SAN DIEGO– The commander of Naval Surface Forces confirmed naval forces conducting combat operations in the Red Sea have used a feedback loop 55 times over the past 15 months to make quick updates thanks to over-the-air networks for tactical and software updates.
Speaking here during the WEST 2025 conference on Jan. 28, hosted by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute, Navy officials said it only takes about 48 hours following a combat engagement for the ship to send the data to analysis centers like Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and get analysis and improvements back via over-the-air transfers.
Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Brendan McLane said Dahlgren downloads the data stateside, then works together with other analysis partners like Naval Information Warfighting Development Center (NIWDC) and Lockheed Martin [LMT] to see what happened in any given engagement.
McLane compared it to an NFL game film.
“Sometimes in the press conference you get the answer – we’re not quite sure what happened in that play, we’re going to have to watch the film. And that’s exactly what happens here. We break down the film and then we get feedback to the warfighters on the ship within 48 hours,” McLane said.
He noted the feedback, analysis conclusions and recommendations go to the ship, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON), fleet, and strike group commander.
McLane added these Navy components then watch to see if the doctrine was followed, was it successful and anything else they can learn from the experience.
The Navy also does a “deeper dive” that takes a few additional days as well as taking lessons learned to determine “if we see a new tactic being used against us or if we had seen something that we can do better, that thing goes to Strike Group 4 and Strike Group 15 so that we can work that in to the next [Composite Training Unit Exercise, COMPTUEX].”
These engagement lessons are also getting worked into the current curriculum for tactical action officers at the Surface Warfare Officer School and at Surface Combat Systems Training Command, “so that all of our warfighters, as they’re going thru their brick and mortar schoolhouses are getting the very latest on what’s happening in the southern Red Sea.”
McLane highlighted this Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop process has been used 55 times so far over the last 15 months of Red Sea activities.
“You can kind of think of the scenario where a strike group has already gone through a COMPTUEX and a lesson’s been learned subsequently that needs to be shared with them. We fly [warfare tactics instructor] teams out to the strike group to get all of our ships up to speed on the latest tactics.”
Before these kinds of over-the-air data transmissions were possible McLane said that was a 40-plus day process to get a ship in port, download data onto tapes then hand walking them all the way to Dahlgren for download and analysis.
“So the satellite connectivity that we have now enables us on every baseline to be able to do that download. And that took a lot of industry and Navy partnering to be able to figure it out, because it’s a different way with each baseline, to be able to get that loop completed.”
Similarly, Rear Adm. Wilson Marks, Commander of the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center, noted an example where they fully updated and solved a software issue affecting a Red Sea ship within 17 days using over-the-air transmissions.
His team alerted him on a Friday night to an issue a ship was having with “one of our baselines over in the Red Sea that was causing a tactical issue with them in the [Weapons Engagement Zone, or WEZ] right then.”
Marks alerted Rear Adm. Joseph Cahill, commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic, about the issue, who then called the strike group commander to find out what the issue specifically was.
“Within 48 hours we had some [Tactics, Techniques and Procedures] workaround, but with Lockheed Martin coming in that weekend along with our folks over at NSWC and our folks over at [Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems] in 17 days we had a software patch.”
Marks said the Navy first tested the software patch to a ship underway in 3rd Fleet, then transmitted it to a ship in the WEZ, brought them out of the zone to update the software, “and then brought them right back out and that fixed a problem with a baseline.”
Marks underscored this is how the Navy knows it can fix software problems akin to smartphone software updates.
“That’s now, we know we can do it and that’s because everybody lined up behind us and said yes, make this happen. So we know we can do it, we’ve just got to make that the normal.”