If a Chinese submarine destroyed a ship, another submarine, or shore-based infrastructure during combat, how would the navy respond to fill the void?
The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport division recently conducted a “first-of-its-kind” table-top combat readiness exercise focusing on command, control and communication to answer this question.
The Navy’s Wartime Acquisition Response Plan Evaluation, held at Naval Base Kitsap-Keyport in Washington, featured three scenarios in which participants identified solutions to address damage to aircraft, ships, submarines and shore-based infrastructure during protracted conflict.
Options for handling such a crisis included “innovative” repair solutions as well as optimal asset reallocation, the Navy said.
Representatives from Naval Sea Systems Command Warfare Centers, NAVSEA Warfare Centers Headquarters and the Naval Sea Logistics Center participated in the mid-June exercise. It was the first time that all 10 divisions of the Warfare Center, Headquarters and Logistics Center participated in the wartime exercise in person, the Navy said in a July 5 news release.
The War Centers then provided feedback on each of the scenarios, including action items, ideas, and recommendations. According to Caeleigh Villarreal, Keyport’s advanced skills management logistics manager, the exercise has provided warfare centers with a “wealth of actionable data” that influences wartime response plans as well as preparation for the bi-annual reunion. of the Pacific Fleet. Exercise Talisman Saberwhich starts later this month.
RELATED
Australia hosts Talisman Saber, and this year’s exercise will include 30,000 service members from 13 countries. It will include field training exercises such as force readiness activities, amphibious landings, land force maneuvers, air and sea combat operations.
Talisman Saber is the largest bilateral training event between the US and Australian armies, and the Australian Department of Defense has said it will be the largest iteration of the exercise to date.
“The scale is an order of magnitude greater than anything that has ever been done before,” said Brig. Gen. Jered Helwig, commander of the U.S. Army’s 8th Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, told sister publication Defense News in April, during an interview at the Association of the US Army’s Global Force Symposium.
In 2021, James Geurts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, tasked all field operations to coordinate a tabletop exercise to assess acquisition response plans in times of war that linked command, control and communications.
Navy chiefs have warned in recent years of increasing submarine threats from Russia and China. Actions the Navy has taken in recent years to mitigate these threats include the establishment of the 2nd Fleet in 2018 in Norfolk, Va., in response to increased levels of Russian activity in the North Atlantic and Arctic. , including submarine.
The United States is also teaming up with Australia and the United Kingdom strengthen the underwater presence long term in the Pacific Ocean.