U.S. Second Fleet—the fleet lead in Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006

CHIPS, July-Sept, 2006 by Sharon Anderson

"We added a maritime surveillance mode for the radar maritime target acquisition that results in dots or target locations on the common operating picture. We added Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar, known as ISAR. It is good over water because it cancels out the background of the water's movement; it only looks at the characteristics associated with ships in the ocean--pitch and roll and yaw. As the ship moves, it reveals itself and its characteristics over an ISAR picture," Forbes said.

Electronic Support Measures is essentially an electronic vacuum cleaner that sucks up electronic emissions from the targets and provides line of bearing information to the ground station. This is a unique Navy package that is in the air system. It downlinks information to the ground station called the Tactical Auxiliary Ground Station (TAGS), which is paired with the Mission Control Element (MCE) at Patuxent River, Md.

A tremendous amount of data are sorted at the TAGS, according to Forbes. Individual tracks are nominated to the Naval North Fleet East, which is Second Fleet's name in its homeland security/homeland defense role to U.S. Northern Command. Imagery from the ISAR radar and/or electro-optical or IR (infrared) sensors go to the Office of Naval Intelligence, Fleet Imagery Support Team and National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Md., where imagery analysts examine the data and provide associations between the analyzed imagery and the target.

"We pair the two together and nominate those tracks to a common operating picture, provide that to U.S. Fleet Forces Command and from there they are disseminated over the GCCS-M (Global Command and Control System--Maritime) transport path," Forbes said.

Imagery is also sent to the Coast Guard Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center located at Dam Neck, Va., which may send the picture to Coast Guard Headquarters. USNORTHCOM and the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) North, which is Fleet Forces Command, provide a picture to the CAOC at Nellis Air Force Base, and up to the Pentagon.

"We are looking at how we integrate the products from that air system with other sensors and database information so that we can positively locate, characterize, identify and persistently track candidate vessels in the maritime domain," Forbes said.

The Navy is working with the Coast Guard because certain sections of Titles 10 and 14 preclude members of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps from direct participation in law enforcement activities. Some of those law enforcement activities would include interdicting vehicles, vessels and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities. The Coast Guard is not restricted from acting in this regard.

"We are looking to be able to sort the suspect vessels from all the rest and then have the ability to disseminate that information, not only among Navy stations and resources, but provide that information to interagencies, Coast Guard, FBI and other agencies that might be interested, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection," Forbes said.