THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 4, 1995 TAG: 9507040378
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 166 lines
Norfolk will lose seven ships over the next three years in an Atlantic Fleet reorganization designed to reduce operating costs, decrease sailors' time at sea and enhance training.
But the Navy's largest base will gain nine other ships over the same period, some of them new and some transfers, making the overall economic impact barely noticeable, if not slightly positive, Navy officials said.
The big winners, according to the Atlantic Fleet, will be sailors, whose training time at sea will be cut about 17 percent.
Adm. William J. Flanagan Jr., commander of the Atlantic Fleet, announced the long-anticipated plan Monday, saying it had recently been approved by Navy Secretary John Dalton and the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jeremy ``Mike'' Boorda.
Nearly all of the changes, which will take effect Aug. 31, involve the fleet's so-called ``surface force,'' those warships other than aircraft carriers and submarines.
The main changes are:
Creation of six core battle groups, headed by the carriers George Washington, Enterprise, Theodore Roosevelt, Stennis, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Escort ships would remain permanently assigned to the same battle group. That has not always been the case.
Creation of nine destroyer squadrons, seven based in Norfolk and two in Mayport, Fla.
Creation of an 18-ship Western Hemisphere Group based out of Mayport and Pascagoula, Miss., for use mainly in the Caribbean region and South America, where it will conduct four- to five-month deployments.
A key feature of the plan is a strategy called tailored training, in which ships are prepared for specific missions.
``We can no longer afford to train all ships to be totally battle group-ready,'' said Vice Adm. Douglas J. Katz, commander of the Atlantic Surface Force. ``We used to have to do that because you never knew when a Backfire (Soviet jet bomber) was coming over the horizon. Since that's not the case anymore, we can begin to train to mission.''
Training to mission, Katz explained, is training tailored to what a ship will be doing in its next deployment.
For example, ships assigned to counter-drug operations in the Caribbean won't necessarily need training for missions that might be conducted off the coast of Bosnia, Iraq or in the North Atlantic.
All ships will still complete the basic training phase, but for some ships the overall training time could be cut between 20 and 44 days.
For most cruisers, destroyers and frigates, the change in training strategy should mean about 17 percent less time at sea between deployments.
Another important part of the plan is regional homeporting. By basing ships together that will be training and deploying together, surface force leaders expect to enhance maintenance and training support while providing greater squadron integrity and better operating tempo, officials said.
The reorganization will require that a few ships in the Western Hemisphere Group undergo permanent changes of station.
Seven Norfolk-based ships will be reassigned through fiscal year 1998: the cruisers Ticonderoga, Yorktown and Thomas S. Gates, plus the destroyers Kidd, Scott, Conolly and Bradley. Also assigned to that group will be seven ships already based in Mayport and four currently in Pascagoula.
Between 1996 and 1998, two others, the cruisers Monterey and Leyte Gulf, both based in Mayport, will be sent to Norfolk.
Also during that time, Norfolk is scheduled to receive seven other ships, either newly built or reassigned because of past base closure decisions.
Overall, the Navy is expected to keep about 120 ships at Norfolk Naval Station and Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
The latest changes have been driven by the overall decline in the fleet's size, said Katz.
``When looking at reduced budgets in years ahead and seeing that we continue to have commitments all over the world, we realized that we needed to do things not necessarily better, but more efficiently,'' said Katz.
Under the plan for six core battle groups, two cruisers will be permanently assigned to an aircraft carrier. Then, before the beginning of the intermediate training phase, a four-ship destroyer squadron will join the core group to establish a seven-ship battle group. From that point on, the battle group, with its assigned amphibious and logistics support ships, will train and deploy together.
Nine destroyer squadrons will be used in support of the six core battle groups. They also will have to take on additional duties when called upon by the Middle East Force and NATO's Standing Naval Force. The squadrons will be assigned to the battle groups on a rotating basis, depending on where they are in their inter-deployment training cycle.
Before the Cold War ended, carrier battle groups deployed with nine to 15 surface combatants. Today, that number is simply not required, according to the Navy.
``Two Aegis ships are a lot more capable than the whole destroyer force was in the days when we had nine escorts with each carrier,'' said Boorda. ``Granted, they can't be in nine different places . . . but today's surface combatants are a lot more capable and can provide more carrier protection than ever before.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
The main changes would create:
Six core battle groups, with permanently assigned escort ships.
Nine destroyer squadrons, seven of them based in Norfolk.
An 18-ship Western Hemisphere Group with four- to five-month
deployments.
KEN WRIGHT/Staff
SEVEN SHIPS WILL BE TRANSFERRED FROM NORFOLK AS THE NAVY'S ATLANTIC
FLEET IS REORGANIZED, BUT NINE OTHERS SOON WILL CALL HAMPTON ROADS
HOME
LEAVING NORFOLK (FOR MAYPORT, FLA. PERSONNEL SALARIES YEAR
LEAVING
Frigate Robert G. Bradley 223 $7.6 million
1997
Destroyer Conolly 342 $9.8
1997
Destroyer Kidd 357 $11
1997
Destroyer Scott 357 $11
1997
LEAVING NORFOLK (FOR PASCAGOULA, MISS.) Cruiser Ticonderoga
415 $12 1998
Cruiser Yorktown 415 $12
1998
Cruiser Thomas S. Gates 415 $12
1998
TOTAL LEAVING: 2,524 $75.4 million
COMING TO NORFOLK (FROM MAYPORT, FLA.) PERSONNEL SALARIES YEAR
Cruiser Monterey 415 $12 1997
Cruiser Leyte Gulf 415 $12
1998
TOTAL ARRIVING: 830 $24 million
NEW SHIPS* AND REASSIGNMENTS TO NORFOLK
NOT RELATED TO FLEET REORGANIZATION
ARRIVAL
* Oiler Arctic (from San Diego)
September 1995
* Destroyer Ramage (from Boston) July
1995
Frigate Halyburton (from Charleston) July
1995
Frigate Hawes (from Charleston)
September 1995
Desroyer Nicholson (from Charleston)
September 1995
* Dock landing ship Carter Hall (from New Orleans)
September 1995
Frigate Carr (from Charleston) October
1995
The Norfolk-based oiler Savannah will be decommissioned July 28.
Sources: Atlantic Fleet Surface Force and Norman Polmar's ``Ships
and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet.''
by CNB