Seabee Division Replaces Brigades in Move to Enhance Readiness

by RICHARD R. BURGESS

The Navy's two Naval Construction Brigades are being disestablished as part of an extensive reorganization of the Navy's Seabee force. Seabee operations worldwide are being consolidated under a single command, the 1st Naval Construction Division (1NCD), as an effort to enhance the readiness, effectiveness, and efficiency of the Naval Construction Force.

Until this month, Seabees in the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet had been commanded by the 2nd Naval Construction Brigade and the 3rd Naval Construction Brigade, respectively. The 1NCD--established on 9 August 2002 at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Va.--has assumed command of the entire Seabee force. Rear Adm. Charles R. Kubic is the first commander of the 1NCD, which already has assumed direct responsibility for Seabee operations in the Atlantic Fleet and reports directly to the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet.

The commander of 1NCD also reports concurrently to the commanders in chief of the Pacific Fleet and of Naval Forces Europe, as well as to commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command. A subelement of the new command--1st Naval Construction Division Forward (1NCD FWD), headquartered in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii--will support Pacific Fleet Seabee operations; Capt. William L. Rudich is officer in charge of the subelement in addition to continuing as commander of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment (NCR).

The 1NCD is responsible for: (a) organizing, training, operating, and maintaining the Naval Construction Force; (b) commanding the two active, two training, and four reserve Naval Construction Regiments (NCRs); and (c) developing and implementing the policy and requirements needed to man, train, and equip the Seabees.

Under the reorganization, the East Coast regiment (the 22nd NCR) will move to Gulfport, Miss., from Little Creek. In addition, the two training regiments--the 20th NCR at the Naval Construction Battalion Center (CBC) in Gulfport and the 31st NCR at the CBC in Port Hueneme, Calif.--also are being designated Seabee Readiness Group Atlantic and Seabee Readiness Group Pacific, respectively. The commanders of the CBCs will serve as commanders of their respective readiness groups.

Navy Floats Proposals On Super Hornet Basing

The Department of the Navy has released a draft of an environmental impact statement (DEIS) for public comment on the basing of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighter on the East Coast. The Navy has proposed two alternative plans for basing 11 squadrons of Super Hornets at Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., and Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, N.C.

Navy officials said that the preferred basing plans are: (1) six fleet squadrons (13 aircraft each) at Oceana and four at Cherry Point; or (2) eight squadrons at Oceana and two at Cherry Point. Both proposals include basing a fleet readiness squadron (32 aircraft) at Oceana. The Navy also proposes building an outlying field (OLF)--used for field carrier landing practice--in either Craven County or Washington County in North Carolina.

The basing of the Super Hornet squadrons on the East Coast will not result in an overall increase of fighters at Oceana; in fact, fleet introduction of the aircraft already has resulted in a decrease of the jet inventory at Oceana. Three Oceana-based squadrons of F-14s have moved to Naval Air Station Lemoore, Calif., within the last year for transition to the Super Hornet, and will be joined there by at least two more F-14 squadrons from Oceana. All 10 of the Super Hornet fleet squadrons scheduled to be based on the East Coast will derive from six F-14 squadrons already based in Oceana, and from four Hornet squadrons also based at Oceana (or exchanged with Lemoore). The exact number could be affected by plans to place more Marine Corps Hornet squadrons on aircraft carriers.

The basing of some East Coast Super Hornets at Cherry Point in lieu of basing all of them at Oceana likely will increase basing costs because of the need for logistical support at two bases instead of one. The Marine Corps is not scheduled to operate Super Hornets. During the mid-1990s, when the Navy moved its 13 East Coast Hornet squadrons from NAS Cecil Field, Fla., Congress dictated that the Navy station two of the squadrons at MCAS Beaufort, S.C.; the impact of the Congressional mandate was minimal, however, because the logistical infrastructure to support the Hornet already existed at Beaufort, the East Coast base for Marine Corps Hornets.

The proposal to build a new OLF in North Carolina is believed to have been developed, at least in part, because of pressure to limit operations at the OLF at Fentress Field in Chesapeake, Va. Complaints of aircraft noise in the environs of Fentress have risen steadily in recent years.

Sea Service Notes

Navy dive and medical personnel drew a land-locked assignment last month in Somerset, Pa., when they joined in the successful rescue of nine coal miners trapped more than 250 feet underground, with water filling the mine and creating air pressure equivalent to being 40 feet underwater. The Naval Sea Systems Command's supervisor of diving and salvage assembled a team of divers and medical personnel from: (a) the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Technical Division in Indian Head, Md.; (b) Underwater Construction Team One; (c) Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two; (d) EOD Mobile Unit Two; (e) SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two; and (f) the Bureau of Medicine. The Navy dive team brought decompression chambers and new Emergency Evacuation Hyperbaric stretchers to the rescue scene. A Transportable Recompression Chamber System was used to treat one miner for symptoms of decompression sickness.

The Naval Network Warfare Command (NNWC) has been established at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Va. The new command will be responsible for providing warfighting information to combat forces and for developing technology for network centric operations, as well as for conducting operations for Navy space activities. NNWC--the naval component of the U.S. Space Command--will command the Naval Network and Space Operations Command and the Fleet Information Warfare Center.

The Navy has opened the third network operations center for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The first two network operations centers opened within the last year in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, Calif. The third center--housed in a renovated hangar built in 1942--eventually will service as many as 40,000 computer terminals in the Pacific region. *

Operation Enduring Freedom Update

U.S. forces departed the southern Philippines on 31 July on schedule after completing six months of joint exercises and providing support for Filipino counterguerrilla operations against the Abu Sayyaf, believed to be linked to al Qaeda. Joint exercises with the Philippine armed forces are scheduled to resume in October 2002 for nine months. Photo shows Seabee construction material being loaded from a utility landing craft to the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry off Basilan Island in the Philippines.

The USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group departed West Coast ports in late July, headed for the Arabian Sea. The Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln--with Carrier Air Wing 14 (CVW-14) embarked--is carrying the F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter on its first deployment. Strike Fighter Squadron 115 (VFA-115) also is deploying the Raytheon-built ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared) system with its Super Hornets.

The Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington--with CVW-17 embarked--remained on station in the Arabian Sea, from which its aircraft conducted patrols over Afghanistan. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets deployed to Kyrgyzstan also provided air support to coalition forces inside Afghanistan.

Because of increased Iraqi violations of U.N. sanctions, U.S. Navy and coalition warships have resumed maritime intercept operations in the northern Red Sea after an eight-year hiatus. The French Navy La Fayette-class frigate Guepratte, operating in the Persian Gulf in July, took into custody two men suspected of being members of al Qaeda, only a few days after the Canadian Iroquois-class guided-missile destroyer Algonquin seized two other suspected al Qaeda members from a boat in the Arabian Sea.

Sea-service reservists mobilized for active duty as of 7 August included 6,723 Navy, 3,831 Marine Corps, and 1,215 Coast Guard reservists.

Sea Slice and Millennium Challenge

Shown here is a computer graphic of the Sea Slice catamaran vessel--operated by Lockheed Martin--as configured for Fleet Battle Experiment-Juliet (FBE-J), a Pacific segment of Exercise Millennium Challenge. The Department of Defense (DOD) exercise--the largest joint exercise in DOD history--simulated a major conflict in the 2006-2007 time frame and involved more than 13,000 personnel and 70,000 simulated personnel. Millennium Challenge--executed by the Joint Forces Command--ran from 24 July through 15 August. The Sea Slice--a SWATH (small waterplane area twin-hull) ship--was used to explore the capabilities of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), one of the proposed vessels in the DD(X) program, for which Lockheed Martin is systems integrator. In FBE-J, the Sea Slice also was evaluated for potential use in homeland-defense missions. The 106-foot-long vessel--built by Pacific Marine in Hawaii--is reconfigurable and can be used to test new systems tailored for numerous missions, including antisubmarine, antisurface, and/or mine warfare. Among the modular systems installed on the Sea Slice for FBE-J were the Millennium gun (a 35mm cannon designed by Oerlikon); a Klein 500 side-scan sonar; a REMUS unmanned underwater vehicle; and the Netfires missile system designed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.