Navy creates a new command to centralize force protection.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: Maritime Force Protection Command to manage maritime security

The U.S. Navy has consolidated the management of all force-protection units deployed around the world into a single new organization.

The Maritime Force Protection Command was established in October to manage the training and equipping of the expeditionary units that the Navy deploys overseas to protect its assets, explained the head of the command, Capt. Mark E. Kosnik.

"This command includes four components--mobile security, naval coastal warfare, explosive ordnance disposal, and mobile diving and salvage forces," Kosnik told National Defense.

"Before the reorganization, those four existed as small, separate entities," he said. "Yet, they use much of the same equipment and training. Their missions are similar. This gives them a single point of oversight that never existed before."

The new command is located at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, in Norfolk, Va. The base's waterfront is lined with 30 mammoth amphibious assault ships and other Navy vessels. Any one of them would be an attractive target for a terrorist, Kosnik noted.

The command has a budget of about $50 million and approximately 7,000 sailors and officers. Of those, nearly 3,000 are reservists. Launching the command has been "a phased standup," Kosnik said. "I started with a staff of three. That number will grow to 68. By spring, we should be up to full speed."

The Navy began stepping up its force protection in 2000, after suicide bombers attacked one of its guided-missile destroyers, the USS Cole, in the port of Aden, Yemen. The assault killed 17 sailors and disabled the ship.

In response to that assault, the Navy created the mobile security force. Its primary mission, Kosnilk explained, is to provide light, mobile, in-port, short-term point defense for Navy ships, aircraft and other high-value assets in locations where U.S. shore infrastructure doesn't exist or is inadequate.

The force includes 11 detachments of 76 sailors equipped with three air-transportable, 25-foot high-speed pursuit boats. Eventually, the Navy intends to add another detachment.

Detachment members receive basic master-at-arms training and attend other Navy security, force protection and combat schools. They also are assigned to Marine Corps crew-served weapons courses. They are trained to fire the M9 9 mm pistol, M16A3 5.56 mm rifle, M870 12 gauge shotgun, M203 40 mm grenade launcher, M2 .50 caliber heavy-barrel machine gun, M240 7.62 mm light machine gun and MK-19 40 mm grenade machine gun. Many...