The USS Ford is helping test the Navy’s new strategy of deploying the fleet as it participates in war games near the Hawaiian Islands.
The Ford, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate with a crew of about 260, left Everett in late May for its first deployment in nearly two years.
Earlier this week, the Ford got under way to take part in “Rim of the Pacific 2004,” a training exercise that includes ships and sailors from seven countries, ship spokesman Navy Ensign David Sandomir said in an e-mail from the frigate.
Known in Navy shorthand as “RIMPAC,” the exercise includes 18,000 military personnel from the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Chile. The war games are scheduled to run through July 27.
RIMPAC is part of a larger worldwide exercise called “Summer Pulse ‘04.”
Summer Pulse is the first test of the Navy’s new fleet response plan, the strategy to “surge” aircraft carriers and their strike groups to hot spots around the globe on short notice. Predictable, scheduled deployments of six months or so are a thing of the past.
Under the fleet response plan, the Navy now expects to deploy six of its 12 aircraft carriers and their strike groups within 30 days, plus two more aircraft carrier strike groups within 90 days.
As part of Summer Pulse, seven aircraft carriers and their strike groups – which usually include two guided-missile destroyers, an attack submarine, a guided-missile cruiser and a replenishment ship – will be sent to sea. Six carrier groups are already taking part in the exercise, and the seventh will join in before Summer Pulse wraps up in August.
The Ford is deployed as part of the USS John C. Stennis carrier strike group.
Earlier in the Ford’s deployment, the frigate’s crew trained off the coast of Alaska with Canadian forces, and made a port visit in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii before starting Summer Pulse.
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