Enhancing Bridge and CIC Leadership
bridge resource management. Having had the privilege of sailing in more than 20 U.S. ships working with very fine captains and their crews, I have observed a number of complex operations and learned lessons that could be of use to others.Know the Key Watch Standers
Who do you have on the bridge? Do they have the requisite skills to be there and in the combat information center (CIC)? How many new, unevaluated personnel are in key watch positions? These are some of the questions that must be asked to fully understand your ship’s situation at any given time. You should be aware of any cultural differences that prevent the conning officer from communicating effectively with the harbor pilot. Is a key watch stander having a bad day or distracted? When returning from one deployment, the commanding officer ensured that our German exchange officer was the conning officer going pierside in the United States, because he had no family members waiting for him.
My own method is to allow only one new or less-experienced person on each bridge and CIC team for any complex detail. As captain, you need to be briefed and agree to the new watch stander. Complex details include entering and leaving port, underway replenishments, and division tactical maneuvers. Key players include the officer of the deck (OOD), conning officer, helmsman, helm safety officer, piloting officer, boatswain’s mate of the watch, engineering officer of the watch, and of course the captain. Two critical watch standers should not be rotated in simultaneously, unless you as CO have been briefed in advance of the proposed changes to the watch bill and have concurred.
Another example of an important watch stander is the sailor who operates the laser range-finder during underway replenishments. The degree to which you rely on that one sailor is amazing. When the pitch and cadence of reports change, you know you should do something different. The same goes for the sailor who maintains the status board for courses and speeds while alongside or while going pierside. More than once I have seen the board keeper correct the conning officer.
Have Forceful Backup
You must be aware of your command climate. Do people feel free to speak up? Because of your rank, there is a natural hesitancy for watch standers to point out mistakes you are making or may be on the verge of making. As CO, you are not going to see everything. If you bark all the orders, you set yourself up to be given much less feedback by your watch standers, which places the ship in a hazardous situation. What is your watch standers’ body language? Shipmates may be reluctant to provide feedback, but if you know them, that is enough.
Consider not putting overly confident OODs on the bridge. My best were those who would ask for help when they needed it. One of the very best I worked with left the Navy because being on the bridge of a ship made him nervous. He would quickly tell me if I had overplayed my hand during a complex operation. Beware of the superstar OOD who does everything! Something will be overlooked.
You tend to develop a sixth sense with bridge watch standers. As CO, you know when a complex evolution is coming up, and you tend to migrate toward the bridge. Never override that intuition. If you think you may need to go to the bridge, you have just answered your own question. Develop watchbills that both well execute underway operations and ensure that new personnel are trained. Draw upon and build up the skills of your new watch standers. Nothing builds confidence like a little success, some positive feedback. When that new OOD or conning officer gives you a contact report, say “good job” no matter what. Confidence is such a fleeting thing.
Your conning safety officer (CSO) is the ultimate forceful backup. Chosen to help young conning officers gain confidence and thrive, the CSO oversees processes to ensure the ship stays safely alongside. This officer, who should be in place for all underway replenishments and pierside evolutions, also makes sure department heads are emotionally involved in the ship, while building their confidence and setting them up for success as future COs. Choose your CSO carefully, as this person will ease your burden in command and become a source of great joy.
Act on Recommendations
Bridge and CIC shipmates can make you very successful in command. The navigator makes recommendations for course adjustments, which, if you follow even when they differ slightly from yours, empowers the person through your acceptance of her or his contribution.
The same applies to the CIC: try not to deviate from the plan that was briefed. If you do, make sure your watch teams are aware of the deviation and the reasons for it, providing time allows. Always conduct honest and forthright pre-briefs and debriefs of all evolutions. Solicit comments even on how you performed. Do everything you can to build that bridge-CIC team.
Look Out the Window
Your watch team can become easily fixated on radar displays, electronic navigation, radios, and other technology. They can become preoccupied with developing a perfect maneuvering-board solution. Conn and junior officers of the deck should all know how to shoot bearing drift with the telescopic alidade. Never pass an indicator (rudder or compass) without looking at it. Buy a handheld GPS chart plotter to have with you on the bridge wing as you enter port.
The OOD and conn should stay in constant dialogue with the navigator. If the navigator says you are on track, the conn and OOD should verify with the visual range. When the navigator recommends a time to turn, the conn should use the three-minute rule to confirm that. He or she should have a crib sheet with all the course and speed changes, aids to navigation, and so on, and back up the navigator.
All recommendations from the navigator should be acknowledged with a repeat back. As CO, I too verbally acknowledged recommendations from my team. Encourage communications and shared situational awareness: teamwork.
Expect Problems
There will always be a vessel in your designated anchorage. When you say let go the anchor, it won’t let go. The tugs will not be nearly as powerful as you had hoped; they will be “placebo” tugs with less capability than anticipated.
The tug and pilot will be late, bringing a language barrier with your conning officer. Pilots can get overwhelmed. They may not understand your ship’s operating characteristics or deviate from the plan as briefed—but they will make you aware of things you need to know, such as uncharted shallow water. If you feel uneasy about a recommendation from a pilot, you must act. Know the pedigree of the pilots in your homeport.
If the tug is not made up appropriately, it will damage your flight deck nets as they push or pull you. Small boats will always cross in front of you to avoid jumping your wake. I did not know that until I went striped-bass fishing for the first time in Hampton Roads. Small boats do not respond, because they can’t hear or tell if you are calling them or not. Smugglers operate the same way.
How are orders given on your ship during complex evolutions: phone talker, WICS radio, shouting, or all three? Whose order takes precedence? What order should your boatswain’s mate chief follow during a precision anchorage if the phone talker says one thing and the XO radios something else?
You will get distracted by the process of rendering honors when entering and leaving port. In each situation, you must know who is senior. Is a commodore embarked in one of the ships? Is the CIC manned and answering the radios when the commodore’s staff conducts a radio check? Mine wasn’t.
Remain Unassuming
Your shipmates want you to succeed in command. They hold you in awe as captain. But be careful not to get ahead of yourself. As your time in command increases, your sense of humility can decrease if you are not watchful. You may become less tolerant of feedback and take more chances because you are bored.
You may wonder why you cannot get into a waiting station faster, or why rounds are not already leaving the barrel. You need to slow it all down, while still remaining extremely vigilant at all times. Remembering the following guidelines may help:
• Know your people.
• Balance the entire team with experience; the team is not just the CO, OOD, and conning officer.
• Encourage forceful backup.
• Use a conning safety officer, listen to your team, and empower them.
• Add a good dose of humility to everything you do.
My hope is that this article will cause further discussion and lead to improved operations. I have limited time left in command, but I can still help a few shipmates. Our squadron’s motto is “Ships, Shipmate, Self.” It’s all about easing others’ burden. Also, you want to be remembered well for your time in command, confident that you helped as many shipmates as possible.
Captain Kersh serves on the staff of Tactical Training Group Atlantic. Previously he commanded Destroyer Squadron 24. He thanks the COs who commented on this article and thereby made it much stronger.
Use Navy Forward Air Controllers Better
The U.S. Navy’s contribution to land-based efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq in the form of individual augmentees (IAs) is unprecedented. This is most evident in the number of electronic-warfare
specialists who have been deployed. Numerous Navy officers are also forward-deployed, filling administrative positions in the combatant-commander and subordinate staffs, mostly in Central Command. Typically one year in length, these assignments are often filled on short notice. Given the nature of current operations in Afghanistan, there may be an alternative way for the Navy to offer highly skilled officers to fill these critical combat billets.
One Man’s Story
Lieutenant Commander Mark “Biggus” Fickes looked one more time at his IA orders to Multi-National Force Iraq, reflecting on his 14-year career as an F/A-18F weapons and sensors officer. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to Iraq; he’d been hoping for orders to serve with the U.S. Navy SEALS or even Joint Special Operations Command. He had heard from other naval aviators who’d served ground combat tours about their unique and rewarding experiences. Biggus wanted a chance in combat at that end of the spectrum.
Of his four deployments on board two different carriers, he’d been in combat in three. During the end of his first tour in VF-41, then flying the F-14, he had earned a forward air controller (airborne) qualification (FACA) and gained a new appreciation for the life of an infantryman. He and his squadron mates often spoke of their willingness to serve ground tours, as long as they were relevant to their skills as aviators.
Reading the billet description for his new assignment, Biggus focused on the phrase “and additional duties as assigned by the assistant J3.” He’d known he could be in this situation someday, considering his many friends who had had served as individual augmentees. But Biggus had looked forward to the potential of serving a ground tour, just not on a staff.
Realistic Considerations
The Air Force is solely responsible for manning Army brigade and battalion air liaison officer and joint terminal attack controller billets. The Marine Corps’ fixed- and rotary-wing naval aviators fill most Marine battalion and regiment FAC and air officer billets. Both services also train qualified enlisted personnel in the role of joint terminal attack controllers, to meet the expanding requirements for personnel in that area.
But the current operational tempo, combined with the burgeoning requirement for more qualified controllers, leaves critical gaps that are increasingly difficult for the Air Force and Marine Corps to close. Yet one source of fully qualified FACs has yet to be considered in solving this shortfall for our land component.
U.S. Navy F/A-18 forward airborne controller (airborne)-qualified crews are all graduates of the Expeditionary Warfare Training Group’s Tactical Control Air Party course, better known as TACP. Upon graduation they are certified as ground FACs and then receive follow-on training to earn their airborne qualification in the F/A-18F. The course is identical to one the Marine Corps uses to train and certify its joint terminal attack controllers and FACs. However, this is where the similarities stop.
Marine Corps graduates of TACP go on to serve a typical 12- to 18-month tour with an infantry battalion or regiment as a FAC or air officer. Upon completion of the ground tour, Marine aviators return to their squadrons and continue with their aviation careers. When Navy aviators graduate from TACP, they return to their squadrons and continue their airborne training to earn their FACA qualification. Rarely if ever will they do a ground tour specifically as a FAC. They will more likely be assigned to a one-year IA billet on a forward-deployed staff.
The F/A-18F FACA qualification enhances naval aviation’s contribution to the air effort of the combined/joint force air component commander, and of course of the ground commander. More important, skills that the FACA-qualified F/A-18F aircrew gain enhance the carrier air group commander’s ability to integrate with the objectives of the ground-maneuver commander. Navy FACAs become the carrier air group’s experts in tactical-air integration with ground warfare because of their FACA training, which is heavily focused on integrating fixed- and rotary-wing air with combined arms and ground maneuver.
How to Really Work Together Better
A Navy FACA-qualified aircrew serving ground tours makes better use of naval tactical air for the land-component commander. By assigning such crews to joint tours (with the associated joint duty credit) with Army brigades and battalions as air liaison officers, the Navy will address two critical issues. It will enhance the Navy’s support of ground operations while simultaneously providing a critical capability to maneuver brigades. Also, when the naval aviator returns to the squadron, he will be able to educate fellow aviators on the ground commander’s perspective and priorities. This perspective is rarely available to Navy aviators through firsthand experience.
Navy personnel selected for air liaison officer positions should serve them at a point in their careers when they are considered eligible for duty on a joint staff. This policy will preclude an aviator from having multiple out-of-cockpit tours, and will keep the individual competitive for promotion and follow-on command.
Essentially this solution creates two joint staff-officer career options. One is at the tactical (brigade/battalion) level; the other traditionally oriented, at the joint-service staff or combatant-commander level. Aviators serving in a brigade staff aviation position for more than 22 months will be granted joint credit (or one year if deployed), just as if serving on a joint staff.
If this policy is adopted, the brigade and battalion staffs will have a combined aviation expertise consisting of Air Force, Navy, and Army aviators. The enduring effect will be a truly joint education and cross-pollination of air expertise for brigade and battalion commanders, their staffs, as well as among the aviators serving in these joint positions. Additionally, such a manning design will bring the respective officers’ “Rolodexes” to the brigade, thereby enhancing the ability to align small-unit training and better plan for large-scale exercises requiring air support.
Relationships Help Everyone
This process will not only institute habitual interactions with the brigade and battalion aviation staff sections, it will also stimulate relationships with external squadrons and battalions and brigades. The pre-deployment training benefits of coordinating hard-to-find tactical aircraft are self evident. The combat benefits are even greater, considering the ability of a “joint air shop” to reach out to carrier and land-based tactical air, closing the seams and gaps of joint air employment in theater.
For example, Navy air liaison officers assigned to Army ground units will expand opportunities to train with ground maneuver units and their associated joint tactical air controllers and joint fires observers. Navy air liaison officers will also facilitate training for Navy FACAs who require ground forces and rotary-wing aircraft to complete their training.
Some may criticize these suggestions as an additional manpower drain on a seemingly endless need for Navy officers manning staffs forward-deployed. Others will see the proposed career-field option as a deviation from what is considered normal, leading to a dead end. But Navy IAs are also not following a normal career path. And when the IA billet is part of a large staff, its value to the individual is lessened.
This is particularly the case for those being taken out of the cockpit during a critical phase in their careers, to fill billets in Iraq or Afghanistan on staffs performing jobs that rarely leverage their hard-earned, expensive training. These issues can be mitigated through a trade: traditional IA staff billets that can be filled by any qualified officer for billets that use naval aviators on the ground (such as air liaison officers), assigned to ground maneuver commanders.
As evidenced in the current conflicts, joint operations require an expanded Navy presence on tactical-level staffs where naval aviation performs a critical role such as close air support or airborne forward air control. A more deliberate process that assigns ground FAC-certified Navy aviators to Army ground maneuver units will be a much better use of this critical asset, with obvious joint benefits.
Colonel Roberts works for Check-6 Inc., a group of former naval aviators that consults with the oil business on hazardous environments. A former artillery officer and career F/A-18 pilot, he commanded a FACA-capable squadron during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
Requiem for Indian 617
On the evening of Tuesday, 19 May 2009, a cadre of Carrier Air Wing Eleven aircraft took off from the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) for a training mission into western Arizona. Having completed their objective, two search-and-rescue helicopters picked up two aviators simulating downed pilots in the midst of a hostile environment. One was the newest member of our squadron, the Black Aces. The helicopters involved in the “rescue” stopped at NAS North Island before making the trek back to the Nimitz. Our aircrew member was returning in the lead copter.
At around 2300, mere minutes off the beaches of Coronado Island, he looked back at the second aircraft that had been faithfully following and saw . . . nothing. Nothing was heard, either. Immediately the pilot began a real search-and-rescue operation. They didn’t find anything; there was nothing they could do. “Indian 617” was lost at sea.
A Tragedy Unfolds
As this occurred, I was landing my Super Hornet on the carrier during the night’s final recovery. Soon after, I took off my flight gear and walked into Ready Room Eight, preparing to debrief our latest mission.
I quickly forgot all that as our skipper and executive officer rushed past me with slightly frantic, yet determined looks on their faces. All I heard was: “A plane is in the water.” Immediately my gaze went to the computer screen showing the status of all airborne aircraft. This was confusing at first, as it showed all planes safe on deck; I’d been among the last to land. Then I saw the last two lines showing the helicopters. We knew no details, except that our newest Black Ace was unaccounted for. I felt sick to my stomach.
It was the beginning of a long night. Finally our fellow Ace returned safely, but two of our air-wing pilots and their three enlisted aircrew remained missing. We felt the ship shudder as she tore through the water toward the suspected location of our downed compatriots. Those of us in the Delta House stateroom aimlessly and somewhat airily chatted, shaken by what had just occurred.
The Price of Freedom
It’s one thing to walk through our military cemeteries, absorbing the marble headstones of those who have paid for liberty with their blood. While touching the black granite near the Lincoln Memorial, or looking in the forlorn faces of the Korean War statues as they perpetually make their way through another frigid mountain night, the names help bring the sacrifices to life.
It’s quite different to know some of those names. Countless hours of planning missions side by side result in a different perspective. Even simple cordial smiles while passing in the carrier’s cramped passageways will forever be remembered.
In Vietnam, some squadrons came back from deployment with none of their original jets. All had been destroyed in combat and replaced mid-cruise with newer versions. This would be unthinkable in today’s Navy. Modern naval aviation is fortunate that so few deaths occur by comparison with past wars. The very infrequency of contemporary tragedies makes them all the more conspicuous.
But we do share this with the past: Sometimes we can’t mourn immediately. The Nimitz followed the mishap with three more days of intense flight ops, completing the certification for our upcoming deployment. As for warriors long ago, the mission came first. The time for grief would come later. I found cathartic release in doing things I knew I could control in the midst of those I could not. For type-A personalities, keeping busy can be the best medicine.
Farewell to Indian 617
We attended the memorial service on Saturday morning. As with everything on a warship, we made do with the accommodations available. No Flanders Fields or windswept bluffs overlooking oceans here; just the cold hard steel of a plated floor. Aircraft had been pushed to ends of the hangar bay, and naked engines were freed of their nacelles. The space in the center was cleared for an austere stage, chair-less, with only a simple lectern.
Our massed formations stood facing this platform, back facing starboard, front to port. Faded, grease-smudged bunting covered the legs of the raised dais. A massive American flag hung to the left, covering the entire three-story height of the cavernous bay. To the right waved a similarly sized blue-fielded ensign with the Nimitz’s circular emblem. Behind the assembled crowd on elevator two, seven men in black uniforms held rifles, silhouetted against the overcast southern California morning.
Next to the stage, five photos showed smiling young faces. Enlisted sailors’ Dixie Cup hats sat in front of three, atop triangular-folded American flags. The other two had white officers’ covers, one male, one female. All the faces looked playful, full of the joy that youth exude, even during excruciating trials.
Following the invocation, we sang the “Navy Hymn” and listened to brief biographies of the deceased. Allison, who brought the calmness and intoxicating aura of femininity to our mostly male profession, was to be married that June. Samuel, a rescue swimmer, had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. That Thursday, his wife had discovered she was pregnant with their third child. Eric and Aaron had young children and now widowed wives. Sean had been three months shy of his 21st birthday. These life details reminded us that despite our focus on mission success and the upcoming time away, the most important thing is always family.
After their friends eulogized them with heartfelt words, we all saluted in unison to the haunting rendition of taps. Tears welled. Hundreds of us simultaneously turned to face the open sea while seven riflemen fired three times each.
We were dismissed into the most pervasive silence I’d ever experienced on board this ship of 6,000 people and nearly incessant clamor. The healing of the ceremony had taken hold.