thedrifter
09-05-06, 01:47 PM
September 11, 2006
ESG to deploy minus flag commander
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
ABOARD USS BOXER — This amphibious assault ship, flagship for Expeditionary Strike Group 5, heads west from Hawaii later this month leading an eight-ship naval strike force and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Unlike its recent predecessors, however, this expeditionary strike group will do its scheduled deployment to the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf without its flag commander aboard.
For three years, since the concept of a flexible, adaptable force took flight, the West Coast-based 3rd Fleet has deployed expeditionary forces with a one-star Navy admiral or Marine general at the helm.
But the latest strike group to deploy from San Diego will chart a slightly different course for ESGs.
After scheduled exercises in Hawaii, ESG commander Rear Adm. Mark Balmert will return to San Diego. From there, he may rejoin the strike group, or perhaps another naval force, as a “fly away” command element for a contingency as a joint task force.
Meanwhile, the Boxer ESG will lead dock landing ship Comstock, amphibious transport dock Dubuque, cruiser Bunker Hill, destroyers Benfold and Howard, Coast Guard cutter Midgett and Canadian frigate Ottawa into Middle Eastern waters.
The revamped command structure marks a change to the ESG concept, first implemented in 2003. It also changes the Navy’s ability to globally deploy trained, ready command staffs where and when needed.
Recent events have seen the idea become reality. This summer, Marine Brig. Gen. Carl Jensen, who led ESG-3 on deployment with the 11th MEU, was tapped from his flagship Peleliu to lead a contingency ashore in Lebanon to evacuate Americans, commanding a different MEU and different ESG.
Working out the kinks
“The experiment is over, but there’s a lot of details that need to be worked out on how we transition from the concept of the ESG to the reality of it,” Balmert said Aug. 18 in his cabin on Boxer. “Our staff is the command element. But the command element and the rest of the ESG are scheduled separately. So we are basically the sole command element on the West Coast for ESG.”
After their return from Hawaii, for example, Balmert and his ESG-5 staff will work with the Bonhomme Richard strike group, next in line on the West Coast. Then, “we will deploy when a forward combatant commander says he wants a command element there,” he said.
An ESG remains a capable force without the flag-level command, Balmert said.
“They are able to execute a modest level, a modest set of missions,” he said. “They can do a collective type of defense operation and they can respond to things at sea and they can execute traditional [maritime interception] missions and they can do a Tomahawk strike mission,” but not necessarily all at the same time on their own.
With the flag or general officer, he noted, ESGs “go from being a responder to being an influencer, so we can do more in a region with a command element in there. We can carry out higher headquarters desires and influence a region.”
For a MEU, the ESG expands its capabilities and the types of missions it can do at sea.
Col. Brian Beaudreault, 15th MEU commander, said it “brings a tremendous capability.”
The ESG’s cruisers and destroyers, with their modern communications and radar suites, provide new venues for missions, such as visit, board, search and seizure operations.
“We use them as an alternate command and control platform. We can provide H-60s [Sea Hawk helicopters] to give us a [casualty evacuation] platform or to hoist Marines that are injured on ships we otherwise couldn’t land on,” Beaudreault said.
Ellie
ESG to deploy minus flag commander
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
ABOARD USS BOXER — This amphibious assault ship, flagship for Expeditionary Strike Group 5, heads west from Hawaii later this month leading an eight-ship naval strike force and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Unlike its recent predecessors, however, this expeditionary strike group will do its scheduled deployment to the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf without its flag commander aboard.
For three years, since the concept of a flexible, adaptable force took flight, the West Coast-based 3rd Fleet has deployed expeditionary forces with a one-star Navy admiral or Marine general at the helm.
But the latest strike group to deploy from San Diego will chart a slightly different course for ESGs.
After scheduled exercises in Hawaii, ESG commander Rear Adm. Mark Balmert will return to San Diego. From there, he may rejoin the strike group, or perhaps another naval force, as a “fly away” command element for a contingency as a joint task force.
Meanwhile, the Boxer ESG will lead dock landing ship Comstock, amphibious transport dock Dubuque, cruiser Bunker Hill, destroyers Benfold and Howard, Coast Guard cutter Midgett and Canadian frigate Ottawa into Middle Eastern waters.
The revamped command structure marks a change to the ESG concept, first implemented in 2003. It also changes the Navy’s ability to globally deploy trained, ready command staffs where and when needed.
Recent events have seen the idea become reality. This summer, Marine Brig. Gen. Carl Jensen, who led ESG-3 on deployment with the 11th MEU, was tapped from his flagship Peleliu to lead a contingency ashore in Lebanon to evacuate Americans, commanding a different MEU and different ESG.
Working out the kinks
“The experiment is over, but there’s a lot of details that need to be worked out on how we transition from the concept of the ESG to the reality of it,” Balmert said Aug. 18 in his cabin on Boxer. “Our staff is the command element. But the command element and the rest of the ESG are scheduled separately. So we are basically the sole command element on the West Coast for ESG.”
After their return from Hawaii, for example, Balmert and his ESG-5 staff will work with the Bonhomme Richard strike group, next in line on the West Coast. Then, “we will deploy when a forward combatant commander says he wants a command element there,” he said.
An ESG remains a capable force without the flag-level command, Balmert said.
“They are able to execute a modest level, a modest set of missions,” he said. “They can do a collective type of defense operation and they can respond to things at sea and they can execute traditional [maritime interception] missions and they can do a Tomahawk strike mission,” but not necessarily all at the same time on their own.
With the flag or general officer, he noted, ESGs “go from being a responder to being an influencer, so we can do more in a region with a command element in there. We can carry out higher headquarters desires and influence a region.”
For a MEU, the ESG expands its capabilities and the types of missions it can do at sea.
Col. Brian Beaudreault, 15th MEU commander, said it “brings a tremendous capability.”
The ESG’s cruisers and destroyers, with their modern communications and radar suites, provide new venues for missions, such as visit, board, search and seizure operations.
“We use them as an alternate command and control platform. We can provide H-60s [Sea Hawk helicopters] to give us a [casualty evacuation] platform or to hoist Marines that are injured on ships we otherwise couldn’t land on,” Beaudreault said.
Ellie