“NMIOTC was established to revive and improve a competency which, not long ago, was believed to belong to the history books,” Annati says. “Boarding operations today are for a different purpose, and require new and different skills, but NMIOTC is the place where sailors can hone their skills for what the current world requires.”
There are a wide number of specific training programs at NMIOTC, aimed to fulfill the different needs: from counter piracy to counter-WMD; from the command team to the boarding team; including all the specific issues like small arms training, container inspection, tactical sweep, RHIB insertion, and biometrics collection, which are usually not part of the normal crew training process, Annati says.
“The International contacts and exchanges with different entities – navies, coast guards, special forces, and law enforcement units – further enlarge the wealth of the training process,” he says.
Afloat Training Group San Diego trainers MAC Giles and MM1 Ferrer demonstrate how to properly search an individual in restraints during Anti-Terrorism (AT) 1.3 training aboard USS Howard, April 29, 2015. AT 1.3 was the third in a series of training and assessment evolutions designed to evaluate a crew’s ability to protect and defend their ship in foreign and domestic ports. Photo by MA1 Herring, ATGSD
“Nowadays one would probably wonder whether Thucydides would be more surprised to see that today, after some 25 centuries, the ancient technique came back, or if he would be more proud to see that the new NATO Maritime Interdiction Operation Training Center is located right [here] in Greece,” Annati says.
San Diego Training
The Afloat Training Group San Diego (ATGSD) trains and certifies the fleet in various warfare areas to meet the Fleet Response Plan. VBSS is a Unit Tactical warfare area that provides training, assessment, and certification for shipboard assigned VBSS teams.
“Our goal here at ATGSD is to provide advanced training tactics, ‘outside of the box’ thinking methods, and increase VBSS warfare proficiency by building on the foundation that they have from the non-compliant boarding [NCB] formal course of instruction,” says Senior Chief Master at Arms Russ Treider.
“In regards to NCB and compliant boardings, we evaluate and train the boarding team on their hook and pole procedures, climbing ability, tactical team movement, mental preparation and tactical mindset, personnel search techniques, non-lethal offensive and defensive tactics, communications skills, and other techniques,” Treider says.
Treider says the ATG training revolves around one 10-man fully qualified scalable team, two fully qualified Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) crews, intelligence specialists and assigned personnel and the liaison officer (LNO). The 10-man team includes a boarding officer (BO), assistant boarding officer (ABO), two mechanical breachers, two rated engineers, or two personnel qualified in sounding and security, and four security team members. The RHIB crew consists of a boat coxswain, boat engineer, search and rescue (SAR) Swimmer, or bow hook qualified personnel.
Teams are trained in “approach, assist and visit” (AAV), where teams pull alongside vessels without actually boarding them to meet, gain rapport, and pick up intelligence about any recent questionable activities a vessel’s crew may have seen or heard of.
“In regards to NCB and compliant boardings, we evaluate and train the boarding team on their hook and pole procedures, climbing ability, tactical team movement, mental preparation and tactical mindset, personnel search techniques, non-lethal offensive and defensive tactics, communications skills, and other techniques,” Treider says.
“We teach the entire team to climb, board, reset the hook, set security posture and identify their path to the objective of the mission. We try to keep every training evolution as realistic as possible, from actual boarding operations on a contracted ship with opposing forces (OPFOR) personnel role playing as the crew, to hook and pole procedures that require conduct missions to combat piracy, smuggling, human trafficking and drug trade.”
“For missions that have previously been handled by special operations forces, having certified VBSS teams onboard their own ship provides commanding officers an extra hand to deal with these non-typical surface warfare issues,” Treider says.