Sea Control - Sea Control 563 - Red Sea Combat with CDR Brian C. Sánchez

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Links1. CNO's NAVPLAN.2. CNO NAVPLAN 1-page primer.3. Project 33 1-page primer.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Commander Brian C. Sanchez, CEO of the USS Gravely. He was deployed to the Red Sea as part of Operation Prosperity Garden until this August, and he's going to be telling us about his experiences there. Brian, welcome, and could you start by telling the audience about yourself and your career? Yeah, first, let me say thank you for having me on today. I really appreciate the opportunity to tell the story of the Gravely out in the Red Sea.

So, graduated high school from Southern Georgia. From there, I went to the United States Naval Academy and Commission in 2006. My first shift was USS Cole, where I was the electrical officer, and also did some VVSS operations as well there off the Horn of Africa. So I spent some time in Fifth Fleet. After that, I went to Rear Marine Squadron 2, where I spent some time in Iraq on the ground, leading sailors through boat patrols. Then I was lucky enough to be stationed in Italy at Sixth Fleet on staff, where my wife and I got to enjoy some shore duty together. And I also got to see the operational level of war as we conducted Operation Odyssey Dawn into Libya several years ago. I spent some time on Velogolf. I'm primarily a crewed as sailor, so primarily cruisers and destroyers. I was the weapons officer and combat systems officer for approximately three years on board Bella Golf.

After that, I went to the War College, received my master's, and then proceeded to go to Fleet Forces, where I was the flag aid to the commander there for Admiral Grady for approximately a year and a half. Then I proceeded to the basic division officer course as the OIC. And then I met Gravely on her 2022 deployment to essentially the Mediterranean and High North, Served as the executive officer there and then took command in June of 23, and then was lucky enough to lead her on her previous last deployment, I should say, to the 5th Fleet, Red Sea, and slightly, for a little bit of time, Arabian Gulf as well. And now I'm sitting down with you today. Thank you. So let's just dive right in and just tell us about the deployment to the Red Sea. Yeah, so it started out, you know, we came underway October 13th, ready to deploy.

We were looking at that point, kind of the lay down was a couple months in 5th Fleet, a couple months in 6th Fleet, and then slowly make our way home, really conducting exercises with partners in the regions, both regions, 5th Fleet and 6th Fleet areas of operation. By the time we left, so October 13th, there was already rumblings that things might change. And then on October 19th, of course, the USS Kearney started engaging the inbound UAVs and missiles north, being fired out of Houthi-controlled Yemen toward Israel. So at that point, we realized things had probably just changed quite a bit for deployment. We proceeded across the Atlantic and through the Med at a relatively high speed of advance, north of 20 knots for quite some time, and then pushed south collectively as a force through the Suez. So by the time we got over there, we initially pushed all the way into the Arabian Gulf there, dealing with the Iranian small boat threat quite a bit, saw Iranian UAV overhead. We did that for several weeks. At that time, Gravely was left in the Arabian Gulf while the rest of the carrier strike group did push to the southern Red Sea area. We chased them, I should say. If you will, we followed them a few weeks later and ended up getting into the southern Red Sea mid-December, mid to late December there and had not been on station long.

Through our time there, we helped conduct two tomahawk strikes, had several engagements, and dealt with the UAV and the missile threat, both anti-ship ballistic missile and anti-ship cruise missile threat, while in the southern Red Sea. So we saw quite a breadth of what the threats were. As we were starting to leave our last couple months there, the unmanned surface vessel threat started to become a little more real. We saw a couple of those. We've all seen the videos of the merchant vessels being struck by the unmanned surface threat there. So we got to really see a lot of it, really stretch our legs and see and use the breadth of our weapons systems on board Gravely. As a follow-up, could you go more into the unmanned surface threat that you faced? Yeah, so for us, it was relatively minimal. USS Mason, one night, she and us, I should say, the crew on Gravely and Mason, We were steaming in the southern Red Sea there, and Mason was, we had found or we had gotten indications and warnings, I and W, that there might be some unmanned surface vessels coming out.

And so Mason and I started to push and look for those with the sensors on board. Mason got much closer than we did, but those, my understanding of those small boats that they were using, small boats packed with anywhere from several hundred to about a thousand pounds of explosive. as they were running these, as they were running and driving towards ships to try and make those kills. So I think really what we've seen in the Southern Red Sea is very, very low level basic USVs, but we've seen how devastating those basic simple threats can be. So can you tell us about the CIWS engagement of 30th of January? Of course. So on the 30th of January, we were steaming in the Southern Red Sea.

we had our op box established for the evening and the commodore uh captain dave roe he was the commodore of a destroyer squadron 22 he was using his ships as he saw fit to defend the force and we were down the threat axis and so we're sitting in our op box that evening in about a little after 2200 about 10 30 at night um i was sitting in my cabin and i'll tell you from my perspective and then i'll kind of walk you what jip did uh so i was sitting in my cabin kind of closing out my day finishing up reading some emails and i got the standard indications that hey the ship is getting uh ready to engage and we saw those a lot with the way our doctrine statements work for our weapon system and so kind of okay well we'll see it right you kind of get that pit in your stomach

going all right it's it might happen it might happen but it also might not and then um i immediately i shouldn't say immediately about a minute later i then heard the whoosh of missiles leaving the ship so immediately i proceeded down to combat at that point when i got down there At that point, I learned that we had been engaged with an anti-ship cruise missile. The tactical action officer, one of my department heads, so a lieutenant at the time, took action to defend the ship and defend the force. He engaged the threat with SM-2s, ESSMs, and then ultimately the close-in weapon system, the SEWIS weapon system, was utilized. This was all taking place in conjunction with countermeasures as well. So the ship used everything.

And I think one of the big things we learned there is, number one, sailors are ready for that fight. I also think the other aspect that we learned is that, hey, the later defense approach that we take is probably the right approach, right? Each one of those weapon systems were used, and we got to the point to where, hey, we're using our closest, you know, the close-end weapon system, using the shortest-range weapon system. But that, in conjunction with countermeasures and the other engagements, managed to defeat the threat. So I think that's the big thing to understand and really take away from that is, hey, we've learned a lot. We asked a lot of questions. I had a lot of questions to answer, as you can imagine, not from a, you know, not from any kind of negative sense, but just, hey, walk us through what happened. sent a lot of data off ship, making sure that the engineers back at the Warfare Development Commands were able to really deep dive into that and understand what that engagement looked like. So jumping back to the engagement itself, these engagements last a couple of minutes at most, right?

You've got even an anti-ship cruise missile is maybe moving. That was a subsonic missile, right? So relatively slow, you know, still 500, 600 miles an hour. But in the world, some of the threats we saw out there, relatively slow. The anti-ship ballistic missiles were moving, you know, Mach 3. There's definitely different experience, I would say, but still a relatively short amount of time because they're low on the horizon. And so that's hard, you know, for radars to see. I think the big piece when I talk about the SEWIS engagement, it's a lot there to unpack. But at the end of the day, the two pieces to take is the systems work and the sailors, the training that we have works. It lined them up. They walked through that, you know, that engagement stressed every aspect of the ship's weapons and sensors.

And they all did what they were designed to do, right? They all executed, all the sailors executed the tasks assigned, and all the weapon systems did what they were designed to do. And so I think we can take comfort knowing that the systems themselves work very well, and the sailors are well trained. Tell us about the Battle of the Bam. the the battle of the bam uh so that was uh january 9th that evening again still steaming in the southern red sea uh it seems like a lot of things happened down there in the southern red sea and uh we were there with hms diamond uh and uss mason uh there was a couple of other ships as well i believe laboon was there as well and we were uh starting to see these waves of uavs come out a lot of uavs actually up to that point we had seen we had seen one or two uavs at a time okay right you kind of see him you engage him deal with the threat and then you continue to move on

well this was now looked like waves and waves of uavs uh continuing to come out and it was there were two two large waves of uavs what we also saw was how quickly um what we would consider right not a near peer threat, how quickly they can adapt their TTPs, how quickly they can adapt their tactics, techniques and procedures for using the weapon systems they use. And so it gave us, I think, a newfound respect of, OK, hey, while we are the United States Navy and we do have some pretty impressive weapon systems and our ships are well built and well taken care of and well maintained and our sailors are well trained, a simple adversary with a simple weapon, if they know how to use that weapon in multiple ways, can

really provide a problem for what we saw. Now, that being said, again, we didn't take any hits. None of the ships out there did. As we saw that, we saw several waves of UAVs. We even managed to identify essentially the flight path of those UAVs using some sensors. And that really gave us the ability to then set ourselves up and start engaging the threat while being able to maintain our own safety and really mitigating and minimizing the threat they provided to the ship. So I think as we looked at that, right, that was a full team effort, understanding what happened and understanding in situ what was going on in order to make sure that we could engage the enemy as best as possible. We were also there, like I mentioned, with the HMS Diamond. And so I think

one of the big pieces there is the coalition matters, right? We've been down there, right? Operation Prosperity Guardian brought in some other nations down there to help the area and stabilize the region and protect shipping as it went through that very vital choke point for international trade. And the HMS Diamond definitely engaged the enemy that night. Very, very proud to sail alongside her. And the Mason down south definitely dealt with the enemy and dealt with the threat, which was good.

But I think what was even better is the fact that we were able to do it with coalition partners and we were deconflicting fires and making sure that, hey, we weren't endangering each other as we dealt with the threat, even though we weren't both in the same Navy. So I think that that shows you the power of the coalition. When the fight is on, we can make things happen. And the coalition does matter. And those coalition building exercises that we talk about and that we do, do provide us stability and security in the maritime arena. there's been a lot of attention paid to the red sea crisis and as you mentioned with these fairly simple methods um do you realize barely who sees and what it might mean for the future of naval warfare since you have you know just experienced this firsthand what do you make of these debates yeah i think you know we've talked about um making sure we have a large fleet we've also talked about robotics you know the cno uh just recently started up a robotics rating And so I think that is extremely important, understanding that these simple weapon systems are going to make a difference in the high-end fight, and we've got to learn how to utilize those.

So I think the Project 33 and the CNO's latest NAV plan lay out some really good ideas and some things, and I think the priorities that are laid out for the Navy are solid plans that if we get after those, we can make a difference. One of the big pieces I've I talk about with my sailors is trying to realize there is no such thing as the quote unquote big Navy. You know, we've got to make the Navy what we want it to be. We've got to decide we're going to roll up our sleeves, get to work and make things better. Control what we can control inside the lifelines on board USS Gravely and make her the best ship we can. Not worried about, you know, unless we're helping somebody else. I'm not worried or concerned about what somebody else is or isn't doing. The answer is let's all roll up our sleeves, make this ship the best we can, and then we're going to get her underway and go do the nation's business and bidding when they call our number.

And that's all we can do. And so I think a lot of these debates that center around, you know, what capabilities we need, what weapon systems or what sensor systems we need are vital. But I think at the end of the day, we have to understand that sailors are the greatest weapon we have. The young sailors that we have are well educated, well trained. And I will tell you, you don't meet any dumb sailors, right? We just don't have the time for it in the Navy. Sailors are smart individuals. And I think we've got to make sure we're leveraging that stuff moving forward. So no matter what weapon system we put in their hand, no matter what we ask them to maintain, no matter what tasking we put in front of them, I'm confident that they're going to execute. But I'm also confident that the decisions being made are going to be the right decisions made for what our sailors need. As I look at, you know, Project 33 and the CNOS NAV plan of where she wants to take the Navy. I think she's got her focus. She's made that very clear, 2027, to make sure that we're defending the international maritime arena against any kind of aggression via the PLAN, based on President Xi Jinping's response of, hey, 2027. So I think she's focused on the threat. I think the decision she's making are are threat focused and data enabled. And I think that is absolutely key. Understanding the data of what we're looking at so that we can make noticeable changes and decisions based on on the data at hand of what's actually happening, not the perception of what's happening.

But no kidding. Hey, this this is what the numbers and analytics are telling us. This is what we've got to attack. And I think if we enable that with sound leadership at the deck plate level, making sure sailors are focusing on the threat and fight at hand, I think the good decisions are going to be there. I think we've got to understand the larger international arena needs us and wants us to be successful, to make sure that as we move forward, we're moving out, that we're going to maintain the lead, so to speak, be the lead sled dog for maintaining stability in the maritime arena, which I think we've proven we've done in the southern Red Sea now for nearly a year, or actually over a year.

Well, unfortunately, that's all the time that we have. Brian, where can our listeners find you, and what are you working on now? Currently, I have an article in with USNI Proceedings, so we'll see if that gets published or not, but for the most part, that's what I'm doing right now. I'm right now still the commanding officer of USS Gravely, so that keeps most of my time pretty tied up, that and

being a father and a husband, so looking forward to getting to shore duty and being able to write a little more. Great. Thanks again for joining us, to listen. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 We'll be right back.