The Center for Security Forces (CENSECFOR) announced June 1 the initial development of a new crew-served weapons course that will be specific to the Navy's Submarine Force (SUBFOR).
The term "crew-served" is a classification like "small arms," and it is used to identify weapons that require more than one person to operate efficiently, which is largely due to the size of the weapon and/or its intricacy of operation.
"The expectation for this new course is to significantly reduce the total time-to-train," said CENSECFOR Learning Standards Officer, Roy Wilde. "This will enable submariners to return to their boat sooner and yet, have the same level of quality training as their surface counterparts."
Like that of the traditional crew-served weapons courses currently offered, the new SUBFOR version will also cover both operation and maintenance. However, it will only cover the single weapon used by the submarine force as opposed to the variety of weapons used by the surface fleet.
CENSECFOR proactively engaged SUBFOR and the Submarine Learning Center (SLC) early on to design not only the work structure, but also to populate much of the needed content planning module (CPM) job, duty, task, and analysis (JDTA) data.
"If we were to use the standard JDTA methodology, it would have taken several days to a week for us to obtain consensus among stakeholders. By proactively engaging the stakeholders and subject matter experts early and often we were able to do much of the heavy lifting prior to bringing everyone to a face-to-face meeting. That enabled us to validate and gain full Type Commander concurrence in less than three hours, which is quite exceptional," Wilde said.
Naval Education and Training Command's (NETC) Course Development and Revision Process or End-to-End (E2E), is a process that guides a course of instruction from initial development through final delivery. The process is triggered by the emergence of new fleet training requirements, human performance requirements review, a change in occupational standards, or by internal course reviews.
Wilde concluded by citing that a firm date for course availability has yet to be determined, but it could feasibly be as early as the fall of 2012.
The Center for Security Forces provides specialized training to more than 22,000 students each year and has 14 training sites located in the U.S. and around the world.
Article by Darryl Orrell, Center for Security Forces Public Affairs