By Geoff Fein

As the Navy begins installing advanced capability 08 (ACB 08) on its cruisers, those ships are also sending fire control officers and technicians to school to train on the latest Aegis combat systems.

Currently, sailors from both the USS Mobile Bay (CG-53) and the USS Philippine Bay (CG-58) are going through the Aegis Computer Network Training (ACNT) course at Naval Support Facility, Dahlgren, Va., Fire Control Chief Petty Officer Timothy Goodwin, ACNT course supervisor, told Defense Daily recently.

The first class of sailors to undergo training on the new systems were strictly from the USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), he said.

Attendance in the course in based on which sailors are available from the ship and who is available to attend, Goodwin added.

“We have as many as 12 students here in the classroom at one time,” he said.

The ACNT course is approximately eight months and sailors go through 28 different system modules.

The ACNT course has 18 civilian and military instructors, Goodwin noted.

“Specifically for the ACB 08 we only have four instructors–military and civilian. We are trying to get some other instructors qualified and that’s kind of hard because they have to actually sit in on particular modules,” he said.

After sitting in on the module training, potential instructors have to demonstrate they can teach it before they can get certified to lead a course on that specific module, Goodwin added.

“To get an instructor qualified to teach an ACB 08 [course on] all 28 modules, it probably takes about a year,” he said.

That’s why there is a good mix of civilian and military instructors in the ACNT course, so that the program can have that continuity with the civilians until enough military instructors are on board, Goodwin added.

Because sailors are being trained for ACB 08 on the latest equipment, the Navy needs to rely on contractor support from Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Moorestown, N.J. facility, as well as software folks at Dahlgren. Goodwin added the ACNT program also relies on feedback from sailors who have already gone through the course.

“We are still getting feedback from the Bunker Hill sailors–things we should have taught them while they were going through [the course].”

While being first through a program may have its advantages as far as recommending changes and mentoring other sailors entering the program, it also has its drawback. Goodwin noted when the Bunker Hill fire control officers and technicians came to Dahlgren, the facility wasn’t fully set up.

“We didn’t have a fully functional lab here to do the performance portion. We ended up having to take them to one of our training sites at [Surface Combat Systems Center] Wallops Island where we normally train our operators,” he said.

With ACB 12 looming on the horizon, Goodwin noted the ACNT’s approach maybe to provide additional lab work with the new equipment. However, if ACB 12 is just a software modification, the school house could take a different approach, he added.

“It’s based on which way the Navy decides to go. I haven’t heard anything as of yet about how it will affect the school house,” Goodwin added.

There is always the possibility of taking the course to the ship, he said.

“Our parent command CSCS (Center For Surface Combat Systems) has detachments at each of the major fleet concentration areas. We do have some waterfront courses they can get trained on,” Goodwin said.

ACNT also developed a self-assessment group training program for some of the older Aegis baselines. That system will eventually migrate over into ACB8 and ACB 12, he added.

“It’s a two week process. We actually go out to the ships, do a week in port and a week underway with them, fine tuning the training we did with them here, [addressing] any issues that they had, and then observing them actually standing a watch,” Goodwin explained. “We teach the students how to be technicians but not necessarily how to stand watch and keep the systems up. We started migrating that into our training here at Dahlgren.”

Since beginning the training, the ACNT course has received input from sailors who have already gone through the program, Goodwin said.

“Some of the main ones are, a little more in-depth Unix training for the ACB 08 sailors, a little bit more on the radar switchboard, and then on the integrated video data distribution system we have. They felt we need to emphasis that a little bit more,” he said. “But as far as the equipment, IBM blade servers and that kind of stuff, they felt they got sufficient training while they were here,” so that when technicians walked on the ship they were able to deal with any issues.