Need SWO Input For Military Fiction Research

[HAL Pilot]

(but partner nation ships don't have our crypto if that's part of your story),

If you’re working multinational, chances are everyone including U.S. is using Allied or NATO crypto.

 

[AllAmerican75]

They use a few main ways to communicate- radios (not too different from what combat controllers use so the grunts can talk to airplanes... since you said you're USAF) both line of sight and satellite com, usually encrypted (but partner nation ships don't have our crypto if that's part of your story), MIRC chat started being a thing about 20 years ago and there was a big debate about ten years ago whether it was appropriate for kill orders. The old NATO data link systems were very labor intensive and the console operators on each ship had to be able to communicate with each other to manage all those different tracks (friendly, enemy, and neutral contacts in the air, on the surface, and subsurface). Datalink stuff is a lot more automated nowadays though.

Chat and e-mail have pretty much supplanted voice comms at the operational level and higher. This is much to the chagrin of many old salts and myself since nobody seems to know how to talk on the radio anymore. I also miss the crypto beep. Datalink/TADIL and GCCS are also used heavily. Another great tool has been AIS which makes gathering SA easy if you need to ID civilian traffic. Operators are still necessary for deconfliction but the automation has also gotten a lot better.

If your story involves GPS not working then accurately tracking all the friendlies and bad guys gets more complicated. Each friendly ship's tactical plot is offset from the others by some margin of error. Dealing with that is kind of a lost art. If you want your subordinate ships to engage several enemy targets then coordination that can be complicated. The old Soviet doctrine was to shoot a crap ton of huge missiles and let the laws of probability sort it out. That was a pretty good doctrine for a WW3 scenario but not really appropriate for a limited war or a regional war scenario. Western doctrine, as far engagements that were not all-out war, has always been afraid of one of our anti ship missiles hitting the wrong target. What that means is you need really good targeting data before launching one- which means good comms and an accurate picture of everything else that is going on anywhere close to the bad guy you're going to shoot with the missile.

Just some ideas and broad, qualitative concepts for you. I think @AllAmerican75 will probably give you more useful gouge.

We've gotten some new toys such as CEC these days but TADIL still needs that one ET, OS, or FC to work their wizardry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Engagement_Capability

Still very accurate concerning our approach to limited warfare in the modern age.

If you’re working multinational, chances are everyone including U.S. is using Allied or NATO crypto.

Also very likely that you are not using crypto at all depending upon who's playing. Not all of our allies can interface with our systems and thus we have unencrypted nets.

 

[Scott M]

If you’re working multinational, chances are everyone including U.S. is using Allied or NATO crypto.

San Fran Fleet Week, so several Canadian frigates are in town.

 

[nittany03]

Chat and e-mail have pretty much supplanted voice comms at the operational level and higher. This is much to the chagrin of many old salts and myself since nobody seems to know how to talk on the radio anymore. I also miss the crypto beep.

So they use chat instead like it’s freaking semaphore or a morse code blinker. “NB de NR, the chair is against the wall; John has a long mustache, k.” 21st century tech used like it’s still WWI.

Not to mention the unique pain that is listening to SWOs talk on the radio anyway.

SWOs talking on the radio: “Proud Warrior, this is Gray Eagle . . . over.”
“Gray Eagle, this is Proud Warrior . . . roger, over.”

Aviators talking on the radio: “501, 502.” “Go!”

 

[Scott M]

So they use chat instead like it’s freaking semaphore or a morse code blinker. “NB de NR, the chair is against the wall; John has a long mustache, k.”

See, now, I get that reference, but I wonder how many do these days I didn't get passed the first five minutes of the remake so I have no idea if they used those iconic lines in the newer version.

 

[AllAmerican75]

So they use chat instead like it’s freaking semaphore or a morse code blinker. “NB de NR, the chair is against the wall; John has a long mustache, k.” 21st century tech used like it’s still WWI.

Not to mention the unique pain that is listening to SWOs talk on the radio anyway.

SWOs talking on the radio: “Proud Warrior, this is Gray Eagle . . . over.”
“Gray Eagle, this is Proud Warrior . . . roger, over.”

Aviators talking on the radio: “501, 502.” “Go!”

I hate that about the way we use chat as well. It used to really piss me off when standing battle watch and I just wanted a straight answer out of somebody and they couldn't just send a quick note saying "Hey dude, the daily OPREP is going to be a few minutes late. Sorry the inconvenience."

That being said, I have to stick up for my fellow shoes! We're passing different data over our tactical nets. We are used to passing coded messages where we need to be clear and slow enough to allow other ships to copy down the message. We also have to do that with our NATO and other international partners. Try passing coded messages over unencrypted HF/VHF back and forth between non-native English speakers where they have to copy down and decode that message. Also, we're used to using HF and radios that lack the transmission quality to always speak quickly. We also are trained to send the same messages via flashing light or flag hoist.

Conversations between good American radio operators over encrypted nets, interior communications circuits, or on small unit/VBSS tactical nets are very different and make better usage of the brevity you are used to.

 

[nittany03]

We also are trained to send the same messages via flashing light or flag hoist.

One of the entertaining things I remember from my bluejacket mid cruise on a destroyer was watching two signalmen (back when that was a rate) on two different ships shooting the shit during an UNREP via semaphore.

 

[Jim123]

SWOs talking on the radio:

AllAmerican makes some valid points about why, but never mind that, I have a fun story to one-up your SWOdio experiences (in the true LAMPS tradition of oneupmanship).

I once made an administrative radio call, for flight schedule change to one line of whatever the daily message is called (AIRSUPREQ or something) to the DESRON on what I think was one of the fleet C&R circuits. Somebody walked me through the whole "BZ this is ____" R/T protocol so I didn't make our ship sound like a bunch of idiots. Whatever internet/SIPRNET email system we would have used wasn't working (I think our ship's INMARSAT antenna was broken... again) so we had to use the voice circuit so there would be a record of it (on whatever old ass reel-to-reel tape recorders that the numbered fleet or NCTAMS presumably have going 24/7). When I was done my call, I handed the handset to my friend, the DESRON helo dude, so that he could officially roger up to my call and authorize the change. Then he handed me back the handset so I could make my "roger, out" call. Mission accomplished.

Join the Navy, see the world they said.

I always wondered if those DESRON guys had a bet to see if they could put me up to making that call. Mad respect if the "official" explanation was smoke and mirrors to an elaborate prank on the LTJG aviator, but I think they were serious.

 

[jmcquate]

Are there going to be sextants? Tell me there are going to be sextants

 

[AllAmerican75]

Are there going to be sextants? Tell me there are going to be sextants

That's going to be the most boring segment of the book.

"Hey OOD."

"What's up Wheels?" (Slang term for quartermasters)

"I just measured local apparent noon, I'll have a fix in the next couple of hours."

"Very well, keep me posted."

 

[nittany03]

Fucking sight reduction tables. I’ll take “things I never used after ROTC” for $500.

 

[Aluroon]

Chat and e-mail have pretty much supplanted voice comms at the operational level and higher. This is much to the chagrin of many old salts and myself since nobody seems to know how to talk on the radio anymore. I also miss the crypto beep. Datalink/TADIL and GCCS are also used heavily. Another great tool has been AIS which makes gathering SA easy if you need to ID civilian traffic. Operators are still necessary for deconfliction but the automation has also gotten a lot better.

Plugging here that it sort of depends when it comes to the voice vs. chat on a lot of factors, but talking about all the when/why requires a discussion that pretty rapidly goes past UNCLASS (and I think you and I are on the same page on most of it American).

There's still plenty of voice comms used at the strike group level, and there's been a big push in recent years to relearn how to actually use voice comms which (as you note) has been a dying art for at least ten years. Over the last couple years you see a lot more administrative stuff in chat, and more tactical stuff via voice, which is (I think) a good balance. I don't need someone's check print interrupted with day to day admin.

I hate that about the way we use chat as well. It used to really piss me off when standing battle watch and I just wanted a straight answer out of somebody and they couldn't just send a quick note saying "Hey dude, the daily OPREP is going to be a few minutes late. Sorry the inconvenience."

There's a reason the use of whispers has become so common in chat, much to the annoyance of the hinge and up crowd. Drop something in open chat and you're likely to get your head taken off, but most people have gotten pretty comfortable about that kind of stuff in the background. It's actually sort of scary how much information flows through private chats instead of into the public channels. It wasn't uncommon, when standing a warfare commander watch, to have four or five different whisper chats open, most of them with people asking plain voice questions (and too often the same ones).

That being said, I have to stick up for my fellow shoes! We're passing different data over our tactical nets. We are used to passing coded messages where we need to be clear and slow enough to allow other ships to copy down the message. We also have to do that with our NATO and other international partners. Try passing coded messages over unencrypted HF/VHF back and forth between non-native English speakers where they have to copy down and decode that message. Also, we're used to using HF and radios that lack the transmission quality to always speak quickly. We also are trained to send the same messages via flashing light or flag hoist.

This is also true. There's a lot of issues with ship comms, including ship to ship comms, that airborne units don't deal with to the same extent.

Conversations between good American radio operators over encrypted nets, interior communications circuits, or on small unit/VBSS tactical nets are very different and make better usage of the brevity you are used to.

This is also true, but I'll also jump in with the way the higher level governing pubs on reporting / comms requirements are all driven by people that haven't stood a tactical watch since we had AEGIS Baseline 1. There's an incredible amount of redundant information built into these things that is actually graded as part of the basic phase and just clogs up the works, mostly as holdovers from a time in which display systems were massively less robust than they are now. The vast majority of the information an air watchstander (for instance) gets off an internal checkprint is information he already has in front of him.

I think that's something the aviation community does a little better, since you'll still see their O-4s, O-5s, and even O-6s go up and conduct flight operations as part of their regular events (at least, they're fragged on the air plan), vice your SWOs who can easily:

1. Not stand a single tactical watch for their first 8-9 years in the navy;

and

2. Literally never stand tactical watch at all after their DH tour.

You end up with COs who have literally only ever stood a couple months of TAO watch in CIC in their entire career as warfare commanders and TAOs that have never stood a watch in CIC other than CICWO. They get lumped in alongside the same people that have literally thousands of hours in CIC. Level of knowledge across the SWO community is extremely uneven on the tactics side (as with everything else).

In theory that's part of what WTI is supposed to help drive towards: more clearly identifying your warfare tactics focused SWOS, but there's very little incentive right now for a SWO to jump on that grenade when they know it will eat their shore tours and screw with placement down the line.

 

[Hair Warrior]

You end up with COs who have literally only ever stood a couple months of TAO watch in CIC in their entire career as warfare commanders and TAOs that have never stood a watch in CIC other than CICWO. They get lumped in alongside the same people that have literally thousands of hours in CIC. Level of knowledge across the SWO community is extremely uneven on the tactics side (as with everything else).

Noting your fact, above:

Do SWOs have a method or habit of tracking their "tactical watch hours" the same way pilots track flight hours?

My guess is no.

 

[AllAmerican75]

Plugging here that it sort of depends when it comes to the voice vs. chat on a lot of factors, but talking about all the when/why requires a discussion that pretty rapidly goes past UNCLASS (and I think you and I are on the same page on most of it American).

There's still plenty of voice comms used at the strike group level, and there's been a big push in recent years to relearn how to actually use voice comms which (as you note) has been a dying art for at least ten years. Over the last couple years you see a lot more administrative stuff in chat, and more tactical stuff via voice, which is (I think) a good balance. I don't need someone's check print interrupted with day to day admin.



There's a reason the use of whispers has become so common in chat, much to the annoyance of the hinge and up crowd. Drop something in open chat and you're likely to get your head taken off, but most people have gotten pretty comfortable about that kind of stuff in the background. It's actually sort of scary how much information flows through private chats instead of into the public channels. It wasn't uncommon, when standing a warfare commander watch, to have four or five different whisper chats open, most of them with people asking plain voice questions (and too often the same ones).



This is also true. There's a lot of issues with ship comms, including ship to ship comms, that airborne units don't deal with to the same extent.



This is also true, but I'll also jump in with the way the higher level governing pubs on reporting / comms requirements are all driven by people that haven't stood a tactical watch since we had AEGIS Baseline 1. There's an incredible amount of redundant information built into these things that is actually graded as part of the basic phase and just clogs up the works, mostly as holdovers from a time in which display systems were massively less robust than they are now. The vast majority of the information an air watchstander (for instance) gets off an internal checkprint is information he already has in front of him.

I think that's something the aviation community does a little better, since you'll still see their O-4s, O-5s, and even O-6s go up and conduct flight operations as part of their regular events (at least, they're fragged on the air plan), vice your SWOs who can easily:

1. Not stand a single tactical watch for their first 8-9 years in the navy;

and

2. Literally never stand tactical watch at all after their DH tour.

You end up with COs who have literally only ever stood a couple months of TAO watch in CIC in their entire career as warfare commanders and TAOs that have never stood a watch in CIC other than CICWO. They get lumped in alongside the same people that have literally thousands of hours in CIC. Level of knowledge across the SWO community is extremely uneven on the tactics side (as with everything else).

In theory that's part of what WTI is supposed to help drive towards: more clearly identifying your warfare tactics focused SWOS, but there's very little incentive right now for a SWO to jump on that grenade when they know it will eat their shore tours and screw with placement down the line.

Top notch post.

How does the WTI pipeline screw with placement? Has PERS-41 mismanaged the WTI folks already?

Noting your fact, above:

Do SWOs have a method or habit of tracking their "tactical watch hours" the same way pilots track flight hours?

My guess is no.

Your guess is correct. There was talk a number of years ago about creating some sort of log book like aviators or merchant mariners have but I think it died on the vine.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Your guess is correct. There was talk a number of years ago about creating some sort of log book like aviators or merchant mariners have but I think it died on the vine.

What would be the minimum number of watch hours required as part of the qual process to earn the SWO pin?

(We have seen before that if Big Navy makes a skill or function into a warfare pin, people will go the lengths required to complete it.)