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The fourth Watson-class large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) sealift ship has been christened at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) shipyard in San Diego, Calif. The USNS Red Cloud (T-AKR 313), named for an Army hero of the Korean War, is being readied for combat prepositioning service in the Military Sealift Command (MSC).

The 950-foot LMSR was christened by Annita Red Cloud, daughter of Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., for whom the ship is named, and Marilyn Paddick Clemins, wife of Adm. Archie R. Clemins, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) delivered the keynote speech at the 7 August christening ceremonies.

Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., a native of Hatfield, Wis., was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions on 5 November 1950 that prevented his company's position from being overrun by enemy forces.

One previous ship, YT 268 (1943­1986), was named Red Cloud in honor of the 19th-century Sioux chief.

Navy Reaffirms Need For Vieques Range

The Department of the Navy has reaffirmed the training value of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility (AFWTF), the target range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The Navy considers the unique range essential to the work-up of carrier battle groups for combat operations.

The long-standing contention between the existence of AFWTF and the residents of Vieques reached new levels this April when a facility security guard was killed by stray bombs dropped by an F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter. The incident has escalated into a political confrontation at the highest levels of the U.S. government over the future of the target range. A presidential commission was appointed to make recommendations on the facility's future.

The Navy owns two thirds of Vieques, which has a civilian population of 9,300. Vieques is the only range on the East Coast that aircrews can use to launch laser-guided bombs and other precision munitions from the high altitudes necessary for survival in combat. Vieques also is the only range on the East Coast that supports combined close-air support and naval-gunfire support training. A buffer zone separates the target areas from the local population.

Endorsing a Navy study on Vieques, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig recommended retaining the live-fire capability of the AFWTF range. He credited the realistic live-weapons training available on Vieques as key to the success of combat operations over Yugoslavia earlier this year during Operation Allied Force.

New Helos Help USCG In War on Drugs

The Coast Guard has announced new successes in the war on illegal drugs resulting from the use of Boeing-built MH-90 Enforcer armed helicopters.

Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater and Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, joined Coast Guard Commandant James M. Loy in announcing the successful implementation of a new and previously classified program that has resulted in record seizures of illegal narcotics from smugglers operating in international waters in recent months.

Operation New Frontier marked the Coast Guard's first use of armed aircraft in law enforcement since the 1920s. MH-90 helicopters recently have been used to interdict several high-speed "go-fast" boats of the type that have been regularly outrunning cutters since 1995. Until the beginning of New Frontier, armed interdiction was restricted to Coast Guard cutters and boats. [Sea Power will publish an expanded report in the November issue.]

GAO Cites Deficiency In ASW Proficiency

The General Accounting Office (GAO), which conducts assessments for Congress, has concluded that the Navy's proficiency in antisubmarine warfare (ASW) has declined, but that funding levels are adequate to respond to the most likely submarine threats.

The report--"Defense Acquisitions: Evaluation of Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare Assessment"--was requested by the House Subcommittee on Military Research and Development, Committee on Armed Services, as a review of the Department of Defense's 1997 ASW assessment and the role of the Navy's ASW Requirements Division.

The GAO noted that ASW proficiency, difficult to maintain in the best of circumstances, had declined since the end of the Cold War in view of the diminishing open-ocean submarine threat. Most of the ASW systems currently in service were designed for open-ocean ASW, whereas the Navy's emphasis has shifted to countering diesel-electric submarines "operating in the more acoustically complex littoral environment," the report said.

ASW has received a lower funding priority since the end of the Cold War, superseded by joint roles such as strike warfare and missile defense. The report was critical of the Navy's assessment in that it identified ASW needs, but not priorities. However, the Navy's subsequent ASW Roadmap has defined and prioritized a set of broad ASW requirements.

The Department of Defense concurred with the report, and the Navy has reaffirmed ASW "as a priority mission as well as a core and enduring competency." The chief of naval operations has directed the Navy to develop a systematic plan to address such issues as improving training, enhancing submarine detection and attack, improving ASW simulation and war-gaming, developing networking protocols, and overcoming organizational "stovepipes."

Navy Mulls Renewal Of Tailhook Ties

Officials from the Department of the Navy attended the 1999 convention of the Tailhook Association, the first official presence of high-level Navy officials at a Tailhook convention since 1991. The Navy severed ties with the professional association of carrier aviation after allegations of misconduct by Navy and Marine Corps officers at the organization's 1991 convention.

Attending the August 1999 convention at the behest of Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig were Carolyn H. Becraft, assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs; Vice Adm. Michael L. Bowman, commander of the Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet; and Lt. Gen. John E. Rhodes, commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. In addition to evaluating their observations, Danzig is consulting with other Navy civilian and military officials.

"Over the past eight years ... the Tailhook Association has taken a number of constructive steps that warrant a review of its status," wrote Danzig in an August letter to Tailhook President Lonny McClung.

Among the criteria included in Danzig's evaluation is the assessment that the Tailhook Association "must be committed to preventing, and take all reasonable steps to prevent, the type of misconduct that resulted in the removal of Department support in 1991."

A Revolution in Strike Warfare