The Associated Press August 29, 2003
Carrier Enterprise Finally Deploys -- A Day Late
By Sonja Barisic
NORFOLK -- The USS Enterprise sailed today after minor repairs delayed its departure for a day, beginning a training regimen and deployment that will include changes in the way the Navy operates.
The carrier, three other U.S. warships and a destroyer from Argentina will train for a month off the East Coast beginning Sept. 10. They'll then head to the Mediterranean Sea, and possibly the Persian Gulf, in the first deployment of a Navy carrier since major military operations in Iraq officially ended May 1.
Changes in the size of the carrier strike group and the length of deployment are intended to make the Navy more efficient and more flexible as it covers more areas of the world, said Patrick Garrett, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit military intelligence and space research organization in Alexandria.
The improvements also will make it more difficult for enemies of the United States to track and predict carrier operations, Garrett said.
The Enterprise strike group is the first to be smaller than the traditional carrier battle group of 10 to 12 ships. It has about 6,500 sailors and Marines instead of the typical complement of about 13,000. About 5,000 of those sailors and Marines are aboard the Enterprise.
With the Cold War over, there's no longer a need for the larger battle group, Garrett said.
"Carrier battle groups have been an extremely large task and, for really the last decade, probably larger than they needed to be," Garrett said. "The United States isn't worried about the Soviets invading Iceland and Soviet submarines attacking carrier battle groups."
The Navy also needs smaller groups because it has more to do even as ships are being decommissioned and not replaced, Garrett said. Strike groups will be multiple task groups that will be available to deal with crises as they crop up simultaneously, Garrett said.
The length of the deployment also is changing, with sailors no longer knowing for certain that they will be gone for a standard six months. With the Enterprise, the Navy has begun a more flexible deployment structure to meet operational needs, with deployments lasting from three to eight months.
Garrett said it's unlikely the Enterprise will be home before six months.
"The Navy is still in the process of resetting the fleet," he said. "They used quite a bit of resources for (Operation) Iraqi Freedom."
In another first, the carrier will not train at Vieques. The Navy stopped using the Puerto Rican island earlier this year after protests from residents, so the Enterprise will train at various bombing ranges and ocean sites from Virginia to Florida.
"I don't see any detriment in our training whatsoever," said Capt. Mark E. Mills, deputy commander of Carrier Air Wing 1, which is part of the strike group.
The carrier originally was scheduled to leave Norfolk Naval Station about 7:30 a.m. Thursday. But additional maintenance needs cropped up, including repairs to a drain in an auxiliary steam system and a voltage regulator on a turbine generator that supplies power.
Repairs complete, the Enterprise pulled away from the pier about 6:30 a.m. Friday, said Cmdr. Ernest Duplessis, spokesman for the Second Fleet.
The delay should not hurt the training, said Capt. Eric C. Neidlinger, the ship's commanding officer.
"We should be able to make up events as the schedule allows," he told reporters on the pier Thursday.
The problems had nothing to do with the ship's age, Neidlinger said. The world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Enterprise was commissioned on Nov. 25, 1961.
Garrett said ships sometimes break down and experience minor delays in getting under way. He called the delay "not even a hiccup in the history of the Enterprise."
The last deployment of an Atlantic Fleet carrier was delayed as well. In January, a minor mechanical problem forced the Norfolk-based USS Theodore Roosevelt to depart five hours late for training exercises that culminated in deployment.
Because previous mechanical problems delayed training by several weeks, the Enterprise will head directly overseas after training.
© Copyright 2003, The Associated Press
