Keeping Eyes on Friends, Enemies at RIMPAC.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

The USS Abraham Lincoln was the only U.S. aircraft carrier participating in RIMPAC, and it was abuzz with jets roaring around and crewmembers climbing the decks. At the center of the chaos was the ship's captain, who was keeping it all in check.

And as complex as driving ships and coordinating the launch and recovery of dozens of aircraft might be, one of the most challenging aspects of keeping RIMPAC on target was communication, said Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt, the only woman commander of a U.S. carrier.

There were two main components to the communications challenge, she said: language barriers and differences in technology.

"On paper it always looks very simple, and it's not always as simple in execution," she said. "So, while it's actually gone exceptionally well so far this exercise, it is truly that piece--it is ensuring that when we need to do certain operations ... do we all understand what we're doing?"

That is part of the reason why RIMPAC follows the "crawl, walk, run" model. During the "crawl" or harbor phase at the beginning, the partners sorted out their language and systems differences the best they could.

"Each time you work with this many nations, you're on kind of a different enclave of systems, and [partners] don't always get why you try to run them up before the exercise starts," she said. That's why everyone needs to show up on time.

"If you don't have all the players in [port], you don't always get a full end-to-end check of everything, so sometimes that first end-to-end check is when you're all out underway," she said.

While there were some hiccups, communications worked well throughout RIMPAC, she and other officers said.

In addition to communicating and coordinating...