NORFOLK, Va.–As a group of 19 countries work through the exercise Bold Alligator 2014
this week, sailors and Marines from around the world will test their ability to communicate–a seemingly simple task that has already thrown some challenges into the exercise.
Speaking to sister publication Defense Daily on Oct. 31 aboard the Dutch amphibious ship HNLMS Johan de Witt, Commodore Robert Kramer, commander of the Netherlands Maritime Force, said “the whole exercise is about coalition interoperability. So what we test is whether our procedures are aligned, whether the materiel that we have bought is actually working together well enough. And the most important thing about it is also build command relationships, so the interpersonal, getting to know each other, making sure we know each other well.”
In Bold Alligator 2014, Kramer serves as the commander of an amphibious task group that includes two American ships and a Dutch ship.
Showing off the Joint Operations Center aboard the Johan de Witt, he said the computers were running NATO secure networks, the CENTRIXS network that Americans use, and several others. Ensuring that all the systems could run and interoperate from the same room was important for being able to command and control the whole force that will eventually build up by the end of the exercise–which will include ships from five countries and embarked forces from eight countries.
All the networks were up and running during Oct. 31’s media tour, but it took some effort to accomplish that. Cmdr. Greg Baker, commanding officer of the USS Arlington (LPD-24), said that when the exercise first started, his ship couldn’t join the network to communicate with Johan de Witt. Dutch communications specialists had to come over to the Arlington to get the Americans online in the network, which ultimately involved stringing up several UHF and VHF antennas near the pilot house of the Arlington.
“I would hope that in future Bold Alligators we wouldn’t have to mount as many antennas,” Baker said.
These kinds of small fixes might be the way to address interoperability issues that come up in the future, however. The American amphibious fleet is relatively stable–the San Antonio-class LPDs are mostly delivered to the Navy, with the last two in the class set to deliver by 2017. The upcoming LX(R) class of dock landing ships to replace the aging LSDs may leverage the LPD hull design, and at the very least would mirror the communications systems on the LPDs and the larger LHDs and LHAs.
The Dutch too are in a stable place with their technology. Kramer said all the Dutch ships and their equipment meet NATO standards for communications, and while “we always keep an eye open for any new developments, at the moment I would say the Dutch navy is very much up front in innovation and we’re not looking at [purchasing] new materiel at the moment.”
Baker said the point of the exercise was not to dictate what equipment various militaries should buy but rather “it’s a matter of figuring out what each of us has and what our capabilities are.”
Part of that learning process means actually operating near foreign ships–something that hasn’t taken place as much in recent years. Capt. Rene Luyckx, commanding officer of the Johan de Witt, told Defense Daily that 20 years ago the Dutch navy “used to come here a lot of times on the East side of the United States to practice NATO procedures. Nowadays, you see that ships are more or less operating alone in a large area like the Indian Ocean, the coast of Somalia–it is a coalition force, but we might see none of the coalition ships for many weeks or months. So operating together in close vicinity like here, and especially in the international environment–there’s Spanish marines, Canadian army, UK marines, Netherlands marines, putting people ashore–is phenomenal.”
The Dutch amphibious ship HNLMS Johan de Witt operates off the coast of Norfolk, Va., during exercise Bold Alligator 2014.The Dutch amphibious ship HNLMS Johan de Witt operates off the coast of Norfolk, Va., during exercise Bold Alligator 2014.
Communicating with ships elsewhere in the Indian Ocean versus communicating with a ship anchored a few hundred feet away are two very different things, Luyckx said, and as a CO his first concern is safety. Many of his younger sailors have never operating alongside another ship, so communicating with other ships about locations and maneuvers is a new experience. The information needs to be relayed faster, more often and more reliably to avoid any mishaps. Luyckx said his crew was well trained in amphibious operations, but they were all looking forward to learning to operate side-by-side with a partner and figuring out how to do so effectively–all while operating with different networks, radio frequencies and languages.