With the hodgepodge of hardware, proficiencies, and tactics we now face, we can no longer train as we did to counter the Soviet threat. It’s time for a service-wide doctrine that will prepare us to face real-world adversaries.
"Train like you fight” is a valid, unquestioned, and longstanding maxim for those interested in combat preparedness. But do we? How does the maxim translate into the specific choice and use of training assets and scenarios? A debate is forming on these questions, and much of the Navy is moving in the wrong direction.
The post-Soviet multipolar world structure has complicated our training needs. We no longer face “The Threat.” Instead, we must deal with a hodgepodge of regional powers fielding widely differing hardware, proficiencies, tactics, and motivations. Even potential enemies with predominantly Soviet hardware can no longer be counted on to use it in “Soviet” fashion.
Worse yet, the Byzantine nature of regional politics has changed drastically the ways we are allowed to fight. The intuitive goal of defeating the enemy may now be replaced by politically focused objectives such as controlling the situation, enforcing a no-fly zone, or protecting relief workers. Consequently, rules of engagement are more restrictive, with positive identification or even visual identification of hostile forces required before weapons can be employed in an unsanitized battlespace. Tactics are correspondingly different.
While none of this is fresh news, changes are trickling down to the training regime in a piecemeal manner. If we are going to fight differently, we must train differently. Nowhere is this more evident than in the turnaround training cycle for aircraft carrier battle groups and their air wings.
The various shore commands that are tasked with training our carrier battle groups have responded to the changing realities in a variety of ways: some aggressively and some hesitantly, some toward greater relevancy and some away from it, and some hardly at all. A single training philosophy has yet to emerge. It is time to look at some of the major issues and develop a service-wide training doctrine to which all support commands can attune their programs.
The Right Opponent
If maximum realism within the constraints of safety is the goal of training, then the proper adversary is the one that most accurately reflects the real-world threat. On the other hand, training against the worst-case scenario and against the toughest possible opponent might better hone our skills. Which approach is right? Are they mutually exclusive?
The argument here is not about the hardware we may face in combat, but rather about how well our opponents can use that equipment. In the February 1994 issue of Proceedings, Captain Ed Smith challenged the intelligence community in the post-Cold War world to lessen its focus on platforms and concentrate on training, maintenance, and tactics when assessing an adversary’s true combat potential.1 This challenge needs to be extended to the training community as well. Not all MiG-29s are equal.
If your own tactics remained the same regardless of the quality of your opponent, training against optimally employed platforms would be the way to go. Unfortunately, tactics change with the expertise of the adversary. Training against good bogeys will make fighter pilots better at fighting good bogeys, but it will not necessarily make them better at fighting bad bogeys.
For example, against enemies skilled in forward-quarter radar and missile employment, a pilot might exercise more caution and preemptive defensive maneuvers prior to reaching the visual arena. Even though this would reduce your own forward-quarter kills and situational awareness at the merge, it would prevent more losses in the be- yond-visual-range phase than it would add in the visual dogfight. Against poor pilots, this same tactical plan backfires—it is better to go in with guns blazing and shoot as many in the face as you can, arriving to fewer live bogeys in the ensuing furball.
Some training support commands readily embrace this inclusion of proficiency in simulating the threat and others do not. Of course, providing realistic adversary presentations is not easy. It is tough to convince a seasoned, fleet-experienced aviator to fight like a grape. In addition, we are simulating the hardware, as well as the pilot. Radar acquisition ranges, track initiation times, and electronic counter-countermeasures capabilities in our adversary aircraft obviously differ from the real aircraft they are portraying, as do their performance, size, and cockpit visibility in the visual dogfight arena. Still, in all warfare areas we need a standard training doctrine that calls for threat platform simulation that is accurate in both hardware capability and user proficiency.
The Right Scenario
At the top level of air wing and carrier battle group training are the large integrated exercises late in the turnaround cycle. They range from an Intermediate Training Assessment, which involves primarily the air wing and carrier, to FleetEx 3, which is monitored by a numbered fleet commander and fully involves all warfare commanders in the battle group.2 Designed to train the ships and squadrons of the carrier battle group to work and fight as a team—and ultimately to evaluate their overall readiness for combat deployment—these exercises must be analyzed to determine whether training objectives are being met.
A concocted scenario is the basis for all the large, integrated exercises, which usually last about three days. There the similarities end, with as many scenario-building philosophies as there are controlling staffs. Differences to consider include:
- Real countries or color-coded generic opponents
- Attrition or regeneration
- Balanced or surged among various warfare commanders
The argument for scenarios based on actual potentially hostile countries is straightforward: train against what you are most likely to fight against. As sound as that logic appears, it has its shortcomings. First, we are notoriously bad at guessing who next will challenge our national interests. Beyond that, no single potential opponent provides the opportunity to train in all the mission areas in which we must be proficient. For example, we must stretch to build the scenario in which we perform a noncombatant evacuation operation against North Korea; Iraq leaves the antisubmarine warfare commander relatively idle; and the Bosnian Serbs do not have any antisurface capability.
Another drawback of three-day scenarios against real- world orders of battle is the no-win issue of attrition versus regeneration. Attrition is realistic, but it often leads to diminished intensity after the initial engagements—not an optimal use of training time. Taken to the extreme, do we end the exercise early if the carrier battle group does particularly well and meets the scenario objectives in only 48 hours? On the other hand, allowing regeneration of the enemy’s order of battle to keep the training going destroys realism, negates campaign planning, and genuinely frustrates the warriors who have to kill the same adversary again tomorrow. Such dilemmas lead staffs to choose instead to train against artificial countries with artificial orders of battle and artificial names like Orange and Brown.
These color-coded generic scenarios are not any better. Confusing at best (the unofficial 1994 record is six different colors), they attempt to train against everything by training against nothing. The lessons learned have only limited applicability to the ensuing deployment. There is also the subjective but very real psychological lack of focus when training against a mythical enemy; it is difficult to pump up the troops for battle with the evil Orange Empire.
Some staffs attempt to have it both ways by using colored opponents that bear striking resemblance to actual countries. This approach pays homage to the political sensitivities of openly training against specific foreign nations, although the counterargument seems more compelling: if more despots knew we were practicing to defeat them, fewer would challenge us.
In any case, we still face the problem of not exercising a balance of mission areas. We cannot ready a carrier battle group for deployment by exercising some warfare commanders and leaving others to wither on the vine. As a result, most staffs devise an opponent who has a little of everything to bring to the table. But is that how most conflicts would be fought, with the warfare commanders vying for platforms and the only valid training going to the air resources coordinator?
A better approach is a phased scenario where warfare commanders can be challenged one or two at a time. Some inspired staffs have devised elaborate scenarios to accomplish this, with a noncombatant evacuation operation giving way to anti-surface and antiair warfare threats and ending with some strike warfare to teach those guys a lesson. A more optimal solution is to divide the exercise into three separate one-day scenarios.
Shorter, separate scenarios answer the mail on a number of training issues. Different warfare commanders can have their moments in the sun as the emphasis shifts from one day to another. Each would face real-world orders of battle, but not at the expense of another warfare commander. The flight deck would get varied tasking, from close air support cyclic operations to the complex launch sequence plans of major strikes. Generic color-coded foes would disappear, lending psychological realism and motivation. Attrition that risks fighting the last day of the “war” unopposed ceases to be a problem—new day, new enemy. A full range of traditional and nontraditional missions can be practiced, with humanitarian disaster relief today giving way to battlefield air interdiction tomorrow. The carrier battle group can deploy ready for anything, not just some things.
Perhaps equally important in this approach would be a shift of emphasis during underway training from planning to execution. Plenty of schoolhouse commands exist for our staffs to polish their campaign planning skills. When dwindling operations funds are being burned up in the boilers, it is time for action. Slow scenario heating-up periods or phase transitions are down time for the rank-and- file warrior and a poor use of training dollars.
The Right Forum
The wildly different approaches of the various training support commands and staffs to the use of training assets and the establishment of exercise scenarios point to a lack of service-wide vision. No one entity owns carrier battle group training. In a West Coast turnaround, fingers in the pie include Third Fleet; Air Forces, Pacific Fleet; Carrier Group 1; Tactical Training Group, Pacific; Strike U; individual functional wings; and the battle group’s own flag, air group commander, and commanding officers.
Recently, the Chief of Naval Operations has weighed in with the Atlantic and Pacific Fleet Commanders to streamline carrier battle group training. Specifics have not been widely disseminated, but their focus appears to be on eliminating redundancies and streamlining the workups to reduce operating tempo. The “how” of readiness training does not appear to be addressed from scratch.
A logical nominee to set training doctrine for carrier battle groups might be the recently instituted Air Board. Meeting regularly with all the senior aviation flag officers, it has provided the one voice that naval aviation has needed for so long. On the issue of readiness training, however, the Air Board has so far confined itself to programmatic matters such as adversary aircraft management and changing the relationships of Top Gun and Functional Wing Weapons Schools to the Fleet. The group should now expand its horizon to encompass training doctrine and its relationship to the evolving role of carrier battle groups as instruments of national policy.
The lack of doctrine exhibited by air training seems to exist across warfare community lines. Again, an umbrella doctrinal philosophy needs to be developed to define what we really mean by “train like you fight.” At this level, general issues such as use of simulation, integrated versus unit-level training, and scenario parameters should be addressed.
This service-wide doctrine should come from the same organization that sets war-fighting doctrine, i.e., the Naval Doctrine Command. If assigned to the Chief of Naval Education and Training, warfare and training doctrine will be written in separate environments. That hardly lends itself to training like we fight. This nuance was grasped by the Army, which titled its equivalent organization the Army Training and Doctrine Command.
The vehicle for a training doctrine already exists within the Naval Doctrine Command. The Naval Doctrine Publication series—launched in March of 1994 with the signing out of Naval Warfare (NDP-1)—will contain volumes on intelligence, operations, logistics, planning, and command and control. We need to add an NDP-7, Naval Readiness Training.
The Navy has focused on restructuring our war-fighting and operational doctrine over the past few years, in response to the changing world political landscape. We must now step back, take a breath, and make sure we are readying ourselves to exercise that new doctrine. It is training’s turn and training’s time!
1 Captain Ed Smith, USN, “They Can Buy It, But . . ." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1994, pp. 45-48.
2 ComNavAirPac Instruction 3500.60B of 13 April 1994.
Commander Oliver is Executive Officer of Fighter Squadron-211.