Generating Tactical Doctrine with the Air Land Sea Application
(ALSA) Center at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, many are thankful for its products. In the same way the Joint Staff J7 sponsors and produces joint publications for the operational and strategic community, ALSA publishes doctrine for multi-service tactics, techniques, and procedures (MTTP), in what could be described as joint doctrine at the tactical level. Its periodicals include Joint Application of Firepower, Survival, Brevity, Air Operations in Maritime Surface Warfare, and more than 30 other MTTP used by the joint warfighter.Established in 1975 when the Army and Air Force, through the Training and Doctrine Command and Tactical Air Command, created the Air Land Forces Application Agency, ALSA has been producing MTTP for years. The intent of the organization was to capture and document lessons learned from the Vietnam War and Arab-Israeli conflict in air superiority, mobility operations, battlefield intelligence, and combined-arms integration, and to develop joint concepts and doctrine. The goal was to improve the ability of the two services to work together.
A Joint Organization Comes Together
ALSA was initially manned by six officers and one civilian. As it developed concepts and doctrine, it established five ad hoc joint working groups to cover airspace management, electronic warfare, reconnaissance and surveillance, air logistics, and remotely piloted vehicles. Over the years, the organization continued to expand its publications. Operations Urgent Fury, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom highlighted the need for increased interoperability, resulting in MTTP such as Joint Application of Firepower, Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar, Theater Air Ground System, Cordon and Search, Killbox, and Advising.
In 1992, the Air Land Forces Application Center expanded and added Marine Corps and Navy officers to its staff, formalizing an all-inclusive joint organization. Because its raison d’être was to respond to the services’ needs and it was able to cut through bureaucracy to produce doctrine quickly, it became a desirable and highly useful organization. ALSA is directed by a Joint Actions Steering Committee formed with the services’ doctrine chiefs from the Army Combined Arms Center, the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, the Navy Warfare Development Command, and the Air Force Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education. Convening three times a year, they receive updates and make decisions on projects they believe ALSA should undertake to support joint operations at the tactical level.
ALSA’s development of MTTP is a deliberate process and takes no more than 12 months from a project’s initiation through its acceptance in the form of the service doctrine chiefs’ final signatures. After about one more month, the MTTP has been processed through final editing and formatted for production and printing.
In the case of a revised edition, an ALSA action officer is assigned responsibility for the project and shepherds it from beginning to end. This includes the research as well as identifying subject-matter experts from the services to participate in the joint working groups. The experts bring varying experiences, diverse skills, and knowledge, and the ALSA action officer makes every effort to work with the services to find the correct participants. When the joint working groups convene, the action officer’s responsibility is to facilitate the group’s progress.
Continual Improvement
As ALSA has evolved, it has continued to look for ways to improve the MTTP processes and substance. Created from an immediate need at the tactical level to address service-interoperability issues, the organization’s goal is to expand and improve its doctrine library in support of warfighters. It accomplishes this through efforts to produce guidelines that are more timely, relevant, and compelling by making the best use of technology to appeal to warfighters’ interest and by improving accessibility to its products via the internet and various digital means. With outreach efforts expanding, ALSAs action officers have established improved relationships with the different service doctrine centers to maximize their existing tools, thereby enhancing ALSA’s ability to identify tactical-doctrine gaps.
The Navy Lessons Learned System at the Navy Warfare Development Command in Norfolk, Virginia, much like its counterparts in the Army and Marine Corps, serves the entire Navy. Even though the Army and Marine Corps have larger systems in place, the purpose remains to collect information from recent exercises and operations that will benefit future units conducting similar activities.
The Navy uses two forms of collection: active and passive. In the first, teams from the lessons-learned system go to various theaters to interview and collect after-action data following deployments, operations, maneuvers, and exercises. For example, when a group met with participants in relief efforts after the October 2012 Hurricane Sandy, they vetted, processed, and documented information gleaned from Navy and Marine Corps personnel, then included findings in the Navy’s database.
In passive collection, after-action reports, mid- and end-of-cruise reports, and the like are gathered into a central database that can be referenced and searched by subject. This type of information-assembling, accomplished through the initiative of unit commanders and their staffs, involves the commands conducting internal action reports, consolidating after-action reports, and submitting them to the Navy Warfare Department’s Lessons Learned center. With ALSA’s mission to meet the warfighter’s immediate needs, this is the most logical place to start that process.
Data Generate Doctrine
ALSA, through its action officers, taps into the Navy Lessons Learned System when it begins the research on an MTTP. Because the officers are not subject-matter experts on every topic the MTTP is revising, they rely on this system’s information to identify possible tactical-doctrine gaps and better formulate formal requests for feedback from service doctrine centers.
The MTTP on Air Operations in Maritime Surface Warfare is a perfect example. The ALSA action officer began the research on the revision of that publication by reviewing information from the Navy Lessons Learned center gathered from the previous two years regarding fast-attack-craft/fast-inshore-attack defense, task-force takedown, the composite-warfare-commander construct, and aerial maritime mining. These data were used to identify subject-matter experts who could participate in the publication’s revision. Lessons learned were also culled to find relevant information that was presented at the joint working groups during the process for incorporation into the MTTP.
Learning is critical following any operation, exercise, or training event, and getting those lessons into repositories such as the Navy’s system is just as important, because there they cannot be forgotten. Organizations such as ALSA actively seek and desire such information to ensure the doctrine on which it is working is the best it can be and includes timely and relevant material.
As we look toward smaller and leaner, more agile, flexible, ready, and technologically advanced joint forces, these guidelines will serve as a starting point for conducting successful operations, exercises, and training. MTTP can only address contemporary challenges adequately if Fleet commanding officers convey to subordinates the importance of documenting their experience for the Navy’s system. ALSA is good at producing these publications, but they are only as good as the information to which they have access during the process of research and production. It is up to the warfighters to capture the lessons and share them so that organizations such as ALSA can harvest them from today’s exercises and conflicts to improve knowledge in the future.
Lieutenant Commander Goodman is the Chief of the Command and Control Branch at the Air Land Sea Application Center. Colonel Sones is the ALSA Director.
Vietnam’s Submarine Fleet
In 2009, Vietnam agreed to purchase from Russia six new-build Project 636-MV Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines.1 Intended as a counter to growing Chinese naval strength, the sale was viewed as a potential game changer for the local strategic balance in the South China Sea and a “shot across the bow” of the resurgent People’s Liberation Army–Navy, which was unaccustomed to facing sophisticated opposition in that locale. It also represented the largest, most complex single acquisition program undertaken by the Vietnamese military since its conquest of the South, and, perhaps most significant, it indicated a swing in Vietnam’s defense resourcing to the maritime domain. Since the initial announcement, the Vietnamese government has confirmed the submarines remain a high national priority. It has used the project to put pressure on China during times of tension over the South China Sea, balancing confirmation of the program with declarations that the boats are for purely defensive purposes.2
Ambitious Plans
The submarines are to be built in St. Petersburg, and the first one was probably laid down in August 2010. The entry to service of the first unit was initially declared to be 2013, a highly ambitious schedule. By the middle of 2011, the Russian export organization was talking of a delivery date of 2014 for the lead unit, while the Vietnamese Defense Minister spoke of the class coming into service in the “next 5-6 years.”3 The launch of the first boat, the Hanoi, was announced on 28 August 2012, possibly in a very advanced state of construction, since the report claimed the vessel would shortly afterward begin trials.4 The second unit, the Ho Chi Minh City, was launched on 28 December 2012, with the third, the Hai Phong, due for launch in August 2013.5 The Ho Chi Minh City began trials on 28 April 2013 and by the following month her sister the Hanoi was said to have conducted 23 dives, one in the presence of Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. By June, the Russians were predicting September 2013 for the handover of the lead boat.6
Whatever the delivery dates, the Vietnamese project represents a formidable challenge for a small navy, with a budget that remains confined and has a very limited support infrastructure. Notwithstanding the close relationship between Russia and Vietnam, the key factor behind the selection of the Kilo must have been its apparent affordability by comparison with Western European boats. Ironically, given the large-scale Chinese purchases of variants of the Project 636 class (some 12 boats), the Vietnamese units will face as their most likely undersea adversaries vessels of the same class, some of which are assigned to China’s South Sea Fleet.
The Russians can certainly produce the submarines for Vietnam at the required intervals. They have done so for several other nations in the past. The record of the Kilo class in warm-water operations is, however, mixed. Much will depend on the extent to which the Russians have learned from the Indian experience. These first foreign operators of the Kilo class found the boats required much-improved air-conditioning plants and freshwater production, and they soon installed batteries using the western European technology that could operate more efficiently at higher ambient temperatures than the original Russian fit.7 The Indians progressively made these modifications after the first entry to operational service in 1986. Since then, most Indian units have undergone at least one major refit in Russia, so the original designers and builders have had the opportunity to see the impact of warm-water requirements firsthand—and to ensure they are appropriately incorporated into new-construction units. It is likely the Chinese boats as well as the Vietnamese units are beneficiaries.
The weapon and sensor fit of the Vietnamese submarines remains uncertain. The Russians are likely to be sympathetic to requests for systems equating to leading-edge capability in their own service, but much will depend on the Vietnamese capacity to pay. There have been suggestions that the boats will be equipped with land-attack cruise missiles, though it is difficult to understand the utility (and practicality) of such weapons.8 Their priority for capability must, rather, be for antiship and antisubmarine missions.
Working Fast, but Not Loose
The Vietnamese are trying to do something very quickly that no navy in recent times has managed successfully on such a scale from such a limited base. With six boats scheduled to emerge at less than 12-month intervals, the Vietnamese Navy will have to form and have trained at least four and possibly all six crews with the support of the Russians before its own units can even begin to generate additional trained personnel. Developing sufficiently expert commanding officers will be a particular challenge.
Unless most of the relatively small surface fleet is immobilized (and the Vietnamese are also undertaking ambitious programs with new frigates and missile craft), a very large proportion of the new submariners, including senior technical personnel, will have to be brought in from the street or from other elements of the Vietnamese armed forces. The current Deputy Chief of Navy, Colonel Ruande Ru, was once an Air Force fighter pilot. Like other submarine operators, Vietnam has already found it necessary to promise improved wages and conditions.9 That training remains of concern was confirmed during the March 2013 visit to Vietnam by Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, when the need for the “synchronization of training” was specified in the formal press statement following ministerial meetings.10 In May the Vietnamese prime minister emphasized the requirement for technical mastery to the Hanoi crew.11 The new boats may have significant numbers of Russians on board for years to come.
Russian experts will certainly be needed ashore. A key element will be support facilities, and development of a submarine base at Cam Ranh Bay is part of the package.12 However, language and cultural challenges will remain significant obstacles, particularly as Vietnamese authorities come to understand the magnitude of their endeavor and the requirement for associated capabilities such as submarine search-and-rescue systems, instrumented ranges, and weapon-maintenance facilities.
Vietnam does have an alternative partner, at least for some aspects. India views the country as a useful counterweight to China, and the Vietnamese Navy as the obvious priority for support.13 This has already been demonstrated through India’s welcome provision of spare parts from its now discarded Russian-built Petya-class corvettes and Osa-class missile boats. Vietnam is likely to continue to take advantage of India’s assistance, especially its technical support.
The first priority will be to ensure that Russian promises are actually met (and that the Vietnamese ask the right questions); Russia has a mixed record as a monopoly supplier. Making the relationship work for the Vietnamese submarine force may be a more fruitful approach than placing demands on India’s still-constrained submarine-support capacity. More than any other nation, India has experience in dealing with Russian industry and government over complex capability management issues in ship projects. The second priority, as the Indians have already foreshadowed, will be to assist with the organization and development of local facilities and to provide specialist training in India’s submarine and engineering schools.
Doctrinal Considerations
India has been operating a submarine force largely independently of any other nation, in terms of tactics and operations, since the late 1960s. It has accumulated significant experience with both Russian and Western undersea systems, and is likely to have developed sophisticated indigenous tactics, techniques, and procedures. Vietnam would benefit profoundly from exposure to this body of knowledge as an addition to that of Russia, particularly in the warm-water environment. In the longer term, information-sharing may be to the advantage of both Vietnam and India.
Much will be riding on the success of this project: the strategic weight that six new Vietnamese submarines bring to the competition with China; the Vietnamese Navy’s efforts to gain primacy as its nation’s leading defense service; and Russia’s ability to prove itself to a not-unsophisticated customer as a credible supplier and whole-of-life supporter of a new and complex capability. The submarines may well become Vietnam’s “strategic trump card in the distant sea,” but they have a long way yet to go.14
1. “Russia to Build 6 Kilo-Class Diesel Submarines for Vietnam,” RIA Novosti, 27 April 2009.
2. “Russian Submarines for Self-Defense: Vietnam,” Straits Times, 6 June 2011.
3. “Russia to Supply Vietnam Six Submarines in 2014,” Thanh Nien News, 3 July 2011; Bao Cam, “Vietnam to Modernize Military with Kilo-Class Submarine Fleet,” Thanh Nien News, 4 August 2011.
4. RIA Novosti, “Russia Launches Submarine for Vietnam,” 28 August 2012, www.en.rian.ru/military_news/20120828/175479802.html.
5. “Vietnam to Receive Two Russian Submarines,” 3 March 2013, http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/government/70427/vietnam-to-receive-two-russian-submarines.html.
6. “Russia to Train Crew of 2nd Submarine Bought by Vietnam,” Thanh Nien News, 21 May 2013. “New Submarine for the Vietnamese Navy Is on Its Way from Russia,” Asitimes, 14 June 2013.
7. Vice Admiral G. M. Hiranandani, Transition to Eminence: The Indian Navy, 1976-1990, Ministry of Defense (Navy), Naval Headquarters Delhi, with Lancer Publications (New Delhi, 2005), 116–21.
8. Translated from Nghien Cuu Bein Dong, “Vietnam Kilo 636 Kilo Technology More Advanced Than China Kilo 636?” Defense Studies, 7 May 2011, http://defense-studies.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/vietnam-kilo-636-submarine-technology.html.
9. “Defense Minister Encourages Submarine Cadets,” Talk Vietnam, 27 April 2012.
10. “Russia, Vietnam Agree on Submarine Fleet Deal,” 6 March 2013, http://rt.com/politics/russia-vietnam-agree-on-submarine-fleet-deal-891/.
11. “Vietnam PM Checks Up on Submarine Tests in Russia”, 15 May 2013, http://www.asianewsnet.net/Vietnam-PM-checks-up-on-submarine-tests-in-Russia-46700.html.
12. “Russia to Help Vietnam Build Submarine Base: Minister,” Xinhua English News, 25 March 2010.
13. Rajeev Sharma, “India to Lift Vietnam Military Ties,” The Diplomat, 15 October 2010.
14. “Fifth Kilo-Class Submarine for Vietnam’s Navy,” translated from: http://news.zing.vn/quan-su/khoi-dong-tau-ngam-Kilo-thu-5-cho-viet-nam/a298073.html.
Synergy Improves Planning
One day when I was a young lieutenant (junior grade) training officer (TRAINO), I thought I had everything wrapped up in one sock for the weekly planning board for training (PBFT). I had my draft email out in time, collected inputs, distributed copies, and thought that this was the week I would make it through without any surprise changes or late-breaking training requests. But then the command master chief (CMC) sounded off, “XO, can we please add in E-5 and E-6 exams for the next two weeks?”
I tried to conceal my frustration. Why couldn’t CMC have given me that input earlier? Why couldn’t he have responded to my multiple email requests with that one simple input? Then I wouldn’t have to rewrite the schedule—again. But then, in a moment of rare maturity, I thought, “You know Neal, you’re the TRAINO—don’t you think you should make it your business to know when E-5 and E-6 exams are scheduled? You care about the crew’s advancement; you even sampled the mess after each bridge watch you stood last week. In fact, CMC’s office is right by the mess line. Next time, why don’t you just pop your head in and ask him face-to-face for PBFT inputs instead of relying solely on email?” That’s when I realized that even with an admin job, I needed to get away from behind my desk and get out on the deckplates. Email alone would not make PBFT run more smoothly.
Sometime after my next bridge watch, after admiring the setting sun, I thought long and hard about what my goals were. Did I want to have the schedule already worked out such that during PBFT no one would ever have to lift a pen, raise their voice, or have a late scheduling input? This would make it just a game in which I won with a flawless schedule and lost otherwise. The problem with that model—getting it just right ahead of time and discouraging inputs and collaboration during the meeting—is that it lacks synergy.
Base Training on Mission and Roles
At Afloat Training Group (ATG), we redesigned the training officers’ course PBFT seminar to offer a Navy-centric view of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Free Press, 1996), specifically “Habit 3: Put First Things First.”
How do we typically start the plan-of-the-week portion of PBFT? The goal of most time-based planning methods is to schedule events tightly into time slots. But how often do we stop to ask ourselves why we are organizing this event? Does it really fit in with the ship’s mission for the week? Is it aligned with our highest priorities?”
Maybe you are already asking yourself such questions at PBFT. If so, great. But is your system designed to actively facilitate the connection between scheduling events and the larger ship’s mission and priorities? In this regard, the Seven Habits–based PBFT planning worksheet is vastly different. It engages the user to examine mission, priorities, roles, and goals before scheduling an event.
Proceed Methodically
Step 1 is to identify the mission. Based on the new Surface Force Readiness manual, your ship’s mission varies through each of the phases of the Fleet Response Plan (training cycle). Each of the following could be valid mission statements:
• Complete basic phase within 20 weeks.
• Complete final preparations for INSURV (inspection and survey).
• Execute COMPTUEX (Composite Training Unit Exercise) safely.
• Conduct theater-security engagement: visit Dakar, Senegal.
• Complete shipyard availability on time and on budget.
In step 2, you identify roles. A ship typically has two standard ones—current operations and shipboard readiness—often as well as a few minor roles. If you are thinking about these in terms of the first mission listed under step 1 (completing the basic phase within 20 weeks), you might decide to re-label current operations as “Support ATG training events.” Shipboard readiness can be broken down into four sub-roles: training, maintenance, safety, and personnel.
Identifying goals is step 3. Let’s say on Monday, as TRAINO, you review the updated Training and Operational Readiness Information System certification exercise tracker, noting the goals you believe are in the ship’s best interest. After a five-minute session with the operations and executive officers, the three of you take the worksheet, perhaps on a large dry-erase board, to the captain.
Note that the mission statement is right on top. Flanking two weeks of scheduling space are roles on the left and goals—including two that the CO added—to the right. On the left of each date column is the date, and on the right is the duty section.
Conducting ATG Air 1.4 is a valid goal, and it’s clearly associated with the first role. Other goals might be to conduct the surface-warfare-officer board (H), which is linked to roles 2 and 5, or conduct monthly PBFM (E) with the CO/DHs and port engineer that is linked to role 3.
Now you’re feeling great. It’s only Monday, PBFT is on Wednesday, and you already know where the ship is heading in the next two weeks, and your plan is aligned with the CO’s vision. But now comes step 4, working-level synergistic planning.
Resist Hasty Action
Fend off the temptation to send all this out in an email to department heads requesting inputs no later than close-of-business Tuesday. Instead, plan for synergy. Schedule a pre-PBFT session with department heads or principal assistants, without the XO.
In the meeting, point out the ship’s mission and roles, and ask if the officers believe other roles should be added (the mission should definitely not be changed at this point, as the CO has already approved it). Then reconsider the goals. Are there any departmental ones that should be added?
Now that you know what your mission, roles, and goals are, you can design your week based on the actual priorities. Notice how this is a much different paradigm than the time-based method of prioritizing the schedule.
At the end of a half-hour working session, you and the departmental reps come up with a new chart. Analyzing some of the goals reveals the synergistic process of developing such a schedule. It involves personal, face-to-face interactions. In our case, here’s how that went.
People Skills: Be Patient
First we had the Air 1.4 event to address. The first lieutenant (representing operations) remarked that the CO was upset when he didn’t get a personal debrief after the Air 1.3 event, so we scheduled our priorities and wrote in a 1500 ATG Air 1.4 outbrief (in the CO’s cabin) for Friday. Now the brief would show up in Friday’s plan of the day, and I stood a much greater chance of having the CO available to hear ATG’s assessment results.
The first lieutenant also mentioned that he needed the flight-deck team to finish up air level-of-knowledge exams, so I scheduled time for sailors from the various departments to take those exams before the start of the 1.4 event. I linked those items with purple arrows to the larger Air 1.4 event banner on Thursday and Friday.
Next the weapons officer (WEPS) chimed in saying his head was spinning from trying to work with the section leaders to write the Overseas 3 section exercise watchbills for next week’s AT 1.2. Then the main propulsion assistant (MPA) remarked, “You know WEPS, watchbill writing is hard, especially when one person tries to do it all. When we write engineering watchbills we get engineering E-6 and above in a room to draft it. Then when I take it to CHENG [the chief engineer], he knows no one who’s off in school is going to show up on it, because all the key supervisors had a hand in writing it.”
To which WEPS replied, “Thanks MPA, that’s a good idea. TRAINO, why don’t we have a watchbill writing session with the CPOs and my anti-terrorism training team. That way we’ll have the people who know the personnel and the anti-terrorism requirements in the same room.” I scheduled his priority and added XO/CO watchbill review sessions so that I could plan for the watchbill approval and distribution before the weekend.
After we wrapped up, I returned the dry-erase board to its place outside the XO’s stateroom (under a glass covering). It remained on display for everyone to see. The XO was just coming back from messing and berthing. Visibly impressed, he said he was looking forward to a productive PBFT the next day.
This brings us to step 5, senior leadership synergy. The time had come for the main event, the PBFT at 1300 Wednesday. After a few minutes to review the overall ship-training status and requirements, schools, and personnel-qualification-standards programs, I was ready to break out the dry-erase board and jump into the plan of the week. This time people were no longer afraid to speak up with new input. In fact, word had gotten out about the session the day before, and the team was actually excited about the change. Every department heads had already looked at the board. I definitely felt a leg up on the previous week’s method, when I’d been tiring of wondering whether anyone actually read my emails.
The Grande Finale
The surface-warfare officer and XO liked how I handled the AT watchbills, so they decided to do something similar for underway watchbills. The operations officer scheduled time to direct work efforts toward correcting discrepancies from our recent safety survey. The XO added his favorite weekly in-port type commander–recommended freshwater washdown, and the InSURV coordinator added two slots to work through the I-90 brief.
The plan of the week was now complete. I broke out my digital camera, took a screen shot, and sent it to administration so they could publish it with Friday’s plan of the day. Then I brought the board back to where it should always remain: outside the XO’s stateroom.
It took a bit of courage to examine our system and paradigms closely and realize that they could be improved. We all have a lot of talent on our teams. Consider how you can maximize synergistic performance by implementing the Seven Habits planning system on your ship.