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Monday March 8 3:25 AM ET

U.S. Seventh Fleet Aims For Y2K Fighting Readiness

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The U.S. Seventh Fleet, America's biggest deployed naval fleet, will have won its battle against the so-called millennium bug by year-end, Commander Vice Admiral Walter Doran said Monday.

``Y2K (year 2000) is an all-consuming issue for me this year,'' Doran told Reuters at a briefing aboard fleet flagship the USS Blue Ridge.

``I will tell you honestly, the United States Seventh Fleet will do Y2K, we will be Y2K compliant. Just so I can certify to our leadership that on the 1st of January, I could fight the Seventh Fleet if I had to,'' Doran said in Sydney.

The U.S. Seventh Fleet, which consists of up to 60 ships, 350 aircraft and 60,000 navy and marine corps, is responsible for 52 million square miles (135 million sq km) of the Pacific and Indian Oceans -- a region 14 times the size of the United States.

The fleet's armada of ships and aircraft is constantly deployed throughout the Asia-Pacific, ready for action in case of a political, security or natural crisis.

Doran's area of responsibility also covers the Korean Peninsula, which he said remained a dangerous place with ''irrational actors.''

Doran said the Seventh Fleet had conducted an inventory of equipment on every ship and was planning dockside testing before the entire fleet underwent September Y2K sea trials.

``We are now doing individual ship checks and will do what we refer to as a fast cruise for every ship. That means the ship won't get underway, but alongside the pier we will do all compliancy testing,'' Doran said.

``Then we are going to get the Seventh Fleet underway in September for a period of time and we are going to do inter-operability testing, end-to-end testing,'' he said, adding testing would include whether ships can ``talk'' to each other.

Doran said Y2K problems were not just confined to weapons systems, but everyday items essential for ship operations.

``You are finding some problems in strange places. People think about complicated weapons systems, but we are finding there were chips in places like elevators,'' he said.

Doran said combat strategy was undergoing a fundamental change because of the computer information revolution.

``We have changed the way we are approaching naval warfare,'' Doran said. ``We used to focus on the ship. We had different ships for different roles.''

``What becomes more important now is not the platform ship, but the networking, the information technology and the information nodes. It's a much more fluid environment.''

Doran said defense chiefs were focused on the compatibility of defense computers. But he declined to answer a question about how Asian defense forces were handling the Y2K problem.

``The inter-operability question is on all of our minds,'' he said. ``So it really isn't that helpful for the U.S. Navy if we get to a point where we are very good, but all we can do is talk to ourselves.''

-- Deborah (info@wars.com), March 08, 1999

Answers

"Lost at sea!"........an by golly i'm ah gonna find......'It'!

-- Outlander (godsgold@hotmail.com), March 09, 1999.

Thanks, Deborah.

"What becomes more important now is not the platform ship, but the networking, the information technology and the information nodes. It's a much more fluid environment."

Sure hope the "fluid" Y2K tidal wave doesn't sink 'em.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 09, 1999.