Sea service notes

Sea Power, Dec 1998

Naval Air Station Dallas, Texas, has closed, ending nearly six decades of service. The base was ordered closed by Congress upon recommendation of the 1993 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Units formerly assigned to NAS Dallas have relocated to the nearby Naval Air Station Fort Worth-Joint Reserve Base, located on the former Carswell Air Force Base.

The Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile has passed the Y2K (Year 2000) test and is declared ready to operate beyond 1 January 2000. A Block II Tomahawk missile passed a functional ground test-which involved a live firing-at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Md. The test was preceded by several Y2K simulations, including launching in 1999 and landing in 2000; launching in 2000; and launching on 29 February 2000 (a test of leap-year recognition).

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay L. Johnson has issued directives to reduce the number of inspections required of ships and squadrons during their interdeployment training cycles. The reductions are intended to reduce the burden on units between deployments, enhancing the quality of life of personnel and restoring training initiative to the units ' commanding officers.

The Integrated Process Team for the SSDS (Ship Self-Defense System) program has been awarded Vice President Al Gore's Hammer Award, which recognizes accomplishments in improving government performance through, among other things, streamlining operations and cutting costs. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Jacques S. Gansler, who presented the award, credited the SSDS team with cutting program costs in half. The SSDS, the world's first distributed processing combat system, is designed to reduce the manual reaction time needed to detect and engage hostile threats.

The Bureau of Naval Personnel offices in Tennessee have been redesignated the Navy Personnel Command. Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton and Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Daniel T. Oliver headed the list of principal speakers at the official establishment ceremonies in Millington, Tenn. Naval Support Activity (NSA) Mid-South-formerly known as Naval Support Activity Memphis-is the new location of the Navy Personnel Command, which moved there earlier this year from Arlington, Va. The Navy Recruiting Command is scheduled to move to NSA Mid-South next year, according to The Millington Star.

The Maritime Administration has completed enrollment of U.S.-flag shipping operators in the VISA (Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement) program for fiscal year 1999. The VISA program is the U.S. government's principal sealift readiness program for using commercial sealift to meet the needs of Department of Defense contingency requirements. A total capacity of 160,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of militarily useful intermodal capacity and over 1.6 million square feet of militarily useful roll-on/roll-off sealift capacity is committed for 1999.

The Best Manufacturing Practices (BMP) Program at the Office of Naval Research has been named a winner of the Innovations in American Government awards, presented by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The BMP "is a unique technology and knowledge transfer program that promotes sharing of technology and knowledge, even between competitors," said Rear Adm. Paul G. Gaffney II, chief of naval research. "Working with a small annual investment, the BMP program has built a national voluntary network of representatives from industry, academia, and the military who are committed to excellence and [are] actively working to keep America strong and globally competitive."

The Acoustic Data Analysis Center at the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center has been named for one of the world's experts in submarine silencing. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay L. Johnson authorized the center to be named the "Dr. M.M. Sevik Building." Sevik was head of the Ship Acoustics Department that has been credited by the Navy with major contributions toward winning the Cold War.

The Military Traffic Management Command has activated its newly formed Deployment Support Command at Fort Eustis, Va. The 500-man joint unit is assigned the role of coordinating and sustaining delivery of warfighting supplies to U.S. military/ naval forces deployed overseas. The new command's responsibilities include managing military port operations, operating the Defense Railway Interchange Fleet, and supervising the training (and mobilization, if required) of 20 Army reserve units and one Navy reserve unit.

The former Navy frigate Constellation-built in 185

The American Council on Education has been selected as a third-party quality standards system organization by the U.S. Coast Guard to review and evaluate the quality of basic programs offered by schools that specialize in maritime training. Previously, training courses required for seafarer certificates and merchant marine licenses were approved only bv the Coast Guard.