Naval Special Warfare assets (NSW) today are feeling the pressure of increasing mission and manpower requirements. The increased need to keep special operations forces in theater and on the ground has forced other units to fill in voids and perform operations that, until now, were primarily NSW missions. Most commonly, this means the non-compliant boarding of foreign vessels as a part of the surface Navy's ongoing visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) role and maritime interdiction operations (MIO) mission. In the past, surface combatant boarding teams have performed a VBSS role, but usually under compliant boarding circumstances only.1 If a ship demonstrated non-compliance or overt hostility, NSW assets took over the boarding operations. Today, NSW tasking to the majority of VBSS missions is no longer a possibility, because of their extremely high operational tempo in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
Navy boarding teams on nearly every ship, whether cruiser/destroyer or amphibious, have risen to the challenge of the MIO/VBSS mission and performed admirably. However, many within the surface and NSW communities believe strongly that these boarding teams require even greater training and more advanced equipment to deal with some of the tactically complex and dangerous situations that could arise during a noncompliant or hostile boarding.
Technology, tactics, and the enemy's ability to adapt all point to the need for greater and more comprehensive training. For the Navy to permanently ensure its capacity for success in this mission, it must commit to the readiness of its forces—in this case, of each ship's boarding team.
A major step toward appropriate tactical preparedness for this mission would be the creation of a designated VBSS rate for enlisted Sailors. At the same time, assignments as boarding team officers should become primary duties for first-tour surface warfare officers, in addition to their qualification requirements. These changes would allow Sailors and junior officers the opportunity to focus on the VBSS mission to a greater extent than is now possible, with watch and other time constraints.
The restructuring need not be Fleet-wide, as some areas of responsibility require a more substantial MIO capability than others. For commands it would affect, the changes may not always be well received. But the benefits that would accrue by allowing boarding teams to focus and train together would be demonstrated time and time again by safer and more successful compliant, noncompliant, and potentially hostile boardings.
The discussion of how to improve boarding teams on Navy ships invariably turns to the issue of training. The tactical skills involved with VBSS missions are complex and critical. Confidence and competence is a prerequisite for members of boarding teams to avoid injuries, and to ensure the safety and success of the team members and foreign crews during missions.
Required skills range from reactive shooting, close quarters tactics, prisoner control, advanced rappelling and climbing techniques to dynamic breaching. Yet even today, with a Navy VBSS training pipeline that has improved exponentially in the past decade, not all VBSS training programs are as uniformly advanced as they could and should be.
Essential Skills
One example of potentially necessary VBSS expertise taught to NSW personnel—but not to surface combatant Sailors—is advanced breaching. In the military sense, this is defined as a tactical mission task in which the unit uses all available means to break through or secure a passage through an enemy defense, obstacle, or fortification.2
An active duty SEAL officer (who agreed to be interviewed for this article on condition of anonymity) says that one of surface combatant boarding teams' most serious problems is their inability to stop individuals from sealing themselves into engine compartments and bridge wings, both spaces from which a ship can be piloted during noncompliant or hostile boardings.3
When a boarding team takes down a targeted large vessel, it is obviously not optimal to allow its captain the option of maintaining his course and speed. As the 23 March 2007 Iranian vessel-boarding debacle showed, though the British team was in Iraqi waters, even a few minutes of sustained underway time during a takedown can mean crossing territorial boundaries and an international incident. If placed in this undesirable situation, the boarding team has to decide whether to breach the sealed hatches. And, if so, whether to do it exothermically or explosively (a delicate and complicated procedure with great potential for injury on both sides), as shotguns will not suffice in breaching reinforced hatches. Ideally, exothermic or explosive breaching techniques are not used on buildings or in spaces that store, or potentially contain, flammable materials.4
However, the reality of the shipboard environment makes this restriction prohibitive: those types of materials are omnipresent in piping systems and elsewhere. With both the boarding team and the sealed-in personnel in danger, hatches are rarely breached explosively on board ships. Instead, exothermic cutting tools are used when available.
But most ships' boarding teams are not equipped with—let alone trained to use—any sort of exothermic torches or explosives in breaching hatches. If NSW assets are not available, shouldn't our surface combatant boarding teams be trained for breaching contingencies?
Training Shortfalls
The surface Navy has scrambled, in recent years, to overhaul its VBSS training pipeline. Has it accepted a mission role it is not ready to support fully? The lack of training in breaching techniques reflects other shortcomings in VBSS preparation.
Another example is advanced small-arms and close quarters battle training for surface Sailors, necessary on a routine basis to maintain a high level of VBSS proficiency. Effective small-arms fire within the confined spaces of the shipboard environment is no simple task.
Most of the standard, unspecialized and non-frangible types of ammunition that Sailors currently use have the potential for creating splash-back and severe secondary missile problems or ricochets within the confines of steel bulkheads. Proficiency and safety in the use of shipboard small arms requires substantial time allotted for training—and the budget to do it right.
In the Proceedings article "Bring Navy Small Arms Training to the Next Level" (February 2006, p. 77), Navy small-arms instructor Dustin Salomon lists significant issues that continue to affect training for surface Sailors. Most small-arms marksmanship instructors lack knowledge and advanced teachable skills, depend on outside sources for training, and use "antiquated content and methodology" in their courses. Salomon concedes that training has improved over the past five years—but, given the importance of proficient, instinctive small-arms handling among Sailors tasked with boarding vessels at sea, it continues to lag far behind.
Insufficient Solutions
Privatized security services are sometimes training Sailors in small-arms proficiency, a relatively new development. Chief among these is Blackwater USA. Since the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67), Blackwater has trained more than 30,000 Sailors in force protection techniques and some in combat boarding tactics as well.5
By outsourcing to the private security industry, the Navy has afforded its Sailors the opportunity to receive top-notch training in small-arms and advanced tactics. Their instructors are NSW and other SOF veterans.
But opportunities for this level of training are often inconsistent among commands. Some Sailors committed to a high level of mission preparedness have paid out-of-pocket for these programs during their leave time.6 This is an unacceptable situation.
It is unlikely that explosive or exothermic breaches will be required on most combat boardings—but effective use of small-arms fire within the confines of ships spaces may well be. To address this, in recent years many VBSS training programs have incorporated live-fire force-on-force training using simulation rounds. Funds have also been allocated to upgrade available gear for boarding teams, including better maritime-friendly, quick release, load-bearing gear and short barreled M4 carbines optimized for close quarters combat.
These improvements are encouraging, but a modern adaptive force needs continual planning and training for potential tactical contingencies. Further changes for the surface Navy's VBSS force may be necessary.
Fixing the Problems
The often cited and most fundamental need for a boarding team is training, and training together. Continual rotation of personnel has had a negative influence on the sustained effectiveness and teamwork within surface commands and divisions. The proposed "journeyman" program may assist in diffusing this impact.
In the NSW community, team members constantly train for missions such as VBSS with the same group of individuals, so that each member knows his role as well as his teammates'. They develop trust in one another's tactical competency. This is critical for stressful, dangerous missions such as boardings.
It would be naïve to endorse the feasibility of forming a miniature SEAL team aboard every ship. However, there are opportunities to develop this type of unit cohesiveness within boarding teams on board surface combatants. These opportunities include setting more time aside for unit physical training, equipment preparation and cleaning, small-arms training on board ship, and practice runs of close quarters battle tactics. More time on such training would help form the cohesive trust necessary for a small unit that may have to engage in close quarters combat.
But enlisted Sailors and officers already have heavy time constraints in their respective divisions. Time for boarding team training is scarce. Further complicating this situation, increased time allocation for boarding training is often seen as unnecessary, given that VBSS missions are undertaken only during some deployments, and deployments make up only a fraction of a ship's normal rotation.
These are valid concerns. But the formation of a separate unit within each surface command will allow boarding teams to train while at sea and in port—without placing the burden of manpower loss on each of their divisions. They will also be able to train together, forming the trust and unit cohesion required for their mission.
Attending out-of-command training programs as a unit will impact the command less and allow the entire team to learn advanced skills and practice together. The standardization of advanced training within this proposed community of Navy surface boarding teams will mean they absorb newly rotated enlisted Sailors and officers into their command team with less difficulty.
And with the newly mandated allocation of hazardous duty incentive pay to boarding team volunteers, if each command's team is set and performing the same duties, it will be less difficult to determine benefit eligibility for VBSS missions.
Sustained loss of enlisted Sailors and junior officers to a new VBSS unit may not be high on every ship's list of preferences. The change will not be easy. But we need to commit to forming highly flexible and capable VBSS forces among the surface fleets.
The current focus on terrorism will continue to tax our already overburdened NSW forces. In addition, global maritime piracy continues to skyrocket. Areas such as the east African coast and the Straights of Malacca have become hotbeds of smuggling activity in the face of allied efforts.
The MIO mission is not going to decrease in prevalence and importance. Each command needs to respond with Sailors and officers trained and equipped for dangerous combat situations. Our boarding teams must be trained to the highest standards and equipped with the latest tools and kit funding. These steps toward more advanced and capable VBSS teams on board every ship may seem extreme. But they represent a pill the surface Navy must swallow if it wishes to prepare for, undertake, and win the missions with which it will be tasked in the continuing efforts against terrorism.
I offer my opinions as a newly commissioned ensign without the benefit of Fleet time or the experience to understand fully all the nuances of the surface Navy's VBSS/MIO role. My conclusions are based predominantly on insights shared by numerous SEALs and former boarding team members (enlisted Sailors and officers of varied rank) with whom I had the opportunity to interact during my time at the U.S. Naval Academy. VBSS training continues to improve at an exponential rate—and we need to be sure this trend continues.
Ensign Lamb graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in May 2007, with honors. He is now at the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Evaluator School, San Diego, and will soon report to the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan.
1. The scale of hostility is also referred to as cooperative, non-cooperative, and opposed, versus compliant, non-compliant, and hostile. back to article
2. U.S. Army, "Army Field Manual 3-90, Appendix B," Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-90/appb.htm#par1-2. back to article
3. Interview at United States Naval Academy, 3 February 2007. back to article
4. Ibid, p. 8. back to article
5. Chris Taylor speech at George Washington University Law School, 28 January 2005. back to article
6. Bradley H. McGuire, "A View for the RHIB," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 1 March 2002, p. 97. back to article