
DATE: Sunday, October 26, 1997              TAG: 9710270207

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  133 lines

ADMIRAL AIMS FOR MORE SHIPS THAT CAN DO LESS

Creating a faster, more flexible Navy might mean building cheaper ships that don't pack every available gizmo and new weapon into their hulls, the Atlantic Fleet's top admiral says.

It surely means the military must take bold steps to cut its infrastructure, to become a flatter organization. To get rid of things.

And now is the best time to take such risks, says Adm. J. Paul Reason, the Atlantic Fleet's commander in chief.

``Basically, the world's at peace,'' Reason said last week. ``I don't know how long that is going to last. But it would be really, really wonderful for us to be able as a Navy, almost as a country, to take a little more risk in the name of taking a giant step forward in technology.''

In a rare interview 10 months into his command of an armada of 150 ships, 774 tactical aircraft and 132,000 people, Reason said he favors rethinking the way the Navy builds and uses its warships, supports skippers willing to shoulder risk in the name of change, and believes the Navy must become a more nimble fighting force to handle the tasks of tomorrow.

``We have to be better at what we do, faster at what we do and in a way that doesn't cost us more money than we already have,'' he said while sitting in his office at the Norfolk Naval Station.

``Some of those skippers who are really willing to shoulder the risk . . . that something will go wrong on his watch because he leaned a little farther out than his contemporaries . . . well, I happen to appreciate those people,'' he said.

``I think they are the future leaders of the Navy.''

Reason today commands an East Coast armada that is roughly two-thirds the size of just eight years ago but is asked to perform nearly the same job.

That complicates life for the Atlantic Fleet's 24th commander, a nuclear-trained engineer who returned to Norfolk in December after heading the Navy's Plans, Policy and Operations Branch as deputy chief of naval operations in Washington.

``There are so many moving parts to this machine,'' he said. ``All of these moving parts will have to resolve their future track to wind up what will become . . . the Atlantic Fleet of the next century.

``I think if there is anything that will characterize where we are going, it would be the realization that the Navy as a whole, and the fleet in particular, needs to find a way to be much more flexible, much quicker, much more agile.''

The time is ripe to break out of the mold the Navy has operated in since World War II, he said. With budgets flat and the Navy's commitments heavy, that could mean changes that border on heresy in the minds of some sailors.

While the Navy has raced to get cutting-edge technology in its new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers - land attack missiles, Aegis radar/weapons control, reduced radar and infrared signatures - those advances have come at a price: $1 billion a ship.

The fleet might be better served, Reason said, by cheaper ships in greater quantity. That way the Navy's presence can be felt around the world, rather than in a few spots.

``We have the tools today we are going to have for the next few years,'' he noted. ``We certainly will have to come up with new tools that are not quite as expensive, or maybe not as robust, or maybe not as fast, or maybe not as all-inclusive as our current ships and aircraft.

``Weapons are a lot smarter. They are more precise, more accurate, and they are faster,'' the admiral said. ``So, if we can keep them getting faster and more accurate, then our ships and airplanes don't have to be as fast (and) . carrying a big package of weapons to deliver.''

Instead of an Arleigh Burke destroyer that can do everything, perhaps three less-expensive ships that can each perform a different function of a Burke destroyer would be more cost-effective, he suggested.

``I would be willing to have ships that don't have all of those capabilities in one hull,'' Reason said. ``I would rather have three hulls that have one-third the capability of an Arleigh Burke.

``That sort of concept has to be factored into what we will do in the future,'' he said. ``It is a new way of thinking. We will develop a new way of operating.''

Some risk will inevitably spawn short-term problems, Reason acknowledged. Thus, the experience of the cruiser Yorktown, a test bed for Navy initiatives to replace some of a ship's crew with automated systems, which found itself dead in the water when one of those systems crashed recently.

But better to test the service's limits now, Reason said, rather than later. Trimming people has to be part of that test.

Why, for example, does the military use a classification system that relies on a lot of people to rubber-stamp documents ``confidential,'' ``secret,'' ``top secret,'' and even more people to decide what should be declassified or thrown away? ``That is the sort of thing we really need to start working on.''

His staff already has said goodbye to one three-star admiral's position and has seen its duties turned over to a two-star - a move Reason called ``a half-step in the right direction.''

``I really want the Navy to take some giant steps in that direction,'' he said. ``If we can do it at the headquarters level we will see it at the ships and squadrons.''

Re-engineering the Navy also means returning to some old ideas that have been discarded. Reason wants to revive the ``Naval Districts'' formed following World War II to give district commandants real authority to clean house.

That's the only way to get rid of a cumbersome infrastructure that's costing too much to maintain, he said.

Although his career has followed the surface ship force in the Navy - he commanded the nuclear-powered cruiser Bainbridge and destroyer Coontz out of Norfolk - Reason remembers earlier days working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. He likes what he recalls.

``I would like to see a fleet that operates sort of like the flight deck of a carrier,'' he said, ``where you have experts on every little piece.

``They are the ones really in charge,'' he said of the ordnance workers, plane captains, safety officers, fuel handlers and catapult launchers who work a flight deck and create order out of chaos.

``They are expected to do what needs to be done,'' Reason said. ``When they say, `We must stop,' for a safety reason or something is going wrong, the bosses don't say, `Wait a minute. I am the only one who can say, ``Stop.'' ' ''

It may be a petty officer third class who orders a stop in the action, Reason said. But he is the expert. He is on the scene. He knows all the details, and everyone trusts him to make the right decision.

``If he doesn't say `Stop,' then you assume that's because he is so well-trained and so smart that you are to continue and you can continue.

``That is a flat, quick organization.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Adm. J. Paul Reason

Graphic

PUBLIC HEARINGS

Information sessions and public hearings on the draft

environmental impact statement for Oceana Naval Air Station will be

held Monday at the Virginia Beach Pavilion and Tuesday at Butts Road

Intermediate School, 1571 Mount Pleasant Road, Chesapeake. The open

information sessions will run from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Public hearings

will be held from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Written copies of statements

should be provided by speakers to ensure accuracy of the record. KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY PROFILE BIOGRAPHY