to the tragedy. No response came from the official level. Many °f the Navy’s second- and third-echelon supporting commands had already turned themselves inside out immediately after the attack, seeking answers. The organizations directly involved in training the Stark's combat systems Watchstanders, however, did not.
Why did the Stark's sensors not work as the commanding officer expected? Why did his team perform as Poorly as it did? The total absence of information available to the TAO can be construed either as an act of God or as failure in either maintenance or operator train- teg- But could all of the Stark's sensors and weapons ad at the same time? We are often quick to bash the manufacturers of our vital equipment for reliability and qual- dy control problems—but they are just as quick to cite °Perator error. Both positions have proved valid at vari- °Us times. Modern sensors and weapons are so complicated that the average shipboard technician has difficulty eeping them at peak operational readiness. Worse, that Same technician may not realize they are operating incorrectly or know how to counter either a deliberate attack or an environmental degradation.
It is impossible to determine all the reasons why the incoming missiles were not detected by any of the Stark's search radars. But one particular fact stands out that should concern the fire control community: the Mk-92 fire control radar was operated incorrectly in several different ways. One consequence of this was the extremely unlikely detection of a target with a radar cross section as small as an Exocet, because a major sensor had been removed from the picture. At least some of the Stark's fire controlmen did not understand the relationship between radar power out and target detection—a definite training problem.
The young sailor charged with operating extremely sophisticated weapon systems gets far less formal operator training than the average high school student gets in a semester of driver education. And they are pitted directly against the most highly trained, aggressive officers an enemy can produce—skilled pilots and electronic warfare officers. It would help a great deal if U.S. attack pilots and electronic warfare officers would be involved heavily in face-to-face training with the surface navy’s fire controlmen. At least one staff position at each school training enlisted sailors for these positions should be reserved for an officer in one of the specialties.
Countering aerial opponents requires an understanding of their equipment, training, and plans. In addition, a radar operator more than anything needs to know how they think—in other words, situational awareness. The circumstances needed to develop this understanding are lacking in training ashore and in conventional antiair warfare exercises at sea. In real life, this dangerous game plays out in dark skies with invisible radar whips and lances. The playing field is shrouded in an electronic warfare fog, among rain squalls and sea return. Antiradiation missiles seek out those foolish enough to radiate and destroy those who look too long. Operators try desperately to pick out targets on scopes that glow orange with jamming. They struggle to achieve radar lock-on, and no one speaks, as the seconds pass. They reflexively push electronic countercountermeasures buttons to suppress enemy jamming. Decoys scatter like BBs spilled from a can. Each operator sits forward and aggressively pushes the equipment. Slowly, scopes return to normal, and the deadly blips turn outbound and scurry home as the chaff clouds dissipate.
Training dedicated to gaining control of this environment should be extensive and continuous. But currently available courses are simply too generic. No fire control- man receives intensive operator training on his own system. The average fire controlman gets far more damage- control and first-aid training during his career than vital training in sensors and weapons that develop combat skills. The priorities are backward: if combat systems training receives enough emphasis, the need for damage-control and first-aid training will diminish.
The most inexplicable factor in the Stark affair is how the weapons control officer (WCO) failed to make any positive contribution to the defense of the ship. On paper, he was qualified for the position, having graduated from the FFG-7 Weapons Officer Course and been passed by
a board chaired by the combat systems officer. The only weakness noted by the board in the record was some difficulty with dud/misfire procedures. Several questions must be answered about the training he was given and about the ability of the board to determine his competence.
The FFG-7 WCO is responsible to the TAO for the efficient operation of the ship’s antiair and antisurface weapons. To do this, he must be an expert in every aspect of his ship’s combat systems suite, tactics, and doctrine. He should be ready at all times to provide informed recommendations to the TAO and to act decisively within his authority.
Several major deficiencies appear in the conduct of the Stark's WCO. Upon assuming the watch, the WCO failed to prepare his console for operation. Not expecting trouble, he began working with the TAO on performance qualification standards at the tactical console. As events unfolded, with the Iraqi unexpectedly maintaining a southerly heading toward the Stark, the WCO was ordered to locate the captain, and he attempted to do so by phone. He expected to find him on the bridge or in his cabin but was unsuccessful. The TAO then ordered the WCO to man his console. The executive officer, who was in the CIC to discuss administrative matters with the TAO, had taken a seat at the weapons control console and was forced to move. At this point, the TAO bypassed the WCO completely, moved to a position at the console, and ordered the sole fire controlman remaining on watch—the other having left for a head call—to lock on to the Iraqi with separate track and illumination radar (STIR). With the target in the STIR blind zone, the petty officer managed to lock on to the Mirage with combined antenna system air tracker, seconds before the first missile hit.
The investigators noted all this, but attached no particular significance to the WCO’s strange neglect in failing to perform his most basic function: he did not recommend a turn to unmask batteries. The TAO, lacking absolute confirmation from a sensor operator that the ship was
under attack, still might not have ordered an engagement or activated the close-in weapon system. But the ship would have been in a much better defensive posture, with STIR cleared for acquisition.
Was the WCO adequately trained for his task? No— and neither were many other Stark officers. The WCO, the TAO, the combat systems officer, and the ordnance officer were graduates of the FFG-7 Weapons Officer Course at the Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic at Dam Neck, Virginia. Hundreds of officers have graduated from it. Formerly known as the Fleet Antiair Warfare Training Center, it had concentrated solely on the study and practice of antiair warfare. New thinking in the Navy brought about the “up, down, and out” revolution, and the old AAW thinking bowed to the multimission concept. A variety of other functions were taught under this umbrella.
In reality, nothing much changed in Gallery and Taylor Halls, the buildings that contain carrier, cruiser, destroyer, and frigate Simulators and mockups. Although both Sonar and Harpoon simulators exist, ASW and ASUW training there is scant. Because the AAW environment is so fast-placed and challenging, it is the most difficult mission area to master. Therefore, ! far more class- I room and Simulator time must be devoted to this area. But it is still not enough.
Antiair warfare training proceeds at a gallop with the most effort spent on team training. Unskilled individuals filling extremely complex watchstations during team trainer sessions are expected to pick it up as they go along. This is hardly fair or realistic. Individual Navy tactical data system operator training for officer watchsta- tions—and the more demanding enlisted watchstations, such as Link-11 track supervisor—is deferred in favor of the “team” approach. The training of an entire team optimizes the use of the enormously expensive equipment and fits time constraints and instructor resources.
The ship combat system simulators are neither efficiently designed nor used for individual training. Set-up and maintenance time are excessive. All the equipment is
not located in the same space. Mainframe computers may be on one deck, the ship mock-up on another, and the instructor operator stations somewhere off down the passageway. To teach a single weapons control officer, a weapons coordinator, or an antiair weapons coordinator takes at least three instructors. It can take many more, and only one student at a time may be trained because of simulator design limitations. For obvious reasons, this imposes severe constraints on course curriculum outlines that determine how students will be trained.
We need a new class of trainers. The most efficient simulators now available are those used to train air intercept controllers and antisubmarine air controllers. They are nofrills devices. Large numbers of students can train simultaneously on standard tactical data system consoles; instructors are used efficiently, one per student.
We also need a similar system to train officers in a variety of AAW command and decision watchsta- dons and operation specialists serving as track and identification Supervisors. The system should be able to train at least six students. It tvould comprise six student consoles paired with six instructor consoles driven by a commercial microcomputer. Each student console could be brought °n line in several different ship class ttodes. One of the six instructor consoles would be a master. The system tvould contain a variety of training scenarios maintained on hard disk, providing different tar- §et types and environments complete with taped radiotelephone communication.
In the early stages of training, the students would be monitored by a single instructor at the master console, While they followed individually paced program instruc- ,l0n at their own. As training progressed and proficiency mcreased, more instructors could be added. In the last stages, each student would be monitored by a single instructor at the paired instructor console. Training scenarios would be designed to evoke a specific measurable response by the student and would be conducted within be framework of standard Navy AAW doctrine and tactics. The instructor would have the ability to modify scenarios on-line and would maintain radio-telephone communication with his student. The goal would be to produce a graduate proficient in operating the console mode, knowledgeable about tactics and doctrine, and able to communicate effectively over a radio.
In the final phase of training, student consoles would be linked in a six-ship battle group. If more than one trainer were available, the two trainer clusters could be linked in a 12-ship battle group. They would be taught to operate their consoles and communicate by radio in a force environment. One student console could be configured as the force weapons coordinator. Each console would have storage ability to freeze and replay student performance for critique. Students could be trained to a high level of competence in this kind of trainer in the same
amount of time presently expended on air intercept and antisubmarine air control, without increasing instructor staffing.
Presently, to train five assorted WCOs, ship’s weapon coordinators, antiair warfare coordinators, and force weapon coordinators requires either an entire battle group to put to sea or the support of more than 100 assorted trackers, CIC supervisors, electronic warfare specialists, track supervisors, identification supervisors, computer operators and in structors, and practically every simulator available at either the Atlantic or Pacific training centers.
Would this type of trainer work for other watchstations? Absolutely. This multistation individual operator training device could be used to train Link-11 force track coordinators, track supervisors, identification supervisors, radar and sonar operators, electronic warfare supervisors, and tire-control radar operators of many types. These watchstations are all neglected in intermediate and advanced training. They have only basic embedded L-Tran- type training and on-the-job training, or excessively challenging team trainers and Fleet exercises. Many division officers have puzzled over the question of where to send
How I Came to Write This
My contact with the guided-mis- sile frigate Stark (FFG-31) and her officers began as senior weapons control officer instructor for the Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic, at Dam Neck, Virginia in 1985 and 1986. Over a span of several classes I taught the Stark’s combat systems officer, operations officer, ordnance officer, electronic readiness officer, and antisubmarine warfare officer, and I administered their last Combat Systems Team Trainer before they deployed. The command had not seen fit to send either of the tactical action officers—who would eventually serve in the Persian Gulf—to that course. Six students from the class never came back.
After the attack, the Stark crew underwent three refresher team trainers during ship repairs in Pascagoula, Mississippi. And members of the original watch teams returned to Dam Neck for training.
But it was too little, too late.
Ironically, after four years, as the manuscript for this article was circulating for security review, I was reintroduced to the Stark’s weapons control officer, the one I had given a grade of 75% on his final practical examination. He professed not to remember me and had earlier claimed to a junior instructor at Dam Neck not to have been the weapons control officer on watch during the missile attack. But I compared social security numbers— the one belonging to the Stark’s weapons control officer in a statement solicited by Rear Admiral Grant Sharp and the one that appeared on my old class roster—and they were the same.
I never confronted him, but in not doing so, I have never managed a frank conversation with him about the events as he saw them in the combat information center that day.
I sensed clearly that he did not want to talk about it, and I had no authority to compel him. I failed to believe his not remembering me, but I had to let it go.
During the year or two subsequent to the attack I had no thought of writing about it. I focused on bringing about change to the way we do business in the training command and on board Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class ships. After underway training missions on board the Simpson (FFG-56), the Jack Williams (FFG-24), the Halyburton (FFG-40), the Nicholas (FFG-47), the Fahrion (FFG-22), and the Robert G. Bradley (FFG-49), I wrote most of the FFG-7 weapons control performance qualification standards and contributed to several tactical memos, point papers, and Fleet Training Assessment Program discrepancy reports.
I collected as much written material—reports, magazine articles, and such—as I could, but used what I had learned directly from the survivors in the classroom. I interviewed the leading chief fire con- trolman, who had been relieved just before the Stark’s fateful deployment, and a severely wounded fire controlman who had transferred to the Clark (FFG-11), where I recently finished a three-year tour as
their key watchstanders to improve their performance. At times, nothing seems to fit the bill.
Another problem with training in Surface AAW in the schoolhouse is that few officers teach, and almost none teach Navy tactical data system courses. This is to the detriment of all officer-students who lack successful role models in these positions. In what ways were the officers sitting on the qualification board for the Stark’s WCO qualified themselves to conduct the board? The answer is, they were not, and very few officers in the surface community would be. The entire realm of tactical data training has been dumped on the enlisted community. How many officers can go head-to-head with an operations specialist in a discussion about Link-11? Or act as track supervisor? As Admiral Lord Nelson told his young officers: “Those that aspire to command at sea first must know the job of a seaman.”
The FFG-7 Weapons Officer Course attended by the Stark’s officers generated many complaints. One of the most serious and debilitating obstacles to instruction is excessive crowding. Frequently, two or three times the maximum class load were pushed through the course. There were five WCO students in the class attended by the Stark WCO, even though the curriculum allows for only three.
The course tries to do too much. The watered-down curriculum allows officers who are detailed to fill totally different watchstations to share classroom and trainer time. Test items have to be constructed in such a way that students in the WCO, ASWO and TAO pipeline can all take and pass the same written tests. Performance testing criteria is limited to what the student can handle, given the exposure he has, rather than what he would need in combat. Only 17 hours of hands-on training are included for the WCO in the curriculum outline. All of these aspects result in excessively low graduation standards. No officer has ever failed this course. A healthy Navy tactical data system course of this type would probably fail 25% to 30% of its students.
The Stark’s WCO passed his final practical examination at Dam Neck with a 75% grade. No objective grading criteria existed for those practical examinations. The course was established without a study outlining what the WCO would actually be required to do on the Job. This is a fundamental requirement for every Navy course. No Job Task Inventory or Personal Performance Standard existed. Every year during the annual course review, those requirements were waived. Since the objectives were so ambiguous, d became impossible to weed out substandard performers.
The root of the officer training problem is the old spe-
AP/WIDE WORLD (L. HOWELL)
Senior Chief of the Command and leading fire controlman. They both Provided me with background material on individuals and the Stark's customary operating procedures. These were interviews as intensive
as I could get away with, and they are the basis of this article.
D. G. Freeman
cialist-versus-generalist debate. In an interview in the April 1985 issue of Proceedings former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare (OP-03) Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf spoke about the proper training of a surface warfare officer. He believed that the surface warrior must above all be a generalist, with a wide variety of experience in his career path. He believed that there was n° profession—including that of medicine—where the incumbent needed more knowledge than that of a surface warrior today. He was absolutely correct. But his system sacrificed everything to produce excellent commanding officers. Every “internship” or “residency” became shorter to hurry officers on to the next step, culminating in command of the “hospital.” In the present system only those exceptional officers with the initiative and the gnawing jksire to master every aspect of surface warfare actually . ecome the experts he wanted. Vice Admiral Metcalf’s influence in the training of such officers is still very strong, foe problem is that the day is long gone when a gentleman adventurer could stride on board an oak-ribbed sur- ace combatant, go alongside the enemy, and fight it out VVlth his sword. With no serious threat to the Navy in sight, generalists will never learn to fight their modem sur- ace combatants to win. On the first day of the war those Superbly trained and gifted commanding officers will look at their stable of experts, each a graduate of a two- or three-week battle training school, none of whom have more than 20 to 30 months’ experience served in an atmosphere where paper is reality—and possibly a little doubt will cloud their minds.
An AAW professional, the WCO of the Stark made critical mistakes that point directly to the inadequacies of surface warfare officer training. Others, such as junior enlisted watchstanders, made mistakes, too—mistakes directly related to an absence of training. In all things a certain threshold must be exceeded before real changes take place. The general consensus seems to be that it was all a fluke. Then another AAW professional, on another ship, was unable to determine—using the most sophisticated combat system ever created—whether a civilian airliner was climbing or diving, and shot it down. Can we expect similar disasters to occur every two or three years? Or will we take a hard look at lessons in these events and at the standards we have set in AAW and improve training for the surface warfare community?
Senior Chief Freeman is a fire controlman with 18 years’ service in the U.S. Navy currently serving at the Navy Manpower Analysis Center, Chesapeake, Virginia.