During his warship’s recent deployment to the Middle East, a guided-missile destroyer commander fired off some five terabytes of data about his crew’s operations in the Red Sea. (US Naval Institute News.)
On the receiving end was the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center in California, which collected from USS Mason (DDG-87) a treasure trove of information and combat systems data in an amount akin to 1 million cellphone photographs or 2 million books.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer spent the bulk of its deployment in the midst of a fight after regional tensions flared in mid-October when Houthi forces escalated their attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Mason arrived in the region following initial actions by the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG-64), whose crew downed several Houthi drones with SM-3 missiles on Oct. 19, as Houthi terrorists turned to targeting merchant vessels in the Red Sea. As additional incidents continued in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the U.S. and several allies formed a multinational coalition to respond to those attacks and protect commercial shipping.
In late November, Houthi forces in Yemen fired two short-range ballistic missiles at Mason and a commercial ship. The destroyer continued to support the coalition through mid-May, when it shot down a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile.
In sharing its actions and experiences in the high-threat combat environment with the surface fleet before it returned home to Mayport, Fla., the ship’s crew got valuable feedback from the San Diego-based SMWDC about the performance and vulnerabilities of its combat systems and crew and learned lessons in tactics, doctrine and lethality.
“It’s not just a Mason fight,” Cmdr. Justin Smith, Mason’s commanding officer, said last week during a Red Sea panel discussion at the Surface Navy Association’s 2024 Waterfront Symposium. “It’s a whole ship, whole strike group and SMWDC fight as well.”
“That reachback in support from SMWDC, for us to be able to adapt and to be able to evolve and outpace the group of threats, is what allowed us to be successful,” Smith said. “It’s not just us alone. I think the support back here at CONUS is an absolutely critical aspect to the success of the fleet out in the Red Sea.”
His crew created and organized after-action reports and sent those to Destroyer Squadron 22 and other commanding officers, he said, ensuring “we were learning the lessons from others and so we didn’t have to re-learn other lessons.”
“Being able to capture those after-action reports, being able to have that critical, humble approach, and being able to be willing to accept that feedback is actually key to success,” he added.
At one point while in Bahrain, Smith said, his crew hosted sailors from USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) and, in a crowded combat center, together replayed “the engagements that we had.”
“This is what we’re looking at. This is how we engage. This is the system set up,’” the crew told McCain sailors, he recounted. “And they go over running scenarios on board McCain to help get them up to speed. Those are the things that Mason had done to help share those lessons learned.”
When Mason headed home, Smith sent his combat systems officer to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) “to help train them” before their anticipated mission to support 5th Fleet. Mason returned home July 2.
“Sharing those lessons, pushing the experience out to the rest of the fleet, is the key for success,” Smith added. “When you have that process down – it’s very effective, very fast-paced – they’ll be… able to continue to outpace the evolving threats to the fleet.”
Mason spent 215 days in the weapons engagement zone and “learned an incredible lot of what it requires to lead our sailors in the most combat-intensive time we’ve had since World War II,” Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, commander of Naval Surface Force and Naval Surface Forces Pacific, said during an Aug. 16 keynote.
“We have crews putting their lives on the line every day to keep the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb open. Bottom line,” McLane said. “That’s what we’re doing right now.”
Faster turnaround
As the U.S. military continues with Operation Prosperity Guardian operations, the Navy’s surface fleet is evolving how it uses and shares those lessons – and it’s doing so quicker than ever. The Navy has sped up the collection and dissemination of data and information across the fleet – and not just among military forces and operational planners but globally in reaching back to shore-based schoolhouses and maintenance commands.
“Now we’re doing it within days. A huge advantage,” McLane said on Aug. 16 during a keynote session.
What might have taken 55 days to pull data and information off a ship and send that to SMWDC for feedback to the fleet now can take “72 hours. Amazing,” Capt. Joseph Baggett, commander of Surface Warfare Schools Command in Newport, R.I., said during the panel discussion.
“The feedback that we’re getting is life-changing, I think, or life-saving,” said Baggett, who most recently served as the maritime operations center director and chief of staff for 5th Fleet Naval Forces Central Command. His most recent command tour was leading guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG-61) during a 2021 deployment to the U.S. Central Command region.
“The feedback mechanism has just been phenomenal,” he said.
Faster turnaround on combat and shipboard systems’ performance and lessons that then are pushed across the surface fleet and shore commands enable commanders and crews to do repairs, make updates or adjustments and conduct self-assessments more quickly.
“I remember being in the last war, and some engagements were not going the way you thought they were supposed to go, and asking ourselves the question, what’s going on?” recalled Baggett, a former enlisted sailor. Those self-assessments and lessons learned also help build on a crew’s warfighting capabilities even when they’re still in the fight and, when shared with other ships. “So the feedback mechanism has just been phenomenal,” he added.
Heeding the lessons
While ships operate in the Red Sea weapons engagement zone and across the globe, officials and instructors at SMWDC in San Diego, Surface Warfare Schools Command and elsewhere keep close tabs and closely track their missions. Along with providing feedback and briefs to ship crews while operations are underway, those leadership and learning centers want to keep their lessons and instruction on tactics, training and procedures current and relevant for the surface fleet.
“We’re able to take all that data,” Lt. Micah Burge, an anti-submarine and anti-surface “Wittie” or warfare tactics instructor at SMWDC, said during the Red Sea panel discussion. “As ships were conducting their actions, we’re able to provide reach-back.” That work includes ensuring that whatever a crew needs, the data “comes fully formed back to the warfighters out there,” he said.
“Whatever they are doing out there, how can we take what they have learned,” Burge said. A recent focus has been working with the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group – it’s currently operating in 5th Fleet – and the USS Abraham Lincoln CSG heading to the region, he said, and “taking all those lessons learned and providing that training to those strike groups, making sure they’re ready to execute all their actions, making sure that they are fully informed and ready.”
Lessons learned are being incorporated into surface fleet training, including composite unit training (COMPTUEX) and surface warfare advanced tactical training (SWATT) predeployment exercises. That’s helped make recent exercises more relevant for ship crews preparing for the real-world mission.
“Being able to quickly adjust our training to the latest tactical developments around the world is key,” McLane said.
In his command assignment, Baggett also serves as the commander of Surface Warfare Officers School. A SMWDC-led working group is integrating into training lessons from the fleet as those come back from Red Sea operations, he said.
“SMWDC makes those lessons learned, and I’ll take those storyboards and those lessons. I’m the curriculum control authority, so I make updates right away,” he said.
Those lessons are injecting more realism into training. A recent department head training focused on maritime warfare put students through the multimission team trainer in a Red Sea scenario, he noted.
“When they go through that training, they are seeing the clutter from the Red Sea. They are seeing the UAV kinematics from the Red Sea. They are seeing the missile characteristics and kinematics and protocols from the Red Sea,” Baggett said. “Not only are they seeing the storyboards and getting the lessons from the Red Sea, they’re able to operate and implement those in their training so they can see what the fight was like in the aftermath.”
Baggett has reached out to draw newly experienced, combat-zone crews to speak with SWOS staff and students attending the leadership courses at Newport. So when Carney returned home in the spring, “I wanted the Carney team to come over… and talk to them about what they experienced and what they need to be prepared to do when they get out to the fleet,” he said. “I wanted to talk to the Carney sailors and ask them about the training that they received along the way and what were the gaps. What was missing? What do we need to adapt? What do we need to adjust to make sure we are prepared in the future fighting force?”
Tapping the experiences of those sailors and crews is important for the surface fleet, Baggett added, “to make sure we can continue to learn from them and take advantage of their combat experience going forward.”
The overarching goal is in “making sure it’s lessons learned, and not lessons observed,” Burge said. “It’s something that we’re working constantly at SMWDC and making sure that we’re the touch point with the surface force, making sure that we’re always there to provide this data.”
Ships’ after-action reports and lessons provide great sources of information and learning.
“We compile them all together, and then we’re absolutely using them to train, change how we train the next ships that are out there,” Burge said. “Those briefs,” he added, “are absolutely vital for our crews out there forward leaning, making sure that, hey, any questions that anyone has, we can absolutely resolve.”
