"Ready to Go on Game Day"

At Sea With the Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group

Interview with Rear Adm. Mark P. Fitzgerald, Commander, USS Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group

Senior Editor Gordon I. Peterson interviewed Rear Adm. Fitzgerald, commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group, for this issue of Sea Power.

Rear Adm. Mark P. Fitzgerald assumed command of Carrier Group 8 and the USS Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group in March 2001. A highly experienced attack pilot, Fitzgerald led the VA-46 "Clansmen" in the first Navy air strike on Baghdad during the opening hours of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. A veteran of U.S. humanitarian operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he also commanded Carrier Air Wing 14 during support of Operation Southern Watch in the Persian Gulf while serving on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in 1994. Following his assignment as executive assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, during NATO combat operations in Kosovo, Fitzgerald served as the deputy commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

Sea Power interviewed Fitzgerald at sea on the USS Theodore Roosevelt during his battle group's last training cycle before commencing a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf later this month.

Sea Power: Admiral, you led the Navy's first air strike against Baghdad 10 years ago. How would you describe the most important changes in the combat capabilities of the carrier air wing and its battle group since those operations of a decade ago?

FITZGERALD: The carrier battle group's combat capabilities have improved considerably in two main areas. One is the actual weapons capability of the air wing, and the other is the communications-collaboration architecture on the aircraft carrier and its battle group. On the air wing side we have many smart weapons aboard now. We have the capability to respond to operational taskings rapidly and to launch weapons against targets with pinpoint precision. On the communications side, we are seeing substantial improvements in our connectivity. This translates into better battlespace awareness and success in combat.

During the Gulf War, targets were often sketched out on pieces of paper before the strike! Now we're able to download target imagery from a satellite, turn it around, and get airplanes to put standoff weapons on target very quickly. During Desert Storm we had LGB [laser-guided bombs] weapons that could be dropped by just a couple of platforms. We didn't have any GPS- [global positioning satellite] guided weapons except the SLAM [standoff land-attack missile], and it had not been operationally tested at that point. My squadron [Attack Squadron 46] dropped the first SLAMs of the war, and they proved to be very effective against Iraqi targets.

We now have a wealth of smart weapons. The JSOW [joint standoff weapon] and JDAM [joint direct-attack munition] weapons are available and allow us to put standoff weapons precisely on targets beyond visual range. All of the air wing's strike aircraft have FLIR [forward-looking infrared] pods with lasers. There also have been great improvements in our GPS capabilities.

I would hasten to add that our surface warships and attack submarines also have a potent long-range strike capability with their precise Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The second aspect of the carrier's improved combat capability results from a technology jump that parallels what we have seen in private enterprise. On this ship [the nuclear- powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt] we can obtain and process huge amounts of data from many sources. My warfare commanders have a very good view of the battlespace.

For instance, the Vella Gulf [the Aegis guided-missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf], my air-defense commander, is able to communicate by "chatting" using secure means and to pass large files through a secure network. We have what's called "collaboration-at-sea" web pages where, on a secure network, we are able to do war planning in real time. Ships in the battle group can pull down documents from the carrier, and the carrier is able to pull down documents from them.

What about smaller platforms--destroyers and frigates, for example?

FITZGERALD: The challenge now rests between the "have" and the "have-nots." The carrier has the most capability, so it is the hub for command, control, and communications. The CO [commanding officer] of a smaller ship--a frigate--has substantially less capability. The CO doesn't have to decide what information he or she wants; he has to decide what information he doesn't want! The COs have a plethora of information to draw from, but they are forced in some ways to choose what information they don't want if they are to be able to download what they really need.

Your battle group departs for the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf in late September. How do you see your mission unfolding?

FITZGERALD: I have told the battle group that we have two basic missions. One is enforcing the no-fly zone in southern Iraq. This has involved combat operations for the past two years. The second part of our mission entails enforcement of the U.N.-mandated maritime-intercept operations that are still in force in the Persian Gulf.

There is continued unrest in the Balkans and the Middle East. That is a pretty turbulent part of the world, and our presence and capabilities may be called upon to maintain peace and stability in that region during our time in the Mediterranean. Our mission is to provide a presence in the region to engage with our allies and, if necessary, be able to fight and win or to form a coalition to defeat an adversary.

Given all of those tasks our predeployment training has focused on each of those areas. We must be able to fight the big wars, we must be able to fight the small wars, and we must be able to enforce whatever might come our way through the National Command Authority.

As you pointed out, each of the last 12 Navy carrier battle groups to deploy has conducted combat operations. How do you assess the "TR" battle group's combat readiness?

FITZGERALD: We are ready to go. The current battle group turnaround cycle has been very beneficial in getting the ships ready. We do about six months of unit training. Each ship and squadron hones its individual skills, and then we merge them together in six months of additional battle group training.

As we speak [August 2001], we have completed two-thirds of that training. We bring all of our various units together to synchronize their operations and obtain the most synergy out of their capabilities. We found that our IT 21 [Information Technology 21] upgrade has been very useful in every part of our force operations--from Tomahawk shots to air defense, to sea control, to undersea warfare.

During our trip down to the Vieques ranges in the Puerto Rican operating area in June we were able to exercise in all those areas. We practiced maritime-interception operations [MIOs], a fairly difficult maneuver if you have an uncooperative merchant ship on your hands.

We trained very hard at the MIO mission and the strike- warfare mission. You don't just "pop" a Tomahawk land-attack missile out of the tube. There's an awful lot of planning, preparation, and communication needed to accomplish a successful launch. On the air wing side, we planned and conducted air wing strikes. We were blessed with good weather and sea states in Vieques, and we were able to take advantage of that to conduct a whole month's worth of valuable training in the Puerto Rican Operations Area.

In past years the Navy's funding for spare parts and precision-guided munitions was inadequate, resulting in the cross-decking of parts and munitions between battle groups. Has that situation improved?

FITZGERALD: The answer is yes and no. The Theodore Roosevelt is ready to go to war, and it has everything that it needs to do that. The battle group also is ready to go. Having said that, however, there are fleet-wide shortages in some areas, including Tomahawks and PGMs like the JSOW and JDAM.

Given the numbers [of missiles] we have fired in combat in recent years, coupled with low procurement rates, we have to cross-deck a lot of these munitions when a carrier deploys. The bottom line is that we are ready to go with the weapons complement we need to fight, but there aren't many spares left in the inventory.

The other readiness area of concern is maintenance and modernization. Was the Atlantic Fleet able to schedule your ships for shipyard repairs early in your workup cycle?

FITZGERALD: Yes. My ships received the critical maintenance they needed. We could have used more money, but they are ready to go on cruise. The people that suffer are always those who are returning from a deployment. They have to cross-deck a lot of their gear to get the deploying ships ready. They are now waiting to get their gear back from another returning battle group so they can get on with their training.

Vice Admiral Nathman [Vice Adm. John B. Nathman, commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet] told our readers in June of his concern that naval aviation has lost some of its resilience and capacity during the past decade. Do you share those concerns?

FITZGERALD: The resilience issue is the same across the board with today's operating forces, whether it's ships or airplanes. We have fewer platforms, and we are not replacing them in sufficient numbers. The inventory of spare parts is smaller. Old planes and ships break more frequently, and the time to get things fixed takes longer. In our aircraft squadrons, for example, funding shortages made it very hard to get airplanes through the depot-level repair cycle. There also are funding shortfalls in the ship modernization and repair accounts, and for infrastructure.

We are on the tip of the spear right now. We're building up for deployment, so we are seeing many spare parts come on board. In the past six months that wasn't true. So, I think Admiral Nathman is right. We don't have the depth and resilience that we had 10 years ago. The CNO [Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark] told Congress recently that the fleet is at risk--and that assessment is right on target.

Some armchair tacticians assert that the aircraft carrier is becoming increasingly vulnerable to enemy attack in this age of precision munitions and long-range missiles. How would you respond?

FITZGERALD: I would equate the challenge of locating an aircraft carrier and its battle group to that of finding a needle in a haystack. That's the dilemma an adversary would face, and I speak from the experience of having exercised at sea with a "Blue Force" versus an "Orange Force." I would be the first one to tell you that we have a heck of a time finding the Orange Forces at sea!

When you take a carrier steaming at 30 knots and put it 100 to 200 miles off the coast of an enemy, a hostile force is going to have a very hard time finding you. During a 24-hour period, the carrier's operating area could encompass several thousand square miles of ocean.

If an enemy does find the carrier he has to target a weapon. That's an even harder problem because of the maneuverability, range, and combat power of a carrier operating at 30-plus knots heading in any direction. That adversary is definitely going into harm's way, because our battle group's layered defenses--surface shooters, attack submarines, fighter and attack aircraft--extend their coverage for many hundreds of miles in all directions.

Finally, no one should underestimate the capability of the carrier's close-in defensive weapons systems or the ability of the carrier to take a hit and keep on going. The aircraft carrier is built to withstand heavy ordnance being shot against it, and I doubt you could sink it with one shot. That is not to say that the carrier is invulnerable, because nothing is invulnerable. But if the U.S. Navy--the most capable navy in the world--finds it to be an extraordinarily difficult and problematic task to locate, track, and attack an aircraft carrier, I would say that it is an astronomically hard problem for the potential adversaries we see in the world today.

What is entailed in your final predeployment training--a full-blown joint task force exercise [JTF-EX]?

FITZGERALD: The JTF-EX mission is to take operational training one step further. We exercised the battle group in June. Now we are moving into operations that will fully integrate our battle group capabilities with those of our amphibious ready group [ARG] and joint forces. We will put Marines ashore, provide air cover for them, and also provide the sea space for them to operate. This involves all of the air- defense and sea-control aspects of our mission.

How important is the JTF-EX in terms of your ability to raise the battle group's combat readiness to the highest possible level before deployment?

FITZGERALD: Obviously, we want to be able to perform every mission that we could possibly be assigned and perform them well. There is no single exercise that gets you there, but the JTF-EX tries to stress every warfare-mission area. It's also targeted, as I said, at amphibious warfare--one of the most challenging of any military operations. It's very important that we exercise our forces in this mission area so that we see what our limitations are and what our capabilities really are. I think we will find that we are probably very good, but I won't know without the exercise.

Some critics have said that there is no longer any need to practice amphibious operations because it has been many years since the Navy and Marine Corps conducted a large amphibious assault. What do you think?

FITZGERALD: [Laughter] Anyone making that argument is out of touch with the realities of today's Navy and Marine Corps amphibious-warfare doctrine and with what is happening in the world today. Consider the everyday missions we have performed in recent years. Take Africa. The Marines, operating from the sea, have performed numerous noncombatant evacuation operations [NEOs]. They are not the easiest operations to conduct, and there always is a high probability they can go hot at any time.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit also was one of the very first combat units to enter Kosovo to enforce the cease-fire in 1999. We are talking about the nation's "911" force in readiness--the nation's forward-deployed force that is going to be the first to go in when the president decides he needs to protect American lives or interests overseas. Will the Navy get into a full-spectrum war overseas? Probably not by the Navy's choosing, but there are so many potential flash points in the world right now that we don't know where we may be asked to go.

In Kuwait, southern Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo we learned that you just don't bomb people into submission. You must eventually put people--warfighters--on the ground. The first people on the ground in such situations are most often Marines, so we must train to perform all of the demanding missions we may encounter. We don't have a crystal ball, and no one else predicts the future very well. We are not just training for the high-end warfighting mission--we are training for the full spectrum of naval operations.

Why is live-fire training one of the most critical factors in readying your air crews, surface combatants, and Marines for their upcoming deployment?

FITZGERALD: The combat commander must have capable warfighters and weapons--and a well-founded confidence in their abilities. You wouldn't send a football team on the field for a game after a week of practice without any pads on and then expect them to play well. The same principle applies here. You can't go out and drop a 25-pound concrete bomb or shoot a dummy round and prove that you have an operational system end to end.

Here on the carrier, our aviation ordnancemen must take weapons out of the magazine, build them up, load them on the airplanes, and fuse them properly. The pilot must get the weapon off the aircraft and put it on target. Then you have to see if the weapon actually explodes. If you don't perform full end-to-end testing in a demanding, realistic training environment, you don't have full confidence in your ability to achieve your mission in combat. That means you will put people in harm's way without the confidence of knowing that the bomb is going to go "boom" on the other end. That's not right.

This principle is equally true for my surface warships and submarines. Many of the key steps required to launch a Tomahawk or fire a gun are simply not done during a simulated firing. You must do it for real! We learned this lesson the hard way during World War II. If we repeat that experience it will be at our peril.

The number two reason why live-firing is imperative is that training needs to be realistic and effective. You can't give people dummy bombs to make dry runs all the time if you are going to improve your ability to fight, win, and survive in combat. The absolutely best training that you can obtain is actual combat. Barring combat, the more realistic the training, the better the training. This is why we follow our stair-step approach in the ITDC [interdeployment training cycle].

We need to be ready to go on game day--and when we play, every game is the Super Bowl.

What is the top priority you have established for your battle group as you prepare for deployment?

FITZGERALD: I have been preaching communications and what we call "link architecture" [shipboard communication systems linking all ships in the battle group]. This encompasses all of the attributes of IT 21. If you are not able to pass and share data and information among ships, then you are back down to a single-ship operation.

Our communications and link architecture are the focal point for maintaining a common operational picture so that we have as close to 100 percent knowledge of what forces are in our battlespace. If you know where everybody is, it's much easier to fight a war! War becomes unfogged.

What is one of the most significant challenges that you face in terms of achieving your mission?

FITZGERALD: The greatest thing I worry about is force protection. I was the guy who had to go down to Yemen last year and bring the Cole [guided-missile destroyer USS Cole] out of Aden. I felt uncomfortable during the first week of the operation until the Marines in the ARG arrived.

We have worked very hard on force protection during our workup phase. We have devised good individual unit force-protection plans, and we have also addressed requirements in foreign ports from both our own and host-nation perspectives.

This is a very difficult problem, and I have a full-time officer on my staff and on each ship in the battle group dedicated to the issue. We have had two major three-day exercises in the past six months with ships in port as we tried to probe their defenses. Our people do very well, but it is still a very challenging problem.

What is the one thing that you would say to the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees if given the chance to do so?

FITZGERALD: We are the sword for executing tip-of-the-spear foreign policy when U.S. combat power is needed. We have dedicated and talented Americans in this battle group--9,000 in the TR battle group and another 5,000 or so in the Amphibious Ready Group. They're young--youngsters for the most part--whose average age is somewhere between 22 and 23 years old. They come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

We have spent a lot of time, effort, and national resources training them, and they are out here to do the best they can for their country. We would like to be sure that we have the support of the American people when we go out and do our important missions.

I think the average Sailor appreciates what Congress is doing for them. Recent pay and bonus increases have had a really positive impact on retention this past year. Our Sailors and Marines are happy that people are recognizing the sacrifices that they truly make for their country. I would like our elected representatives to know that.

In closing, is there anything you would care to add for the members of the Navy League and other readers of Sea Power?

FITZGERALD: I have been associated with the Navy League for years. I was stationed in Tampa [Fla.] recently, and I had a very positive relationship with the council in that city. I find Navy League folks to be some of the nicest and warmest people in the world. They also really understand what we are all about. The TR just visited St. Thomas [U.S. Virgin Islands], and the Navy League council there hosted us at a wonderful reception. The council just could not have done more for us. I want to thank the Navy League for all that you are doing for the sea services--at your national headquarters and at your councils around the world. *

Profile: Destroyer Squadron 28

"A Great Time to be at Sea"

Capt. Kevin M. Quinn, the commodore of Destroyer Squadron 28 (DESRON 28), was interviewed at sea on the USS Theodore Roosevelt by Senior Editor Gordon I. Peterson. Quinn's squadron is composed of the guided-missile cruisers USS Leyte Gulf and USS Vella Gulf; the guided-missile destroyers USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Ross, and USS Ramage; the destroyers USS Peterson and USS Hayler; and the guided- missile frigate USS Elrod.

Sea Power: How has the Navy's cruiser-destroyer force evolved since you first went to sea?

QUINN: There have been enormous improvements. We took a quantum leap in technology when we went to the Aegis system and became premier players in the air-defense world with our very long-range surveillance, precise tracking, and fire-control capabilities. Improved versions of the Standard Missile allow us to detect, track, and strike air contacts at very long ranges before they are a threat to the battle group.

The second major improvement, the Tomahawk cruise missile, allows us to strike targets up to 1,000 miles away with the remarkable precision that GPS [global-positioning system] affords. That capability continues to improve today as we develop the Tactical Tomahawk. It will have a range out to roughly 1,500 nautical miles carrying a variety of payloads. We will be able to redirect the missiles in flight to strike new high-priority targets. Those are capabilities that we never dreamed about in the surface force when I joined the fleet in 1977.

How do you assess your destroyer squadron's readiness?

QUINN: We're very ready right now--as we should be. All of our ships have gone through extensive workups to reach this point. During our COMPTUEX [composite training unit exercise] in June my ships fired nearly every weapon system--successful shots of surface-to-air missiles against very challenging supersonic targets, guns against surface and air targets, torpedoes on an instrumented range, and our close-in weapons systems.

On the material-readiness side, we just had one month in port with a repair availability. We received superb support from the repair facilities. We're in very good shape and ready for deployment--although money is tight. Inventories are still not as high as we would like them to be for weapons like Tomahawk, but we're going to have what we need when we deploy.

How important were those live-fire exercises?

QUINN: There really is no substitute for live fire. We have systems aboard our Aegis ships we use to simulate almost every aspect of an engagement, but I have found that, until you press the fire button and see the round fired or missile launched, you really haven't exercised your crew and combat systems through the entire spectrum of tasks that needs to be tested.

The whole sequence for live firing is different in many important respects, including psychological, from a simulated training exercise. The impact of the gun firing may jog a switch loose, and your mount might suddenly be down. Unless you're actually shooting your gun for real, you don't know what's going to happen when you push that fire switch. I would hate to be firing for real for the first time when we are trying to engage a hostile aircraft.

Personnel turnover on our ships between deployments is significant. We're in a young person's business. Giving very young, inexperienced Sailors the benefit of live-fire training prepares them much better for actual combat.

What is your personnel-retention situation?

QUINN: I'm pleased to say that DESRON 28 is the number one squadron in the Atlantic Fleet for retention. The key retention area is first-term enlistees, and we have the highest retention in the Atlantic Fleet. I think it's important to have a command climate in our ships where people are treated with dignity and respect. This is a constant theme of mine. We stress very much a Sailor's professional development, training for advancement, and ability to strike for the rating of his or her choice. We ensure they know what officer-accession programs are available to them, and we support them in their aspirations.

Why do you perform your duties as a sea-warfare commander on the carrier?

QUINN: The carrier is the best place for me to carry out my job. It has all the intelligence support and connectivity I need, as well as access to the battle group staff and commander. Our new systems allow us to coordinate our warfighting efforts better. They also allow me to go to one of my other ships to serve as my flagship and still very effectively carry out my duties--as I will when we're in the Mediterranean and the carrier is in the Persian Gulf.

Have you seen a return to the "fun and zest" of going to sea?

QUINN: When did they leave? Seriously, I think the pendulum has swung. We eliminated, consolidated, or made less onerous many inspections and assessments. We're allowing our COs [commanding officers] to manage their time on a more individual basis and to pool assessment and training-team visits. We had quite an exodus of junior officers five years ago, but our top SWO [surface-warfare officer] leadership took a very active role in turning that problem around. We are now retaining officers to the level we need to make SWO a viable and exciting career path. It's a great time to be at sea!