Daryl Caudle Orders Surface Officers for Amphibious Warships — Navy Cno
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle ordered that Navy amphibious warships be commanded by surface warfare officers instead of aviators in an April 24 memo, changing who can hold the top job on ships that carry Marines into war zones. The navy cno directive applies to amphibious assault ships, transport docks and dock landing ships.
The Navy said the memo, which circulated on Reddit, is authentic. The service has 32 amphibious warfare ships, including nine big deck amphibious assault ships, so the order reaches a fleet that has long been used to prepare future carrier commanders.
April 24 memo
Caudle tied the change to efforts to improve amphibious warships' readiness. In the memo, he wrote that commanding officers need "exquisite knowledge of readiness, maintenance procedures, component design, and failure modes, damage control, and operational procedures, but also to be masters of their ships while remaining in command long enough to make real and effective changes".
He added: "This is generally considered to be at least two years." Caudle also said the change would allow commanding officers to stay in place longer to provide "more command stability, focused oversight, and solution ownership required to drive measurable performance," according to his statement.
James Kilby testimony
The memo followed April 15 testimony from Navy Adm. James Kilby, who told lawmakers that only about 45% of amphibious ships are combat surge ready. He said 63% of surface ships are combat surge ready and 65% of submarines are combat surge ready.
Caudle said aviators can still command aircraft carriers if they are nuclear trained. He also said they remain authorized to command Expeditionary Sea Bases, amphibious command ships and submarine tenders. The Navy will also look at whether aviators must still complete a deep draft command tour to qualify for command of aircraft carriers.
Bradley Martin
Retired Navy Capt. Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher with the RAND Corporation, said aviators historically have served as captains of certain amphibious warships to meet that requirement. A Navy official said the service will keep studying how to build command-at-sea competency and proficiency for aviators selected for the nuclear power pipeline, and the goal is to reduce or eliminate the separate deep draft command tour requirement.
For officers in the amphibious fleet, the practical change is immediate: future command assignments move to the surface warfare officer community, while the Navy continues to keep aviators on the path toward carrier command through the nuclear pipeline. The open question now is how far the service will go in changing that pipeline itself.
