New name, evolving mission for maritime expeditionary force
The four big screens showed a harbor scene: astern, an enormous cruise ship passing and a fishing boat, its two booms out; several thousand yards ahead, a large container ship. All of a sudden, one of the sailors on the simulator spotted a cigarette boat headed for them.
“Range 2,000 yards, bearing 030,” the sailor called out, as the screen showed the accelerating boat kicking up arcing wings of wake and seaspray.
Petty Officer 1st Class Ethan Jarrett, acting in the role of captain of the simulated 34-foot patrol boat, relayed a report that the boat was stolen,
Then he authorized his fellow sailor to fire warning shots (actually a laser meant to simulate tracers and bullets from a .50caliber gun).
The screen showed a line of white splashes several yards in front of the cigarette boat’s bow, but it didn’t slow.
The sailor fired again, and the screen showed the cigarette boat exploding into flames.
But the training scenario that Little Creek-based Maritime Expeditionary Security Force sailors drill on wasn’t over.
As the sailor stationed at the bow .50-caliber gun was calling in his report to Jarrett; the sailor at the simulator’s starboard side M240 shouted: “Break! Break! Break!”
Another cigarette boat, by its wake even closer than the first, was headed at the Navy supply ship.
In this case, because the two boats were acting in tandem and the second was close and clearly about to ram into them, Jarrett, following the rules of engagement, authorized shooting it immediately. It too went up in flames. “Our job isn’t just to shoot … we have to determine intent and risk,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Baker, who was manning the port side M240.
It’s a big responsibility, and he’s been training on it since joining the Maritime Expeditionary Security Force in April.
Baker had learned his way around both the M240 and .50-caliber on USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship designed to support Marines and helicopters close inshore.
Once upon a time, operating close to shore and on rivers was the mission of the just-renamed maritime expeditionary force, formerly known as Coastal Riverine Forces. But since 2012 that mission, which typically included highly dangerous patrols on Vietnamese and Iraqi rivers, has evolved.
Now the expeditionary force sailors take their sharp eyes and constantly trained judgment of closein dangers to the task of protecting Navy ships in tight quarters.
Sometimes, that involves the force’s 34-foot patrol boats acting as escorts in harbors and other tight corners; sometimes, it involves assignment to Navy supply ships on the high sea where small boat attacks are staged, said Capt. David Rowland, a Southside Virginia native who serves as commodore for Marine Expeditionary Security Group 2, at Little Creek.
For many of the scenarios run in the group’s simulator, the correct response is to fire warning flares, or perhaps to mimic turning the simulated patrol boat on a new course, Rowland said.
“They’re all fairly senior sailors … and they train a lot so they know what do when they deploy,” Rowland said.
And they deploy all over the world, he added: “They’re going to be right at the point of action.”