In A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson rightly proclaims that in our modern era of great-power competition, “The margins of victory are razor thin—but decisive!”[1] In such an environment, it is the clear responsibility of junior officers afloat to do everything in their power to prepare their teams for combat at sea. After nearly two decades of prolonged conflict ashore, the maritime services are poised to take center stage in the opening stages of possible conflicts against potential near-peer adversaries.
Much attention has been focused on improving the training, readiness, and professionalism of the surface Navy in the wake of the John S. McCain (DDG-56) and Fitzgerald (DDG-62) collisions. The repeated attacks by Yemini rebels against U.S. naval forces in the Red Sea, including the successful hard-kill interception of anti-ship cruise missiles by USS Mason (DDG-87)[2] add an additional layer of complexity as nearly all overseas surface-ship operations must now be assumed to be potentially under threat of attack. Significant progress has been made and forthcoming initiatives are likely to enhance the combat readiness of the surface Navy.
However, a critical factor has been largely ignored in the public discussions surrounding these events: that of the potential effect of combat/casualty-induced psychological breakdowns on the sailors manning our ships. While we should be rightly proud of the heroic efforts of the crews of Mason, John S. McCain, and Fitzgerald for successfully overcoming their unexpected challenges, candor requires an honest assessment of the effect of extreme stress placed on the combat readiness of our sailors—and even more to the point, an honest assessment of the steps junior officers afloat can take in developing the resiliency of their sailors in preparation for the coming fight.
Historical Context
Throughout history human beings have faced the extreme perils of combat for a variety of reasons: a test of their “manliness,” a fear of being deemed cowardly, devotion to their brothers in arms, religious fanaticism, etc. Despite these motivations, in nearly all fighting outfits throughout history, some portion of otherwise seemingly brave, motivated, fighting men crumble when faced with the chaotic reality of direct action. After World War II, Army historian S.L.A. Marshall’s research estimated that only some 15 percent of American infantrymen fired their rifles in action.[3] Marshall argued that infantry training methods poorly prepared the average citizen for the stresses of combat, stating that military trainers “must reckon with the fact that he comes from a civilization in which aggression, connected with the taking of life, is prohibited and unacceptable.”[4] Although Marshall’s findings have suffered scrutiny by modern academics, the Army acted on his conclusions and made basic infantry training methods more realistic and dramatically improved the average firing rate for American infantry in Korea and Vietnam to an estimated 90 to 95 percent,[5] clearly increasing the fighting effectiveness of the average infantry unit.
The implication for the modern naval officer, no longer tasked with motivating their sailors to trade broadsides yardarm to yardarm with a determined foe, is to realize that without realistic, effective training prior to the stresses of casualty or combat, a significant portion of their crew should be expected to be combat ineffective. As crews have dwindled in size, and sailors increasingly specialize in tightly regulated rates, the inherent manpower reserve on legacy platforms no longer exists. Each sailor is critically important to the combat effectiveness of their ship and must be prepared, to the extent possible, for the stress of sudden, chaotic, and decisive combat at sea.
Laying a Foundation
Consider a weightlifter preparing for a competition. A disciplined athlete will progressively increase the stress placed on his muscles as the body adapts, assuming proper nutrition and rest, to a previous level of stress. Only by progressively increasing the level of stress placed on his body, by increasing weight, volume, intensity, etc., will the weightlifter continue to develop and improve performance. We must use a similar paradigm afloat, taking advantage of the findings of modern cognitive science, to better prepare our teams for maritime combat.
It is unlikely that the excessively choreographed and scripted training scenarios that comprise the bulk of a ship’s training cycle are sufficient to ensure success in the coming high-end fight. It is irresponsible to expect sailors, when in action for the first time, suddenly to perform at a significantly higher level of stress and complexity than demanded during regular training and drills. Although encouraging steps are underway to increase the quality and realism of integrated and fleet wide training events,[6] the majority of afloat training will continue to be conducted at the unit level and thus shipboard internal training remains the best medium for progressively stressing afloat combat teams.
Before seeking to implement any additional stressors or uncertainty into your team’s training or drills, you must first internalize and be able to articulate to your sailors, and leadership, the need for such measures. It is easy to become complacent with the standards outlined in drill package guides and checklists. Only by establishing that the true measure of a ship’s combat readiness is not how it performs for the Afloat Training Group, but how it is likely to perform against a competent adversary, are you likely to influence meaningful change in the rigor of your team’s training and drills.
As the modern surface force has engaged in few active maritime combat operations, we must learn from the experience of history. Fiction, narratives, and film can all be effective tools to help raise awareness of the potentially visceral, horrific nature of maritime combat. An excellent example is the book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. Consider a USS Johnston sailor’s account of taking Japanese fire,
When a heavy round from a naval rifle hits a ship and explodes … the sudden and overwhelming ‘overpressure’ turns the compartment itself into a weapon, its remains churning up into a superheated storm of fragmented or liquified metal. The blast wave’s effect on people is horrific. It collapses body cavities, crushes organs, and blows flesh from bone.[7]
More recent experience with anti-ship cruise missiles, as in USS Stark (FFG-31), or mines, as in USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), clearly demonstrate that such devastating effects of naval weapons have only increased. While terrible to contemplate, confronting and presenting the reality of maritime combat must form the foundation of the enhanced training program for your team.
In practical terms, you will be unlikely to implement progressively stressful training or drills until you complete necessary Type Commander certifications. You must first support your ship in meeting these requirements and demonstrating the necessary skills. There is a decided strain between the necessarily scripted and choreographed demonstrations of drills, combat system scenarios, or evolutions inherent in the training cycle and the need to train teams in a dynamic, unexpected, and chaotic environment to help better prepare them for maritime combat. Training a team to complete the tactical tasks in a relatively benign environment is a logical first step in developing combat readiness. However, you must remain committed to the ideal that achieving such certifications is only a necessary first step toward increased combat readiness for your team—not the culmination of their potential.
Turning Up the Heat
Stress is commonly perceived as a purely bad phenomenon, with corresponding negative effects on health and well-being. Modern cognitive science provides ample evidence that stress degrades many natural physical and mental abilities, and everyone reaches a level of stress where they become non-functioning. [8] An extreme example is the phenomenon of “shell shock” experienced by many with exposure to enemy fires. However, evidence is also increasing that with the proper mindset, preparation, and recovery the average person can respond favorably to stress and become much more resilient when faced with future stress.[9] This is a factor that afloat leaders must leverage to enhance their team’s readiness.
So how to increase stress? First, it is clearly impossible to accurately simulate the chaos, fear, and viciousness of maritime combat. The goal is to progressively stress your team beyond that level afforded through routine, scripted, and benign training evolutions. Some simple, although perhaps eccentric, measures can help increase the stress associated with training and potentially improve your team’s likelihood to perform in action.
Do not broadcast ahead of time when a drill is to occur. You will have to be aware of your team’s work routine, sleep schedules, and watch rotations, but challenging your team with little to no notice is a great way to challenge their ability to quickly adapt to a small amount of chaos. One tactic would be to schedule a routine meeting, training session, etc. to ensure that all needed personnel are present, but instead spring the drill on the team unannounced. Your team will be forced to quickly adapt to the unforeseen challenge. Maritime combat is almost certainly not going to begin on schedule.
Another factor that can challenge your team is noise. Noise, particularly when unexpected, can cause a significant level of stress. Noise complicates normal communications and degrades mental ability in complex situations. Readily available and affordable speakers can be stationed and synchronized as appropriate to the training scenario. A fire team combatting a simulated fire could have the sounds of a roaring conflagration to complicate their communications and ability to work as a team. To give a macabre example, consider a drill that results in a simulated personnel casualty. These are typically demonstrated by the appropriate sailor falling out and perhaps manually simulating an injury to prompt first responders to provide the necessary initial treatment. However, an accompanying sound file of the screams, cries, and pleas, to be expected of someone who has just suffered a terrible injury would significantly increase the stress of completing the necessary steps. Such sounds would likely be present in an actual emergency.
In addition, evidence shows that mild pain can cause stress and reduce performance.[10] Something as simple as putting one’s feet in a bucket of ice, an unpleasant experience until your feet are numbed, may cause a level of pain that distracts from accomplishing a necessary task. Although you must be careful not to actually harm any of your sailors, stationary tasks such as completing a maneuvering board, plotting damage control reports, or tactically communicating could all theoretically be accomplished with such an added stress. Leveraging discomfort is an established training tool that could help develop your team’s mental toughness and ability to ignore distractions and focus on the task at hand.
Last, these and other stressors could be combined and varied to adjust the difficulty of accomplishing a necessary task. With effective oversight, your team will likely be able to offer up additional means of increasing stress to improve overall resiliency, toughness, and performance.
Conclusion
In our era of great-power competition, the Navy can ill afford to continue to train our afloat combat teams with pre-planned scripts, benign environments, and routine responses. No matter how advanced our weapon systems become, the human operator will remain the most important factor in building and maintaining combat readiness. However, we must recognize that the human factor will also be most susceptible to unforeseen failure in times of extreme stress. Junior officer leaders afloat, responsible for the training and combat readiness of assigned teams, must progressively challenge their sailors with increasingly stressful scenarios to prepare them for the chaos of maritime combat. With razor thin margins of victory, each sailor is critical to the team’s combat readiness—we must lead as such.
Endnotes
[1] Admiral John Richardson, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, U.S. Navy, 8.
[2] Tara Copp, “Aegis defense system helped stop missile attack on USS Mason,” Stars and Stripes, October 13, 2016,
https://www.stripes.com/news/aegis-defense-system-helped-stop-missile-attack-on-uss-mason-1.433974.
[3] S. L. Marshall, “Men Against Fire,” Infantry Journal, 1947, 56.
[4] R. Holmes, Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle (New York: The Free Press, 1985), 58.
[5] D. Grossman, (1996). On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), 105.
[6] S. H. Swift, “A Fleet Must Be Able to Fight,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2018, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-05/fleet-must-be-able-fight.
[7] J. D. Hornfischer, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (New York: Random House, 2004), 206.
[8] M. E Beutel, C. Jünger, E. M. Klein, P. Wild, K. Lackner, M. Blettner, T. Münzel, “Noise Annoyance Is Associated with Depression and Anxiety in the General Population—The Contribution of Aircraft Noise,” Plos One, 11(5), 2016, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2288705/.
[9] K. McGonigal, The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It (Avery: 2017), 15.
[10] J. Buhle & T. D. Wager, “Performance-dependent inhibition of pain by an executive working memory task,” Pain, 149(1), 2010, 19–26, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4229048/.
