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

CHIPS, July-Sept, 2006 by Sharon Anderson

New technology does not drive the need for new doctrine; it only enhances it, according to Albright. "The tool helps the process go faster. The people in different areas and at Nellis are coordinating off this same tool.... It is like a relay race; someone starts off the process and then hands the baton to the next person."

"Technology is enabling us to do things at a quicker rate, but we still need to make sure that if we do something that quickly that we do not have friendly fire, and we do the proper thing and still allow the commanders on the field to take the initiative to do what they need to do without reaching down and micromanaging," Hottendorf said.

JEFX consists of three spiral events, in addition to MAINEX. Spiral 1 is essentially a technology demonstration of the command and control tools or "initiatives" where warfighters can provide feedback to the developers. The developers use the feedback to modify the tools or initiatives before Spirals 2 and 3.

During Spirals 2 and 3, the warfighters, manning an operationally representative combined air operations center, use the initiatives and systems, assess them for their operational utility and submit desired changes. The ultimate aim of the experiments is to accelerate development to get capabilities into the hands of warfighters faster.

The only U.S. Air Force member in the MOC, Maj. Jim "Irish" Kockler, is the Second Fleet project officer for Maritime Dynamic Targeting. Kockler said he was excited about MDT test results.

"Things are going better than I expected. After Spiral 3, as far as the Maritime Dynamic Targeting is concerned, we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish during MAINEX the last time we got together. Now we are advancing the football down the field a little more during this MAINEX. We are doing a good job. 'Dr.' Forbes thinks the same way. I do not think we came into this to write a Tactical Memorandum on this process, but I think that is going to be the end result," Kockler said.

Maj. Kockler helps 2nd Fleet develop tactics, techniques and procedures. Lessons learned during this experiment may become part of Navy doctrine, according to Kockler.

"Someone else will take our lessons learned and put those into a document. For example, Naval Warfare Development Command has written the concept of operations, and we are employing the work that they have done and are experimenting with it. They will make changes based on how we perform, and it ends up being a Navy Tactical Memo."