Your Navy
Navy sees boost in new surface tactics experts amid growing demand
By Megan Eckstein
Mar 25, 05:00 AM
The surface fleet has been clear: it wants more warfare tactics instructors, officers highly trained in areas like air and missile defense and anti-submarine warfare, to serve in a growing number of roles at sea and ashore.
But the Navy’s hub for surface warfare has struggled in the past to increase the number of warfare tactics instructors, or WTIs, it produces and sends out to the fleet. It had the training capacity, but officials said it lacked enough volunteers to come in for the intensive training program.
That trend changed in fiscal year 2023, when the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center, or SMWDC, was able to increase its output of these experts by 30%, graduating 121 new WTIs compared to the 90 it had been graduating annually in recent years.
As the number of WTIs in the fleet grows — and they take on more high-profile work, such as informing Houthi missile shoot-downs in the Red Sea — SMWDC Commander Rear Adm. Wilson Marks said it’s becoming easier to entice promising young officers to sign up for the training program and join the WTI community.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/03/25/navy-sees-boost-in-new-surface-tactics-experts-amid-growing-demand/
