Surface Warfare Club

Looking for new and innovative ways to improve the war-fighting readiness inside their own lifelines, the crew of the San Diego-based Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS SAMPSON (DDG 102) recently spent an entire day at sea focused completely on combat and damage control drills. During the ships “Change of Command,” the innovative training session immersed Sampson Sailors in a “worst case” scenario combat environment for an entire day.  Our SWO club was specially invited by the ship’s Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Philip Roos, a USD NROTC graduate Class of 1988, to spend this event with these determined sailors.  According to Sampson Sailors, the day’s events were more intense than Composite Training Unit Exercises and Joint Task Force Exercises.  Starting with a simulated Tomahawk land attack missile strike and ending with an abandon ship drill, the day’s evolutions tested each facet of Sampson’s warfare areas and forced fast decisions under intense pressure, especially for the damage control teams tasked with keeping the ship in the fight. Scenarios included medical casualties, combat systems casualty control evolutions, a live chaff fire, quiet ship, complex anti-air/submarine/surface warfare scenarios, general quarters drills, mass conflagration, battle messing, chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) attack, emergency destruction, and abandon ship.
“Change of Command” was conducted underway during independent operations. “We had spent the past five months primarily focusing on supporting the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT Strike Group’s missions and integrating into a larger force, so Change of Command gave us an opportunity to concentrate solely on training within our lifelines,” said Cmdr. Roos. Coordinating the effort required Sampson training teams to come together to develop a challenging, integrated series of events that maximized training and replicated a combat environment. Sampson Executive Officer Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Scudder oversaw and executed the complex timeline. “We re-racked our schedule to free up an entire day from seven in the morning to five o’clock that evening. That gave us 10 straight hours dedicated to training, which allowed us the time to run scenarios we don’t get many opportunities to practice, let the combat scenarios develop gradually and realistically, and allow training team members to conduct thorough watchstander training and focus on the finer details of each evolution,” said Scudder.  During the barbeque, which completed the event, excitement about the day was shared at all levels of the ship’s crew as well as the midshipmen.
As for the SWO Club, this event was just one of the many unique opportunities that we got to experience as midshipmen and officer candidates last semester.  In the future we hope to schedule more adventures onboard ships along with guided tours of different classes of Navy ships.  Moreover, we plan to fully use our newly built e-classroom for a virtual experience with war fighting scenarios and navigation techniques.
-- OC Pratiksha Patel                    
   Surface Warfare Club President