Fleet battle experiment turns war-fighting theory into reality
7th Fleet News Release
Release Date: 09 May 2003
By JO1 Kurt Wesseling, Tandem Thrust 03 Joint Information Bureau
GUAM -- After landing aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) at sea May 1, President George W. Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. After only six weeks, the war was nearly over.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the world for the first time witnessed how quickly U.S. force commanders could identify, target and engage enemy high-value leadership targets.
What the president did not mention in his address is how U.S. military leaders have acquired the ability to act so swiftly when engaging such time-critical targets.
The rapidity with which U.S. forces are now able to attack military or terrorist targets anytime, anywhere, has not happened by accident. According to Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet, Robert F. Willard, the ability to attack quickly is, in part, the result of many lessons learned during the Navy Warfare Development Command's 12-year series of fleet battle experiments.
The current experiment, Fleet Battle Experiment Kilo (FBE-K), is examining command and control objectives as well as the Chief of Naval Operations' Sea Shield and Sea Strike objectives. Fleet Battle Experiments are designed to examine innovative war fighting concepts in a sea-based environment. This year's FBE-K took place concurrently with exercise Tandem Thrust 03 in the Western Pacific in and around the Mariana Islands.
The director of NWDC's Maritime Battle Center, Capt. Kevin Morrissey, is particularly enthused about the participation of Australian Defence forces in FBE-K. "This is the first time that Australian systems have been tied into U.S systems in a high-level simulation architecture," he said. Since Australia and the United States are working together in FBE-K, both American and Australian doctrine and technology will grow at the same pace, allowing for much improved future interoperability. Capt. Morrissey expects the unprecedented cooperation to result in, "an incredible improvement in the future war fighting capabilities of coalition partners."
A key initiative of FBE-K is the testing of the Joint Fires Network (JFN), formerly known as Navy Fires Network. JFN is a network-centric warfare family of sea, air, land and space-based intelligence gathering systems. JFN will eventually allow all U.S. military commanders and those of certain allied nations to share a common battlespace view. Regardless of whether a military decision maker is Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Army, they will have access to the same data.
According to Cmdr. John Covell, FBE-K director, the JFN initiative is essentially an effort intended to shorten the time it takes to identify a target and execute an attack on it.
JFN provides near real-time intelligence through the collection of data provided by imagery and other intelligence gathering sensors. During the experiment, computer generated or "virtual" intelligence gathering assets such as virtual "Predator" unmanned aerial vehicles, and virtual U-2 surveillance aircraft are used to give the tests greater realism and save millions of dollars.
"The data feeds received from these sensors are fed into the JFN system onboard USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19)," said Covell. "From there, intelligence officers and petty officers are able to take the information they are receiving and turn it into something that can be targeted."
Simply stated, JFN allows time-critical targets to be engaged by ships or aircraft more quickly than ever before.
Willard said he believes targeting enemy leaders, such as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, is perhaps the most demanding component of time sensitive targeting.
"Leadership, especially elusive leadership that is trying to hide from detection, is a very difficult time-sensitive target problem - maybe the ranking one," he said.
Willard credits the FBEs with helping to transform yesterday's experimental war fighting initiatives and concepts into today's remarkable reality. He said the steady improvements brought about by the FBEs are typically more evolutionary than revolutionary.
"In almost every FBE since 1991 there has been at least some small technology or process development initiative to try and advance our ability to turn quickly on a target that we want to strike immediately," said Willard. "This current experiment, FBE-K, is no different. This one happened to be occurring as the war in Iraq is winding down, but nonetheless we're advancing it even farther with the focus on joint fires network."
Because of the advancements made to JFN during fleet battle experiments, U.S. commanders no longer have to spend long periods of time waiting for the completion of the target acquisition cycle. Willard explained that part of the fine-tuning of JFN is related to the modification of tactics, techniques, and procedures developments.
"Part of joint fires is simply getting the process right so we're exchanging the right information, at the right time, with the right people. We're then able to get it into the hands of a war fighter who can direct some form of fires support against the target and destroy it in minutes instead of hours."
Willard feels the advanced war fighting techniques tested during FBEs have "unquestionably" had a positive result in the fleet.
"The more you lay them on the fleet and let fleet operators have at them, the faster we're going to see them infused into the fleet where they will become effective lessons learned that everyone wants to get their hands on."
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