Kalistan

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Defense Minister Evaluates Northern Lights Exercise
"We are ready for most threats" says Admiral
Bozo River Combined Arms Training Center, Grand Duchy of Ananto
October 15, 5629


Admiral Henry Reals debriefs Anantonese Naval Chiefs on recent exercises

His Imperial Majesty's Defense Minister debriefed the Command Staff of the four nations participating in the Northern Lights Exercises in August and September.  The Defense Minister gave a sober analysis of the exercises which revealed a lot of strengths in the tactical operations of all four navies, but also offered a number of targets for improvement.  "Most of the exercises were to test our current tactical OPs and find where we excel and where we could use more work," said Admiral Reals, who was promoted following the Exercises to full Admiral.  "In this, we have a lot of really good news, and maybe more bad news than we would like."

Strengths are mostly in the organizational and command and control categories.  "We tested everything from EC interception to logistics for our units in the field," said the Admiral.  "All four navies excel in these areas and received high marks, especially with regard to information security, radar and sonar detection of conventional forces, including air, and supply and reinforcement.  These are a good solid foundation for the modern operations of the regional navies that participated, and points to a high degree of professionalism and organization in our units."  Other strengths the Admiral noted was in deployment procedures and aerial surveillance.

"One particular highlight I want to bring out was that all four navies excel in tactical innovation," said Reals.  "In the military, we pride ourselves on routine, tradition, and procedure.  But when you are fighting in modern warfare, especially against the sort of adversaries we could see in future wars, it is more important that we think, move and fight like irregulars.  The old, predictable, 'by the book' tactical formations belong to another time, and each of us demonstrated, time and again, that we are willing to try to step outside of those models and paradigms and innovate with our tactics to accomplish our missions.  Its not so much that we overcome obstacles, as that we find a way to side step them.  And the thinking man and woman's armed forces are ones we are aimed at.  Not too much thinking, obviously, but we have a good group, especially at our Staff NCO and Field Grade Officer ranks, who show an inclination toward creativity on the battlefield, and that flexibility I think will help us win wars in the future."

The Admiral gave several cases to illustrate this point.  However, not all was praise.  "We are ready for most threat, but not all of them," said the Admiral as he switched gears to cover the areas that need work and attention.  ""I'd say 94% of the time we performed at or exceeding expectations... but its the 6% that keeps me up at night."  The Admiral laid out that submarine detection and neutralization is still difficult.

"We can say to our submariners that you all did a phenomenal job, and this is where a lot of that flexibility comes into play," said Admiral Reals.  "The submariners conducted simulated attacks on all five Kalistani targets , the last one just seconds before a simulated torpedo took out the last sub in the group, so the subs won the war games 5-0.  However, this means that the massive surface fleet we had that would cover the entrances to the Ocean and were actively patrolling throughout the entire ocean almost completely evaded the surface fleet until it was too late."

This points to a need for continued improvements in submarine detection.  "For instance, our Magnetic Anomaly Detections could find a submarine in the Strait, but in some of the Ocean deeps, there was no chance of seeing them a lot of the time.  And the Chemical Detection and Radioactive detection systems we were using were good for tracking movement if the ship happened to be following the ship, but chemical anomalies dissipated too fast for it to be useful for general submarine hunting.  Meanwhile, the subs being tracked have well moved on.  The nuclear submarines that participated were as difficult to locate as the hydrogen cell electric subs that Kalistan operates.  This is good in that nuclear subs offer no advantages, but a challenge in that we aren't even capable of detecting our own subs to the level that our tactical doctrine requires, so foreign subs will be just as difficult unless they are operating on diesel, at which point they light up several of our detection devices."

There was a silver lining, however.  "We have found that we still have the greatest success from simple bottom mounted hydrophone systems that relay sounds to listening stations in Dolgava, Lodamun and Kalistan which grew out of the Karzon Strait sonar buoy network.  Those are capable of detecting movement and noise over very large areas, and submarines, I don't care what their propulsion method is, generate noise as they travel through the water.  A comprehensive network of both hydrophones and passive sonar buoys, coupled with magnetic anomaly detections and backed up with strong satellite and aerial surveillance all combined tended to produce the highest rate of sub detection and more often than not provided success where more experimental methods fail.  This exercise points the way forward to a much more comprehensive network for sub detection in the Anantonese Ocean, to make even the deepest waters inhospitable places for foreign adversaries."

Over all, all participating navies really showed up to the exercises and worked together reliably and consistently.  His Imperial Majesty authorized an Imperial campaign ribbon to all Anantonese Sailors who participated in the exercise, and made it available to the Dolgavan and Egelian Navies as well.  In addition, His Imperial Majesty singled out for Meritorious Mast the crew of KRS-1a156 for their successful evasion of the pursuing fleet and their "launch" of their weapon against Kaliburg, signaling the final defeat of the Surface fleet during the final Wargames.  Admiral Reals said Kalistan looks forward to taking part in more combined fleet exercises in the future.

@TheRepublic