USS McCampbell Pulls Double Duty in the Pacific

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USS McCampbell Pulls Double Duty in the Pacific
Story Number: NNS030519-09
Release Date: 5/19/2003 9:47:00 AM


By Lt. James Mill, Navy Information Bureau 101 NE

NEWPORT, R.I. (NNS) -- USS McCampbell (DDG 85) proved it's possible to be in two places at once.

McCampbell, currently operating in the Eastern Pacific area conducting counter-drug operations, was simultaneously operating in the Western Pacific area, participating in Fleet Battle Experiment (FBE) Kilo, an annual joint warfighting experiment.

Two places at once? In reality, an impossibility. However, with the help of the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) and its state-of-the-art simulation lab, McCampbell was able to stay on station doing real-world work, while at the same time being ?present? in the Western Pacific as a simulated version of itself.

?We used the NWDC Experimentation Federation of simulation and C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) systems to represent a number of platforms, including USS McCampbell,? said Mike Dial, director of the NWDC Experiment Federation Lab.

This is done ?in order to provide information stimulation via real world, go-to-war C4I systems so that NWDC and Commander 7th Fleet, with his principal components, could experiment with new doctrine and concepts with fleet operators, using their own systems but in a very high tempo operational situation,? dial said.

Ships operating in the 7th Fleet Pacific areas were able to interact with McCampbell as if she were in the are area of operation, including receiving electronic feeds, all acoustic contact information, streaming video and national sensor information, all from the simulation laboratory in Newport, R.I.

The new NWDC modeling and simulation lab coordinated the virtual participation of several other platforms, in addition to the virtual McCampbell. A virtual next generation E2-C Hawkeye was generated from a mobile simulator parked next to the NWDC lab; a virtual next generation destroyer (vDDX) was generated at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va.; and a virtual submarine and unmanned underwater vehicle were added from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport. The simulations even included live video feeds from virtual Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (vUAV).

Meanwhile, the real McCampbell was able to remain on station, operating within the Joint Interagency Task Force West area, conducting counter-drug operations in conjunction with embarked naval aviation and U.S. Coast Guard assets.

She was able to do this ?while her synthetic counterpart was representing her half a world away, augmenting the live ships of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) Battle Group and the USS Essex (LHD 2) Expeditionary Strike Group participating in Fleet Battle Experiment Kilo,? explained Dial. ?And in the process, played a very key role in the scenario.?

More than 8,000 U.S. Navy and civilian personnel participated in FBE-Kilo, a joint warfighting experiment involving both live field forces and computer simulation at various locations in the United States and the 7th Fleet Pacific area of operations from April 14 - May 5.

FBE-Kilo was the 11th in a series of FBEs and was conducted concurrently with Exercise Tandem Thrust 2003 (TT03), a U.S. Pacific Command-sponsored exercise which focused on deliberate and crisis action planning, and execution in a joint task force environment.

McCampbell's Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Mark Montgomery, saw the value in the experiment.

?We can get effective command and control training and testing accomplished, while at the same time allowing ships to conduct their traditional real-time deployment operations,? he said. ?This sounds like an efficient use of resources.?

As a result, the Navy saved countless flight hours, steaming hours, weapons and sonobouys, while still providing the full range of information stimulation needed to train, exercise and experiment at the fleet commander and principal component level. All the while, the assets being represented were able to continue to carry on with critical operational commitments

In a time where assets are pushed to their limits and real world operations take up precious training time, simulation is proving to be an invaluable tool.

Simulation augmentation can be critical to providing opportunities for realistic training exercises and for experiments to flush out the transformation to new, state of the art doctrine and contingency operations. The Sailors aboard McCampbell, on station in two different parts of the world, can attest to that.