Early in the Vietnam War, the United States Navy and Air Force learned the hard way that training
against each other in identical airframes was not really effective in actual aerial
dogfights, where Soviet enemy aircraft had wildly different performance profiles and capabilities.
As such, the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps all
spar against make-believe adversaries using American equipment, most notably,
the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program or TOPGUN.
But in an ever-evolving warfare environment,
there is no guarantee the US forces will have time to learn, digest,
and outmaneuver the tactics of a new enemy in future conflicts, including in undersea combat.
However, in 2019, the Navy's Undersea Warfighting Development Center established
the Aggressor Squadron or AGGRON, a team focused on high-end combat
training mimicking competitors in all training and certification exercises.
This resulted in a specialized force that knows how the enemy thinks and
that is already preparing submarine crews for a potential battle against Russia and China,
giving America a crucial edge in the vast underwater battlefield…
A Successful Project
In the early days of the Vietnam War, US Navy pilots shot down about 2.42
enemy fighters for every down fighter of their own. The lackluster statistic led
to the creation of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, known as TOPGUN.
In a strenuous training that took make-believe to the next level,
TOPGUN instructor pilots learned how to imitate Vietnamese fighter pilots,
then passed their knowledge to naval aviators on how to prevail in a dogfight over Southeast Asia.
While basic knowledge about enemy fighter performance might seem part of every pilot’s
training in a modern and globalized world, back then, American pilots didn't know the
capabilities and performance of Soviet aircraft until they encountered them face to face.
One of the most significant successes of the United States Armed Forces, TOPGUN is credited
with helping the Navy radically increase their ratio to 12.5 downed enemy jets for every loss.
But while the United States military has plenty
of Opposing Force units tasked with emulating enemy tactics,
the Navy lacked a dedicated aggressor unit for its submarine and anti-submarine communities.
As China's Navy grows exponentially and the Russian submarine force rearms with
state-of-the-art vessels like the new Yasen-class guided missile submarines, the US Navy's attack
submarine fleet needs to be as prepared for a potential counter operation as possible.
It was time to emulate the TOPGUN project for the seas.
AGGRON
While the country with the most submarines in the world is China, with 78 active ones,
only 12 are nuclear-powered. Russia comes second, with 70, of which 29 are nuclear-powered.
Despite coming in third in terms of numbers, the United States Navy submarine force is widely
regarded as the most capable. With 53 fast attack submarines, 14 ballistic-missile submarines,
and four guided-missile submarines, all of them nuclear-powered, the existing fleet of
ballistic submarines carries 54 percent of America's nuclear deterrent arsenal.
In November of 2018, at the Naval Submarine League's annual conference,
US Navy Vice Admiral Charles Richard highlighted his plans for the service to have a TOPGUN-like
program for submariners. Taking a page from naval aviation, the service was looking to
establish a unit that would become an expert in employing the adversaries'
potential capabilities and go head-to-head with other navy units in simulated environments.
According to Richard, the plans also called for a
submarine aggressor squadron made up of active duty and reserve sailors,
as well as civilian contractors, for other Navy submariners to train against.
In October of 2019, the United States Submarine
Force established an Aggressor Squadron known as AGGRON as an
initiative supporting the broader Department of Defense focus on strategic competition.
The AGGRON unit is part of the Navy's Undersea Warfighting Development Center,
with elements stationed at the center's headquarters in the Naval Submarine Base
New London in Groton, Connecticut, and the Point Loma Annex in San Diego, California.
In an interview with the Center for International Maritime Security, Captain Eric M. Sager,
Commanding Officer of the Naval Submarine School, discussed the vital importance of connecting
adversary doctrine to submarine force development: [QUOTE] "AGGRON enhances all undersea forces'
training, and readiness for potential conflict in every area of operations around the world
focused first and foremost on our strategic competitors in the maritime/undersea domain."
The Training
The AGGRON unit serves as an undersea expert in employing
potential competitors' capabilities and improving combat tactics, techniques,
and procedures to ensure all American doctrine is aligned against ever-evolving capabilities,
creating new tools and concepts to support high-end warfighting.
During AGGRON training exercises, submarine crews, submarine squadron staff, and Submarine Learning
Site staff learn what to expect from potential enemies, particularly those in Russia and China.
One of its main focus areas relates to how electronic warfare impacts submarine warfare
operations. Sager added that during training: [QUOTE] "Sailors leave every training event with a
better understanding of how our competitors think and operate, with an emphasis on their current or
near-term combat capabilities. Every training event better prepares each sailor to handle
combat operations. We aim to produce winners and losers, just like there are in battle, and raise
the force's standards to ensure our sailors are continually more elite than the opponent."
The unit’s personnel work with submarine crews during all
stages of operational and training schedules and,
like TOPGUN, plan to drastically improve the Submarine Force's ability to win in combat.
This is also not the first time the US Navy has used an enemy submarine
for training purposes. In 2005, the service leased Sweden's HSwMS Gotland,
an advanced diesel-electric vessel equipped with an air-independent propulsion system.
While the Navy does not operate diesel-electric submarines, other potential adversaries do, and
the Swedish vessel was used in a training exercise against the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier.
The submarine, described as one of the quietest in the world, proved to be incredibly superior
around the American carrier task force and made multiple faux attack runs on the American carrier,
all without ever being detected and sinking Ronald Reagan during the exercise.
No wonder the United States anti-submarine specialists were utterly demoralized.
Black Widow 2020
Battling enemy submarines fell way down in the US Navy’s priorities
in the 21st century, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took precedence. However,
as the Navy’s top officials continue sounding the alarm about Russian submarine activity
in the North Atlantic Ocean, re-sharpening such skills has brought a renewed urgency.
In late 2020, the branch launched an exercise to sharpen anti-submarine warfare skills,
marking the perfect opportunity to showcase the AGGRON program.
Exercise Black Widow 2020, a six-day North Atlantic training event,
kicked off in mid-September as part of an effort by the Navy’s top brass to
ensure the branch is ready to fight enemy submarines, regardless of the platform.
The exercise was carried out with the Wasp amphibious assault ship,
warships Arleigh Burke and McFaul, two fast-attack submarines,
a P-8 Poseidon sub-hunting aircraft, and helicopter strike maritime squadrons.
Playing the role of the enemy was the United States Navy undersea aggressor squadron,
which was created only a year before.
According to United States 2nd Fleet commander Vice Admiral Andrew Lewis,
the Black Widow exercise was essential to the Navy: [QUOTE]
"This is where the fight is … where the competition is [...] Specifically in the Atlantic,
the undersea capability of the Russians. We have got to maintain that advantage."
The diverse array of surface, air, and undersea units in the exercise truly
reflected the priority the service is currently placing on making sure its submarine-fighting
capabilities are up to the same level as every other major navy in the world.
Potential Hurdles
When asked about the risks of mirror-imaging blue force methods in Navy training and force
development, Captain Sager reassured his belief that the methodology risks developing a false
understanding of their capabilities and tactics as they relate to the competition.
As of 2023, one major pitfall of AGGRON is that the unit does not have any submarines of its own
to form a dedicated aggressor force to take part in exercises. Even if the squadron received a few
nuclear-powered general-purpose attack submarines or SSNs, as Richard indicated might happen,
they would not necessarily be an exact reflection of the capabilities of an actual adversary.
In addition to advanced nuclear-powered types,
China, Russia, and other countries around the world are developing advanced air-independent
propulsion-equipped diesel-electric submarines, which the United States Navy does not operate.
As such, it would be hard for AGGRON to truly mimic those boats during training
using existing nuclear-powered attack submarines.
Even so, with the Navy regularly training with allied submarines, including AIP-equipped types,
a lease agreement or simply scheduling more exercises where AGGRON's personnel can work
together with those boats could be a short or medium-term solution.
With the establishment of the US Navy's first dedicated submarine aggressor unit,
the TOPGUN-like unit can only help improve the service's ability to respond to existing
and emerging underwater and anti-submarine challenges,
ensuring America's submariners are as prepared as they can be to tackle potential threats.
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