Commander: Demand for NECC units remains high - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Commander: Demand for NECC units remains high

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The planned withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan may ease, but will not diminish, the high demand for Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, Navy and NECC leaders said Tuesday at the fourth annual Naval Expeditionary Forces Symposium and Expo held here.

The command today cannot respond to 50 percent of requests for forces issued by combatant commanders outside of U.S. Central Command, said Rear Adm. Carol Pottenger, NECC commander. The continuing need for humanitarian missions and growing emphasis on irregular warfare will only add to the demand.

To meet these requirements will require a shift in funding and a technological emphasis in training and equipping, Pottenger said.

Her priorities include shifting the source of funding for NECC, with less money coming from overseas contingency funding and a larger contribution from the Navy’s baseline budget. Right now, the balance is about 50/50. But as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan draw to a close, “enduring capabilities will need enduring funding,” she told Navy Times.

But resources are only one challenge. Nearly all of the units in her command are above the “red line” in regard to deployment tempo. Most have required personnel tempo waivers signed by the chief of naval operations.

“Our forces are stressed,” Pottenger said. “We hope the pace diminishes after [operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom], but there is no way of knowing.”

In preparation, NECC is monitoring the effect high op tempo is having on families, and has instituted a pilot mental health program at Explosive Ordnance Disposal units modeled after a similar SEAL program.

Pottenger also said her priorities place “the highest emphasis on seeking technology solutions for NECC’s most pressing current and near-term capability shortfalls.”

Among the plans:

• Physical Screening Protection: A modular, man-portable barrier that can protect sailors from sniper fire, rocket-propelled grenades and fragmentation.

• Autonomous Marine Navigation System: An artificial intelligence system that can convert a small surface craft into an unmanned vehicle capable of a wide array of reconnaissance missions.

• Riverine and Intercoastal Operations: A conceptual surveillance capability that will provide real-time situational awareness through a network of unmanned sensors.

• Soil Block Machine: A commercially available machine that can produce construction block from a variety of soils, thus providing a near endless supply of building material.

• Containerized Alternative Power: A transportable system that combines the benefits of solar, wind, battery and traditional power, and can potentially reduce an operational commander’s fuel requirement by up to 50 percent.

Pottenger also looks to use a greater measure of technologies such as distance learning and simulation training to meet the difficult realities of fielding a force whose majority resides in the reserves.

“Having a seamless active and reserve component poses a lot of different challenges,” she said. “We are limited by time and geography and we deal with different funding streams, but retention remains high in both active and reserves.”

Pottenger has helmed NECC since February 2008; the Navy announced in January that Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson, now deputy director of operations for force protection at U.S. Central Command headquarters in MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., will relieve her. Pottenger’s next assignment has not been announced.