Testing Officers of the Deck: The U. S. Navy and the Royal Australian Navy Approaches

U. S. Navy approach:

From Navy Times Officers of the deck to undergo competency tests

The Navy has begun randomly testing surface fleet officers on their officer of the deck skills in order to better understand where the community’s strengths and weaknesses lie.

It is part of the surface community’s efforts to assess and revamp training in the wake of fatal collisions involving the warships Fitzgerald and John S. McCain last summer that killed 17 sailors.

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Forty OOD-qualified first tour division officers were recently selected at random from 10 San Diego ships to undergo the 35-minute assessment, which involves a survey, written test and a simulator scenario, according to a recent Navy blog post by Capt. Scott Robertson, head of the Surface Warfare Officers School, or SWOS.

The tests will take place in the coming months at other fleet concentration points, with the goal of assessing about 200 officers, or a tenth of the fleet’s OOD inventory.

Such a data set will enable the Navy to gauge mariner skills and watch-standing capabilities of its OODs, Robertson said in the post.

Aussie approach:

I once witnessed a Canadian Navy ship turn the wrong way during a exercise. Later found out that the OOD was dismissed from their Navy as a result . . . Nothing focuses the mind like that ...

The past few weeks I've been comtemplating what traits make some naval surface ship drivers officers (Officers of the Deck or Junior OODs) better than others. As part of that process I also thought about whether some of those traits can be taught or whether some of them are organic within individuals.

Let me start with an example - one I first used about 12 years ago - in their book Keepers of the Sea Fred Maroon and Edward Beach wrote about replenishment at sea:

...[I]n no fleet maneuver is the steering ability of the helmsman, indeed, the exercise of pure seamanship by all hands so demanding. No evolution is so fraught with potential danger as the high-speed maneuvering of huge ships in close quarters, where the knowledge of one's ship, of the action of the wind and the sea, and of the laws of physics is crucial. At replenishment stations, some individuals seem to have an intuitive awareness of what is happening around them. Such men never seem to lose sight of the ponderously certain outcome of the events they have set in motion. They have eyes in the backs of their heads, a feel for the sea in the tips of their fingers, and the born confidence of a professional juggler or racing car driver. It shows in the way they handle their heavy gear and in the way they drive their ships.."

Why is it that "some individuals seem to have an intuitive awareness of what is happening around them?"

Is there something wrong with the others who apparently lack that "intuitive awareness?" Or is it a learned skill? Can it be taught?

These questions led me to looking at the topic of "situational awareness" - which has been defined as

Situational awareness, a familiar term to professional captains and crew, is defined as having a keen sense of the events and conditions around us, and the ability to apply our awareness of those events to our situation. simply put, it’s knowing what is going on around you.

The article from which that definition comes notes that Admrial Moran stated that in the recent incident of USS Fitzgerald,

According to the Navy’s Admiral William F. Moran, vice chief of naval operations, in the case of the USS Fitzgerald, “the sailors who were on watch in the ship’s bridge lost situational awareness, contributing to the collision.”

A discussion of aircraft pilot and situational awareness notes,

Put simply, situational awareness (SA) means appreciating all you need to know about what is going on when the full scope of your task - flying, controlling or maintaining an aircraft - is taken into account. More specifically and in the context of complex operational environments, SA is concerned with the person's knowledge of particular task-related events and phenomena. For example, for a fighter pilot SA means knowing about the threats and intentions of enemy forces as well as the status of his/her own aircraft. For an air traffic controller, SA means (at least partly) knowing about current aircraft positions and flight plans and predicting future states so as to detect possible conflicts. Therefore, in operational terms, SA means having an understanding of the current state and dynamics of a system and being able to anticipate future change and developments.

A general definition of SA is that it is the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future.

In the U. S. Navy surface force, we used to use the term "forehandedness" to describe what amounts to SA. As Stavrides and Girrier put in the 15th Edition of the Watch Officer's Guide:

The watch officer should be ready for any situation. For that reason, the most important faculty for the watch officer to cultivate is forehandedness. If there is reason to think that there will be fog during a watch, he or she should check over the fog procedure before taking the deck. If the ship is to take part in fleet exercises, the watch officer should arrange to study the orders, pre-exercise messages (PRE-EXs) , and applicable instructions before going on watch . . . The watch officer must always look ahead - a minute, an hour, and a day - and make it a matter of pride never to be caught unprepared.

The wise watch officer will mentally rehearse the action to take in event of a fire, a man overboard, a steering failure, or other sreious casualty. This habit is not difficult to acquire and is certain to pay large dividents. Forehandedness is the mark of a successful watch officer. Specific evolutions of a technical or complex nature should b e pre-briefed in advance with all the major participants atending. The OOD is usually a central figure in these briefings. Proper preparation for complex evolutions not only results in smooth running operations but also keeps them safe.

I note that with our naval aviators, every mission is pre-briefed. I am not sure how many, if any, oncoming watch teams on our ships get together before the watch to discuss what to expect.

The best skippers and OODs constantly challenge their watch standing teams - not to harass them with trivia - but to teach them what are the essential matters that any member of the watch team needs to know. My first CO was always testing the limits of my knowledge - "How far can you see from the bridge?" (You first have to know that height of the bridge above the water . . .) "If you are the burdened ship in a crossing situation at sea and you are going to manuver to avoid a collision, how big should your turn be?" (Big enough so the guy on the bridge of the other ship can see that you've made the turn) "What's the best thing to do if you've lost situational awareness?" (Usually go "all stop" and buy yourself some time to sort things out).

The OOD that, during a quiet watch, announces that the "bridge has lost steering" to test the watch crew's ability to shift steering to after steering and for after steering to take control is being forehanded, as is the CO who tells the XO to toss Oscar, the man overboard dummy, over the side to check the OOD and crew responses.

We've been standing watches in the U. S. Navy for over 240 years. Tech may have changed, but people haven't. What has happened is that many of us depend too much on technology and forget that tech can and will fail at the worst possible moment. As in "Murphy was an optimist." It behooves us to learn to use tech properly while keeping alive forehandedness as "the most important faculty" for our watch officers.

All of which is to say, it speaks volumes that we need to "test" U.S. officers of deck to set a baseline for training because we don't really know what we have.

It also speaks volumes that the RAN "test" (after completion of training) is to throw their JOs into the fray piloting "a warship in restricted waters at high speed in a warfare environment."

More on situational awareness later.

Update: More on the U.S. Navy data gathering process here

Fiction, Science Fiction and Military Strategy and Thinking

On very rare occasions I am asked to suggest some sort of reading list for prospective Naval officers. Or even for prospective Marines.

It has been my usual practice to refer the person seeking advice to the Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading Program which contains a very good selection. Most of these are historical or "current events" in nature, such as Joel Holwitt's Execute Against Japan or Robert Kaplan's Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.

There are some great books on the challenges of war at sea on that list, as well there should be. These include James D. Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.

On the other hand, sometimes there are recommendations for books in the "speculative" fiction arena - which some might call "science fiction." These would include Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers about which the keepers of the CNO list wrote:

The rigors of military life, the sacrifices that such a life entails, the raw fear before going into battle, the burdens of leadership—all are captured masterfully. Like most sci-fi that stands the test of time, Starship Troopers is about much more than futuristic hardware and shootouts with space creatures. It is, above all, a novel of ideas, a book that stimulates thought about citizenship, responsibility, duty, and the role of the individual in society.

Another recommendation, retired CPO Jeff Edwards'The Seventh Angel which we are informed "... focuses on the crew of a fictional Arleigh Burke destroyer and the civilian technicians operating an unmanned robot submersible to stop a rouge actor with nuclear weapons."

Yes, there is other fiction on the lists, including Patrick O’Brian's Master and Commander ( don't stop with the one book, the whole series is terrific). I assume that C.S. Forster's Hornblower series lies somewhere on the list. The slightly more risque Dewey Lambdin Alan Lewrie series may or may not be there, but it is quite good, even if a little historical stretching goes with it.

But I digress.

As a young officer serving in a ship you learn that one key thing is to be "forehanded." This is not just a tennis term, but rather another was of saying "looking to the future." It means learning to contemplate what actions you would take "if . . ."

As in "What would I do if the rudder stopped responding?" "What steps would I take if there was a fire in a berthing area?" "What would I do if a fleet of enemy ships suddenly appeared to threaten the jeep carriers which I am escorting?" You can make up your own scenarios. Some you can base, like the last one in my sequence, in a historical context. Others? Well, if you like (and the watch is sufficiently boring), you can get into odd thoughts - "What would I do if a flying saucer suddenly appeared over the ship?"

It isn't too much of a leap from that to appreciating the authors of science fiction - who mostly write about "What if ...?" Better than than, as the introduction to old radio series X-1 announced,

These are stories of the future; adventures in which you'll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds.

Which gets me back to the point of this post, if you bear with me a little longer.

Mahan wrote in his "Introductory" to The Influence of Sea Power:

It is not therefore a vain expectation, as many think, to look for useful lessons in the history of sailing-ships as well as in that of galleys. Both have their points of resemblance to the modern ship; both have also points of essential difference, which make it impossible to cite their experiences or modes of action as tactical precedents to be followed. But a precedent is different from and less valuable than a principle. The former may be originally faulty, or may cease to apply through change of circumstances; the latter has its root in the essential nature of things, and, however various its application as conditions change, remains a standard to which action must conform to attain success. War has such principles; their existence is detected by the study of the past, which reveals them in successes and in failures, the same from age to age. Conditions and weapons change; but to cope with the one or successfully wield the others, respect must be had to these constant teachings of history in the tactics of the battlefield, or in those wider operations of war which are comprised under the name of strategy.

It is however in these wider operations, which embrace a whole theatre of war, and in a maritime contest may cover a large portion of the globe, that the teachings of history have a more evident and permanent value, because the conditions remain more permanent. The theatre of war may be larger or smaller, its difficulties more or less pronounced, the contending armies more or less great, the necessary movements more or less easy, but these are simply differences of scale, of degree, not of kind. As a wilderness gives place to civilization, as means of communication multiply, as roads are opened, rivers bridged, food-resources increased, the operations of war become easier, more rapid, more extensive; but the principles to which they must be conformed remain the same. When the march on foot was replaced by carrying troops in coaches, when the latter in turn gave place to railroads, the scale of distances was increased, or, if you will, the scale of time diminished; but the principles which dictated the point at which the army should be concentrated, the direction in which it should move, the part of the enemy's position which it should assail, the protection of communications, were not altered. So, on the sea, the advance from the galley timidly creeping from port to port to the sailing-ship launching out boldly to the ends of the earth, and from the latter to the steamship of our own time, has increased the scope and the rapidity of naval operations without necessarily changing the principles which should direct them; and the speech of Hermocrates twenty-three hundred years ago, before quoted, contained a correct strategic plan, which is as applicable in its principles now as it was then. Before hostile armies or fleets are brought into contact (a word which perhaps better than any other indicates the dividing line between tactics and strategy), there are a number of questions to be decided, covering the whole plan of operations throughout the theatre of war. Among these are the proper function of the navy in the war; its true objective; the point or points upon which it should be concentrated; the establishment of depots of coal and supplies; the maintenance of communications between these depots and the home base; the military value of commerce-destroying as a decisive or a secondary operation of war; the system upon which commerce-destroying can be most efficiently conducted, whether by scattered cruisers or by holding in force some vital centre through which commercial shipping must pass. All these are strategic questions, and upon all these history has a great deal to say. ***

It is then particularly in the field of naval strategy that the teachings of the past have a value which is in no degree lessened. They are there useful not only as illustrative of principles, but also as precedents, owing to the comparative permanence of the conditions. This is less obviously true as to tactics, when the fleets come into collision at the point to which strategic considerations have brought them. The unresting progress of mankind causes continual change in the weapons; and with that must come a continual change in the manner of fighting,—in the handling and disposition of troops or ships on the battlefield. Hence arises a tendency on the part of many connected with maritime matters to think that no advantage is to be gained from the study of former experiences; that time

so used is wasted. This view, though natural, not only leaves wholly out of sight those broad strategic considerations which lead nations to put fleets afloat, which direct the sphere of their action, and so have modified and will continue to modify the history of the world, but is one-sided and narrow even as to tactics. The battles of the past succeeded or failed according as they were fought in conformity with the principles of war; and the seaman who carefully studies the causes of success or failure will not only detect and gradually assimilate these principles, but will also acquire increased aptitude in applying them to the tactical use of the ships and weapons of his own day. He will observe also that changes of tactics have not only taken place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case, but that the interval between such changes has been unduly long. This doubtless arises from the fact that an improvement of weapons is due to the energy of one or two men, while changes in tactics have to overcome the inertia of a conservative class; but it is a great evil. It can be remedied only by a candid recognition of each change, by careful study of the powers and limitations of the new ship or weapon, and by a consequent adaptation of the method of using it to the qualities it possesses, which will constitute its tactics. History shows that it is vain to hope that military men generally will be at the pains to do this, but that the one who does will go into battle with a great advantage,—a lesson in itself of no mean value. (emphasis added)

In science fiction we can find examples of the underlying principles Mahan writes of being applied to "could-be years ... on a thousand may-be worlds."

"What if?" Let's face it, reading Mahan can be a tough slog. But . . . science fiction writer David Weber uses Mahan to set up his novels in the Honor Harrington series (get the first book in this series, On Basilisk Station, free here). These books are quite readable. What does Mr. Weber say of this series?

What I didn't know when I pitched the ideas to Jim was that he had been looking for someone to write an interstellar Horatio Hornblower series for the better part of 20 years. As soon as he read the first sentence of the proposal -- "Honor Harrington is a 6'2" female, Eurasian starship captain in the service of the Star Kingdom of Manticore" -- he basically told Toni Weisskopff "Write him a contract. No, make it two contracts! No! Make it four contracts!" I don't know for certain that he ever read all of the other proposals at all . . . and given the Honorverse's success, I'm not going to complain if he didn't!

As for the reasoning process that led me to create this particular literary universe, I knew that I wanted to do a military novel, that I wanted it to be about a very long running war, that I wanted to have "good guys" on both sides, and that I wanted it to be of a naval character. I actually started out looking at the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, but I decided that the naval aspects of those wars were too limited. Seapower in those wars was really primarily logistical -- transporting armies and keeping them supplied -- rather than the sort of "command of the sea" warfare in the tradition of Alfred Thayer Mahan that I really wanted to write about. Which, of course, caused me to turn to the wars that Mahan had actually analyzed -- the Napoleonic Wars between the British Empire and Revolutionary and later Imperial France.

Once I'd chosen my historical template, I sat down and constructed the basic universe: political units, available technologies, naval strategic and tactical doctrines, historical evolution, etc... And, I will confess, I deliberately constructed my navel technological toolbox in a way which would create something with clear parallels between three-dimensional space-going warfare and the two-dimensional broadside warfare of the eighteenth century.

So, Mr. Weber took that part Mahan wrote about "conditions changing" and set it in space far in the future. He kept the principles of war - logistics (Mahan calls them "communications"), the tyranny of time and distance, and that part about "the proper function of the navy in the war; its true objective; the point or points upon which it should be concentrated" - and placed them into the future. The point being that whether it's the French and English fighting 200 years ago or the Star Kingdom of Maniticore fighting the Republic of Haven 2000 years from now, the underlying principles of war will apply.

Mr. Weber also writes the Safehold series in which a human world has intentionally kept itself from being high tech but into which a change agent is introduced who faces the challenge of pushing progress while evading both in-planet and extra-planetary enemies. A relatively rapid change from oared galleons to steam powered war ships and from spears to gun powder parallels the same process in our history, as it should since Mr. Weber intended that to be the case. Again, the underlying principles of war govern. But under it all, lurks the question "What if . ..?"

And shouldn't that be the fundamental military question for both strategy and tactics? As in "What, given constraints of a limited budget and trained manpower, should our strategic naval posture be?" "What if we had 10% more funding?" "What if we had 10% less?" "What strategic changes does nuclear power for warships bring?" "What about laser weapons?" "Robotic and semi-robotic vessels and aircraft?" "What are the threats to a modern fleet by a modern swarm attack?"

Things to ponder on one of those nights on an independent transit of the Pacific or in other quiet moments.

Reading good science fiction can help stimulate that pondering.

By the way, the Commandant of the Marine Corps reading lists can be found here. Yes, there are scifi books on them. The Coast Guard Commandant's lists can be found here. A list I prepared last year is here.

A Fable from Aesop

The One-Eyed Doe

A DOE blind in one eye was accustomed to graze as near to the edge of the cliff as she possibly could, in the hope of securing her greater safety. She turned her sound eye towards the land
that she might get the earliest tidings of the approach of hunter or hound, and her injured eye towards the sea, from whence she
entertained no anticipation of danger. Some boatmen sailing by saw her, and taking a successful aim, mortally wounded her.
Yielding up her last breath, she gasped forth this lament: "O wretched creature that I am! to take such precaution against the land, and after all to find this seashore, to which I had come
for safety, so much more perilous."

Moral: Trouble comes from the direction we least expect it.

Where's your blind side?