In just its second year of operation, the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) has seen a high demand for its capabilities as the organization is finding itself employed from Iraq to Central America, a Navy official said.
The first year of NECC was about realigning the forces, standing up new commands, new capabilities, putting in place type commander processes for manning, training and equipping, and writing the concept of operations (CONOPS) for deployments, Rear Adm. Donald Bullard, commander, NECC, told sister publication Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“This last year has been about the implementation of those. We have stood up all the new capabilities,” he said. “In fact they are all on deployment. We have CONOPS for each of the new warfighting or training capabilities, and we’ve also developed some capabilities and adaptive force packaging.”
NECC manned, trained and equipped staff in U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSOUTH) when they took delivery of the high speed vessel HSV Swift, when it was deployed to the global fleet station in NAVSOUTH, Bullard said.
“We provided all the training teams as well as some cultural and language and some coordination of training by Marine Corps and Coast Guard,” he said. “So of that theater security cooperation mission, we were the main coordinator for a force provider to a fleet commander.”
NECC also stood up Commander Task Force 56 (CTF 56), which is commander naval expeditionary forces. CTF 56 is the commander of a task force that oversees all NECC type forces in U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) for the 5th Fleet commander, Bullard added.
NECC has also deployed personnel to Ghana in West Africa, the Horn of Africa, numerous countries in the NAVCENT area of operations (AoA), and the Philippines, he said. NECC also has upcoming missions in the Pacific and Central America.
“So now that we have these capabilities stood up, organized, and manned, trained, and equipped for deployment, we are seeing there is a very strong demand signal for them,” Bullard noted.
When NECC first stood up in January 2006, they did an assessment of its current force, which included Seabees, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and Naval Coastal Warfare.
“We found out they had not been properly resourced and updated for many many years and a lot of our equipment was outdated,” Bullard said. “In addition, when I talk about the Seabees and EOD, because of their high demand and high stress since 2003 in Iraq, we have used up a lot of their equipment. We need to reset their force.”
So NECC began to bring on new armored equipment, such as bulldozers, that the organization didn’t have before. NECC is also acquiring Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles for its forces in Iraq. NECC has also brought in tactical unmanned air vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles to improve force protection in ports and harbors as well as augment riverine operations, Bullard explained.
“We have brought in a whole suite of new radios capitalizing on what SPECWAR (Naval Special Warfare Command) and the Marines have done to upgrade, so that we have full continuity,” he said. “And we have also developed our MAST (mobile ashore support terminal) system. It provides full command and control and C4I (command, control, computer, communication and intelligence) capability that we can push from the sea base to the shore to support NECC-type operations in the near coast and shore. That has been a big push this year.”
NECC has brought on new force protection equipment and new night vision devices for its sailors on boats, he added.
“[There] has been a big push to bring our force up consistent with requirements and make sure we give them the best equipment. We do that mainly by leveraging the other services like SPECWAR and the Marine Corps to do that,” Bullard said.
With the riverine force, NECC acquired new lightweight armor and increased the armor protection on the boats. NECC also brought in electronics for counter improvised explosive devices (IED), as well as current generation FLIR, he added.
The NECC is also looking at new 50 cal type systems that will provide better accuracy and range while riverine squads are on the move. NECC also brought in data, imagery and satellite communications into the boats, Bullard said. “None of those were on those boats before, so when we talk about force protection, it’s not just the vests and the armor, it’s also the ability to do command and control day and night, full weather, on the river.
“We not only did that for our [riverine] squadrons who are going to combat in Iraq, but [we have] also done that to our maritime expeditionary security forces that are operating boats in harbors, inland waterways, and coasts around the world,” Bullard added.
NECC is also starting to do dome analysis, looking five years down the road and beyond, at what the next series of riverine-type craft should be, he added.
NECC currently has three different craft in riverine: The riverine patrol boat (RPB); the riverine attack boat (RAB) and the riverine command boat (RCB). The three have come online within the last year, Bullard said.
“They have mainly been current models that have been adapted with new technology and a new concept of operations,” he said.
Riverine forces have been using these boats and the new technologies in Iraq. RIVERON ONE returned in the fall from its first deployment. RIVERON TWO is currently on deployment and RIVERON THREE is expected to be deployed shortly, Bullard said.
“RIVERON ONE did an amazing job. By the end, their mission had expanded, once they got the new technology,” Bullard said. “They were in full support of the Marines and in fact they did some missions in support of the Army also, and SPECWAR.”
RIVERON TWO continues to expand its mission in western Iraq, Bullard said.
“We brought in some civil affairs types with them to help build some of those engagements with the villagers over there,” he said. “We have heard nothing but great feedback from the Marine commanders, special forces, and Army commanders about the contribution the RIVERON has made, and the capability they bring to the engagement over there.”
Bullard, who retires today after 35 years of service, said NECC did a lot of work with the Marine Corps, SPECWAR and the Coast Guard to find out where they could leverage each other’s capabilities, where there are synergies and where they could augment each other’s capacities.
“There are lots of scenes and lots of synergies between what we do. Not a lot of potential overlap, but the ability to enable each other,” he said. “That will be part of the issue of what the capacity [of NECC] is in the future…how well we can organize between SPECWAR, Coast Guard, and the Marine Corps and identify those synergies and dependencies.”
As far as whether the high demand for its capabilities will require NECC to grow, Bullard said that will be a part of the program objective memorandum (POM) 10 discussions. “What does the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) and leadership of the Navy think of the future demand and what capacity do we need, compared to the rest of the joint force, and what do they think the Navy can afford as they look across the rest of the continuum of capabilities.”