CIAT Meets the Mark for SWO Training Demands

from Surface Warfare Magazine - Fall 2020

History and Heritage

In the past two years, I’ve been privileged to witness firsthand CIAT’s exponential impact on waterfront training. Serving my Integrated Air and Missile Defense Warfare Tactics Instructor (WTI) production tour at the CSCS Detachment San Diego has offered me a unique perspective on Fleet Training.

Our training model is intentionally linear, designed in tiers—after a ship’s Maintenance Phase— to increase in complexity and integration as ships and strike groups approach deployment. I’ve been assigned to 22 Pacific Fleet cruisers and destroyers entering Basic Phase Training. At the first intersection of combat training, we share the same observation on each ship. The quality of a ship’s combat team directly reflects the duration of a ship’s maintenance period. Without exception, the longer the dry dock period, the shakier the team. No team or watch stander has proven immune to pier side tactical atrophy. Under those conditions, ship’s force and waterfront training sites like CSCS, Afloat Training Group (ATG), Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC), and Tactical Training Group Pacific (TTGP) devote enormous effort in the training cycle, sharpening the tactical edge lost in port.

Crew feedback is always the same before deployment: “I wish there was more time. I wish there was more training.”

CIAT answers both calls. It’s engineered in every detail to replicate an Aegis combat suite. In 2019, 2,000 watch standers stepped into CIAT for tactical training on their own initiative. While San Diego ships underwent significant tactical upgrades on the pier, San Diego Sailors did the same in CIAT.

The simulator offers scenario complexity and customization unlike anywhere else in the fleet, far beyond what’s capable on board a ship. CIAT is equipped to simulate fights in any geography and environment, against any adversary. As facilitators at CSCS, we can degrade a ship’s weapons systems, overwhelm radars with noise, inject realistic threat profiles with electronic attack, and force every single watch stander in combat to adapt. You can’t plagiarize experience in our line of work. We t train our crews to succeed in the worst-case scenario.

Since opening almost two years ago, we have hosted several training events for the local waterfront. In spring of 2020, CIAT was ready for its first forward-deployed training audience. As USS Benfold (DDG 65) made preparations for a 15-month maintenance availability in Yokosuka, Japan, Cmdr. Robert McFarlin, Benfold’s commanding officer, eyed CIAT as a new avenue for tactical proficiency.

“Benfold has a very proactive posture for warfare training and completing our Selected Restricted Availability (SRA) ahead of schedule,” McFarlin explained. “We've named our aggressive stance ‘Operation: Yorktown’ in reference to the herculean effort to return the World War II carrier to service for the Battle of Midway.”

Operation: Yorktown outlined specific installation dates and testing milestones in an effort to identify timeline challenges and certify all warfare areas ahead of schedule. Like Yorktown generations before her, Benfold had no time to waste in the shipyard with a demanding theater eager for her return to force. In execution of Operation: Yorktown, McFarlin requested two uninterrupted weeks in CIAT for nonstop 7th Fleet scenario training during his ship’s Maintenance Phase. With that much time, our CSCS team designed approximately 100 lab hours of customized tactical training for Benfold. By month’s end, 31Benfold Sailors had plane tickets from Tokyo to San Diego and Operation: Yorktown was underway.

Having served both my division officer tours onboard forward-deployed USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), I understand the high operational tempo, demand for quality training, and the challenges achieving both. Benfold’s investment in early training resonated as a culture shift. Their request marked the first formal ship training event endeavored during the Maintenance Phase and would become be the most rewarding training mission of my WTI tour.

With more than 100 undivided hours to test the lab and crew to full potential, we returned to Destroyer Squadron 15 the most lethal combat information center (CIC) watch team in the 7th Fleet.

Free from distractions in San Diego’s CIAT, 6,000 miles away from Yokosuka, the CIC watch team got to training. No administrative paperwork, meetings, duty, or maintenance. Nothing but 100 hours of operational repetition honed their skills to increase their lethality.

“The CIAT venue itself was a great asset for my team,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Sullivan, Benfold’s combat systems officer. “The opportunity to focus solely on warfighting skills and step away from the dayto-day routine of ship business ensured the reps and sets in the CIAT sank in and every minute of training retained its value.”

With two weeks together, we stretched far beyond the scope of Basic Phase training requirements. I invited my peers at SMWDC headquarters to present focus area projects on new tactics. USS Princeton’s (CG 59) Air Defense team hosted Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air and air asset management training. Dave Dunn and the Afloat Training Group (ATG) team led individual Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) training offsite. Most importantly, we achieved a high level of team combat cohesion through the nonstop scenario play.

“The San Diego location allowed access to a wide variety of subject matter experts, including the ATG BMD team, who brought first class training and lectures to our crew,” Sullivan said.

The crew feedback was loud and clear. “Build a CIAT in Yokosuka!” was scribbled on 11 student course critiques before the team departed.

“Don’t deploy without it,” one Sailor’s course critique read.

“I cannot stress enough how important this training has been for my team and myself,” read another. Six months later, Operation: Yorktown continues as Benfold completes crew and material certifications. To no surprise, the watch team successfully safeguarded the tactical proficiency earned during last year’s patrol. “CIAT proved absolutely invaluable in preserving Benfold’s proficiency as we prepare for certification,” said Cmdr. Marcus Seeger, Benfold’s executive officer. McFarlin’s Operation: Yorktown succeeded in equal parts action and philosophy.

“Ou r trip to CIAT cost $3,500 per Sailor,” McFarlin said. “The return is worth double, or even triple, that cost. Even now with my Aegis suite back online and embedded training systems available to the crew, the high fidelity of CIAT and the incredible training provided by the CSCS San Diego team would make another trip worthwhile.” “CIAT is that good. We absolutely recommend our sister ships here in Yokosuka make the same investment,” McFarlin concluded.

As an instructor who has driven two dozen ships through the Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) cycle, Operation: Yorktown is my model of success.

I keep going back to Benfold’s example and have held onto the student course critiques as a constant reminder. Our community embraces the Maintenance Phase as a necessary investment in a ship’s long-term success. But it’s not just an investment in preserving the ship’s hull, renovating engineering spaces, or modernizing her combat systems. The Benfold family proved the Maintenance Phase is equally an investment in the crew. Benfold’s dedicated combat team training during the Maintenance Phase is a paradigm shift essential for winning the high-end fight and worthy of Yorktown’s namesake. *