The surface Navy is taking a page out of the airdale book and standing up a "Top Gun"-style school for black shoessurface warfare officers.

The Surface Warfighting Development Center, led by Rear Adm. James Kilby, is still abouttwo yearsoutfrom becoming a reality — the latest sign that the surface Navy is finally getting serious about tactics training and development.

In a Jan. 15 speech at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium, Kilby is spreading the gospel about a center that will train young officers to be experts at surface warfare weaponssystemsand sensors and then send these graduates back to the fleet to train combat information center watchstanders to be, well, the best of the best.Then those officers will return to the fleet and train combat information center watch standers,

Kilby said he is hoping to get beyond dry standard operating procedures and doctrineand instill the "why," behind the "how," to create officers with a deeper understanding of how the Navy'sships fight.

The school continues the push to better train junior SWOs on tactics, including the start up of weapons tactics instructor courses two years ago to teach advanced sub-hunting and air defense.

"We're going to take 'Did you do this, yes or no?' to 'Why did you do this?' Let's look at the [tactical memorandum] and see why you did that, let's try it this way," Kilby said. "And then repeat and repeat and repeat. So there is learning that happens there, not just an assessment, but a knowledge transfer."

The new school will target lieutenants coming out of their second division officer school who are recommended by their chain of command. The officers will go through intensive simulations in various scenarios across the platforms then, once fully trainedup, they will be sent back to the fleet to train watch teamsas they go through their basic phase.

The new school will be located at the Top Gun school at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada.

About David B. Larter

David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.

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