When I left command of the USS Russell (DDG-59) in 2006, I thought I had the Aegis combat-system readiness all figured out—most of it, anyway. I was wrong. As often happens in life, there was an overlooked sign that became crystal clear when I later looked back.
In July 2006, when the Russell was detached from our previous strike group to head west and prepare for a ballistic-missile launch from a country of interest, I got a call from the Aegis ballistic-missile defense (BMD) technical director asking if I needed a “mini equipment groom.” I agreed, even though I thought my systems were good. But the groom revealed that the ship’s inertial navigation system was not up to par. My jaw hit the deck when the technician told me that if tasked, I would not be able to complete the long-range surveillance-and-track mission. We replaced the failing components and were back up in short order.
Armed with New Awareness
Shortly after reporting to the Aegis BMD program office for my next assignment, I was working on the Chief of Naval Personnel–sponsored Aegis Fire Controlman Deep Dive. We humans often tend to believe a job remains as it was the last time we did it, but I came to realize that I was seeing through the lens of my prior experience as an Aegis fire-control officer . . . 18 years ago. And the lens had lost its focus. Talk about a lesson in what you don’t know.
The Deep Dive taught me that I hadn’t done as good a job as CO of the Russell as I’d thought. Having been a fire-control officer as a young man and an Aegis cruiser operations officer for three years, and having returned to the same ship as XO, I had always seen myself as benefitting from a personal level of familiarity with the systems and their operation. But now I saw that maybe it was over-familiarity.
The findings of the Deep Dive were magnified and amplified in the conclusions of retired Vice Admiral Phil Balisle and his Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness. Aegis combat-systems readiness was in decline, as was the level of skill and experience held by those charged with its upkeep. As systems aged, there was a corresponding negative effect on operational readiness. In response to the reality of this decline, the Center for Combat Systems developed a multi-pronged approach to help ships increase readiness, including Self Assessment Groom Training and Advanced Warfare Training.
In fall 2009, I assumed command of the USS Monterey (CG-61), my fifth Aegis tour. One afternoon the following summer while in port, I was walking around the ship and dropped into the classroom to sit in on a session of SPY Self Assessment Groom Training (one of the results from the Aegis Fire Controlman Deep Dive). What could be better? Here I was the benefactor of the training I helped create. I watched the Center for Combat Systems instructor, Tim Ryerson, teaching my SPY radar technicians. I thought, “It just doesn’t get any better than this.” During the break, I asked Tim how my folks were doing. He said, “Captain, your sailors are as good as any on the waterfront. What they lack is experience.”
Setting Expectations
This was aha! moment number one, culminating in a middle-of-the night realization that within days, Tim Ryerson and “the cavalry” would be gone. I started to contemplate how I was going to get my now-BMD crew up to snuff for deployment.
The following day I met with Ryerson and my combat-systems officer, Lieutenant Commander Ryan Leary; and my BMD-install project manager, Dustin Clements. We talked about the good old days of Aegis and what was different today. A key factor emerged: Aegis is now mainstream or, to put it more bluntly, Fleet-average.
When I got into Aegis 22 years ago, it was still exclusive: new and shiny ships manned with more and more senior sailors, fed by a pipeline inclined to send the best and brightest to these technically complex vessels. The waterfront was awash in specialized support, and the maintenance dollars flowed generously. But what really made it all work was a culture in which we challenged one another to higher levels of competence and mastery.
Somewhere along the way, the surface force lost some of this spirit. Today’s sailors are just as willing to work hard, and they are just as success-oriented. But they do not have the cultural model to fall on when they report to the ship. The challenge, I realized, was to recreate that model. The answer, at least a big part of it, was leadership. I needed to provide that leadership.
One of the great things about being captain of a Navy ship is that your interests tend to become your crew’s obsessions. In this case, it was clear that I needed to raise my personal level of interest in my ship’s combat system. Tim Ryerson offered an interesting tip: “My techs and I used to carry around a wheel book,” he recalled, “and we all knew where we were, combat-system performance-wise.” Why shouldn’t I know that too?
Know Your System’s Performance
If my ship was to be part of the nation’s BMD system, I should know the status of the most critical and basic SPY radar parameter for entry into the BMD Mission Planner: enhanced, nominal, or degraded (E/N/D). And my boss should also know it.
In aha! moment number two, I realized it was not good enough to know whether or not my SPY radar met preventive-maintenance standards, I had to know the quantitative results of these maintenance actions. I also realized I needed to provide a quantitative SPY radar material goal to my sailors.
After some discussion, we came up with a plan to do certain maintenance checks more frequently and track performance. We would graph the results of transmitter-power and phase-per-frequency band over all driver/pre-driver combinations, on all four SPY arrays for BMD planning and execution. The idea was to increase repetitions and sets to improve technician proficiency and confidence, which ultimately would result in better understanding of the material condition of the SPY radar and its associated auxiliary equipment.
The chain of command, up to and including me, would review the results daily. The paradigm forced me to be involved beyond the superficial indicator level and made my interests explicitly clear to the combat-systems workforce. Following the business-world maxim that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” we decided to measure and track key parameters to better manage the system.
The Monterey has been working this program for the past year and a half. The program has matured, the tracking tools have changed, and the shipboard audience has increased. We conduct a good number of maintenance checks and Operational Readiness Test System scans more often than Maintenance Requirement Cards call for. Among the data points on which we focus, most notable is Effective Transmit Power and SPY Array isolation to determine the “health and status” of the AN/SPY-1 radar and Aegis combat system. Aegis cooling heat exchanger parameters were logged and routed up the ship’s chain of command daily with other traditional shipboard reports (e.g., fuel and water reports, personnel muster reports, etc.) to ensure awareness of the status of this important auxiliary system.
In our nightly operations brief, we review the best of the three driver/pre-driver combination of each of the SPY 1B’s four phased array faces so that tactical watch standers know how best to configure and station the Monterey to counter a ballistic-missile threat. We discuss the condition of the radar, intended maintenance, and expected results. I review a “SPY Book,” which contains maintenance results so I can see if we are trending up or down.
Empower Your Techs
My most significant aha! moment was the third. About halfway through deployment, I observed my AN/SPY-1B radar enlisted technicians briefing the plan of attack for the following maintenance period during the nightly operations brief. Up to this point in the deployment, one of my more senior combat-system officers usually explained the maintenance plan, not the technicians doing the actual maintenance. This told me that SPY techs were buying into our program!
We had already dealt with the periodicity of AN/SPY-1 preventive-maintenance system checks not being frequent enough. We had seen that increased periodicity provided me with an up-to-date status of my radar (E/N/D) to support BMD. I had to know this, and it had to be current. More frequent monitoring and maintenance of the SPY radar decreased risk of compounding and cascading casualties.
But finally, and of significant import, I now saw that more frequent supervised maintenance had a tremendous impact on technician competence and confidence. Recently, a SPY radar subject-matter expert made the following observations of Monterey SPY techs: “Your program has turned your C technicians into B technicians, your B technicians into A technicians, and your A technicians into A+ technicians.” Allowing sailors enough time to conduct maintenance, make mistakes, and learn from them (under proper supervision) is the key to reaping the maximum benefit from this approach.
SPY radar self-sufficiency can and should be supported by outside entities, but ultimately it is a function of my behavior, interest, and leadership. It is my responsibility. Specific results of transmitter power and phase must be understood, considered, and acted upon by operators and by me. The devil is in not knowing the details. As the commanding officer, I have to be personally involved. I cannot delegate this effort. By all hands understanding the goal of this effort, we sustained radar performance with no loss of redundancy, as well as fundamentally changing the behavior of technicians and watch standers.
Not only did this initiative increase SPY performance and sailor competence, but the whole enterprise went a long way toward reinforcing trust between me and my crew. Any CO aspires to this. Such programs as this do not, of course, represent the whole answer to the ongoing problem of combat readiness. But I am certain they provide one of the most critical keys.