A recent U.S. Navy exercise tested the ability of an aircraft-carrier strike group to continue to operate at sea when its communication with higher headquarters is interrupted or slowed by a sophisticated adversary, according to service officials.
The Fight to Hawaii exercise involved the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) carrier strike group, which left San Diego in January for Hawaii and a western Pacific deployment. The group includes the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) and USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108).
The exercise “was a great learning point,” said Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of Naval Air Forces and Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. It “really stressed the importance of, on your own, being able to manage the fight just with some general commander’s guidance. That was a great example of the ways we’re practicing now for when we get put into that environment in the very near future, potentially.”
Navy Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, Third Fleet commander, led the exercise, said Shoemaker, who spoke Feb. 21 at the West 2017 naval conference in San Diego.
The exercise, which also included flying time for the group’s aviation units as well as undersea warfare training, was designed to ensure that once the strike group entered the South China Sea last week, “they were as prepared as they possibly could be,” Tyson told the conference.
A new Navy document, “Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control,” says that with the recent return of great power competition, the Navy must, among other things, “be able to fight through battle damage and sustain operations in a degraded command-and-control environment.”
The Navy is not alone in grappling with communication vulnerabilities as it is increasingly challenged by potential near-peer adversaries. Army officials said in December that they will have to train soldiers to continue to fight if communications are degraded in decentralized environments.