MOCs Making Progress, Manpower Still an Issue

By John C. Marcario, Assistant Editor

The Navy's Maritime Operations Center (MOC) Project has made significant headway, but still has a ways to go before achieving full operational capability, said the project's director, Capt. Steve Snyder, at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, Md., May 5.

The MOC is is a command and control center designed to assist a fleet commander, or other designated component commanders, in directing assigned and attached forces in planning, conducting, monitoring and assessing naval operations in a joint warfighting environment. The Navy expects to accredit four MOCs this year, and have all nine planned MOCs to at least a status of preliminary accreditation by 2011.

Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, directed the fleets to implement the MOC system when he issued an MOC tactics, techniques and procedures manual last October.

One of the remaining challenges is manpower.

"We have made some progress, but that remains our toughest nut to crack," Snyder said.

Compounding that, Snyder said, is that fact that when the project began, the Navy had five numbered fleets. It now has six. The MOC Project team is looking into the cost and capabilities of possibly adding another fleet MOC.

A capabilities-based competency assessment that began for the MOC project in 2007 will conclude this summer. The final results will be reviewed after that to see how to thoroughly address the shortfall, he said.