By David Larter, Navy Times
THE surface Navy’s top officer announced on Tuesday the deployment of a surface action group this spring in a move to make the surface fleet more formidable against sophisticated adversaries.
Three destroyers set for independent deployments are being banded into a surface action group under Destroyer Squadron 31 and sent out to test new concepts of hunter-killer groups of ships designed to confuse and scatter adversaries’ resources, Vice Adm. Tom Rowden told the annual meeting of the Surface Navy Association.
The SAG is to consist of destroyers Spruance, Decatur and Momsen. Rowden has been championing a concept that breaks up traditional carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups and joins up surface combatants that can spread out the enemy’s surveillance assets and ships, and adds long range anti-ship and anti-sub weapons to make the ships more deadly.
“Our goal is to deceive the enemy, target the enemy and destroy the enemy,” Rowden said. “If we can execute that, we can change the calculus of our adversaries and our potential adversaries.”
In an interview, Rowden said the surface action groups will add capabilities to combatant commanders, four-stars who oversee operations in their regions around the world.
“We need to deploy the ships and begin to understand the effects we can achieve,” Rowden said. “We can then begin to articulate those to the combatant commanders. So when the combatant commanders say, ‘I need this capability,’ we can say, ‘This is the capability I can deliver with this adaptive force package, this is what we can deliver with the other package.’ That way we can express to the combatant commanders the options available beyond the carrier strike groups.”
This is part of a larger push inside the Navy to offer up more options to COCOMs to ease the burden on the aircraft carriers, which have been taxed over the past five years. Today, six of the Navy’s 10 carriers are in some kind of extended maintenance as a result of the heavy optempo — namely the COCOMs’ insatiable demands for flattops in the Middle East and in the Asia-Pacific.
“It’s about being able to understand and articulate the different capabilities that different adaptive force packages offer, and being able to articulate that so we can build confidence among the [COCOMs],” Rowden said.
Rowden also announced a pilot program to add a new department head billet on ships, the plans and tactics officer, part of an effort to beef up the tactical expertise on board surface ships.
The Surface Navy Association gathers in Crystal City, Virginia, each January to discuss the future of surface warfare.
Source: Navy Times
Reprinted from issue 016 of DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2016 published by http://www.maasmondmaritime.com/en/ on 2016-01-16
