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Task Force Sea Sentry: Making a Difference in the Theater Maritime Picture

Navy Newsstand

Story Number: NNS040322-05

Release Date: 3/22/2004 11:42:00 PM

By Senior Chief Journalist (SW/AW) Scott Fleming, Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

NAVAL SUPORT ACTIVITY NAPLES, Italy (NNS) -- For naval forces operating in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations, the establishment of Task Force Sea Sentry in December and the resulting Theater Fusion Center (TFC) is refining the science of strategic information management.

Designed to provide a comprehensive maritime theater picture to joint tacticians at the U.S. European Command and operators at combatant command centers, the TFC essentially maintains up-to-the-minute snapshots of who's who in the under way "zoo."

"The Fusion Center is designed to take all the inputs from around the AOR [area of responsibility], fuse it, collate it, and send it back out to the fleet as a product that different watches can use as a comprehensive maritime picture," said Capt. Rob Taylor, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 60 commodore and co-chairman of Task Force Sea Sentry. "In the bigger sense, we also want to include intelligence products on some of those contacts. For instance, watches click on a contact and get a pop-down screen that tells him whether this guy was boarded or wasn't boarded, or whether he's linked to terrorism or not."

Located at the Naval Support Activity in Capodichino, the TFC is manned by a dedicated squad of free agents on loan from commands around the region. It is a 24/7 operation with its collective finger on the pulse of maritime movement through the Mediterranean Sea, eastern Atlantic Ocean and down the west coast of Africa. If it's afloat in the AOR, these guys can tell you where it is and who can reach out to touch it.

An array of area commands have contributed to moving the TFC from an ambitious Sea Sentry vision to a productive part of Navy Europe's warfighting repertoire, in just three months.

Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe; Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet; Commander, Fleet Air Mediterranean; Destroyer Squadron 60; Task Forces 63, 65, 67 and 69; Military Sealift Command Europe; Joint Analysis Center Molesworth; Naval Communications and Telecommunications Area Master Station Europe; and Naval Support Activity Naples all provided experience, expertise and enthusiasm to the project.

"This was [Vice] Adm. Ulrich's number one priority when he took command of 6th Fleet," Taylor said. "He wanted it to be a group that was composed of more than just one command so there was buy-in from around Europe. Everybody was asked to give what they could, and everybody did. It was really nice to see that kind of team effort from the theater. Now it's almost transparent that it involves so many people because it's working so smoothly."

The backbone of the TFC is centralized management of command-and-control architecture in the theater, including the Global Command and Control System (GCCS) and Tactical Data Information Links.

As a clearinghouse of sorts, the Fusion Center collects input from a variety of sources according to strictly defined reporting procedures. Compilation includes visual sightings from ships at sea, radar contacts, input from NATO units and coalition forces, aircraft surveillance and national intelligence agencies.

Once collected, the information is scrubbed to eliminate redundancies or inconsistencies, finally fused into a timely and comprehensive mosaic of maritime activity. Used in concert with air and ground tracks from sister services, it provides an unprecedented vision of the joint battle space. TFC watchstanders remain acutely aware of vessel tracks, maintain regular communication with assigned units, and constantly evaluate the process to effectively and efficiently make maritime responsiveness a reliable piece of the common operational puzzle. With each passing day of experience, their decisions develop into documentation and doctrine.

"We did not let ourselves get caught up in getting a 100 percent solution right off the bat," Taylor said. "We came up with a plan that led us down a path of constant improvement."

The efforts have paid off. Other numbered fleets are expressing interest in establishing their own TFCs. In the future, European TFC activities will be absorbed as an operational function of an established Navy command instead of as an independent entity.