NMCB ONE Participates in Operation Turning Point

Photo By Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarrett Wallace | BELLE CHASSE, La. (Feb. 14, 2024) Builder 3rd Class Collin Morgan, from Cincinnati, left, and Builder 2nd Class Tyler Hunt from Tucson, Ariz., assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 1, use a screed to level and smooth concrete during an Airfield Damage Repair training evolution during Operation Turning Point onboard Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, Belle Chasse, La., Feb. 14, 2024. Operation Turning Point is a field training exercise conducted by Naval Construction Group (NCG) TWO that places a battalion in a simulated hostile environment in order to test the full range of their expeditionary construction skills. (U.S. Navy photo by Construction Electrician 3rd class Jarrett Wallace)  

MS, UNITED STATES

02.19.2024

Courtesy Story

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 1

NAVAL AIR STATION JOINT RESERVE BASE NEW ORLEANS, La.– Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 1 Airfield Construction Company (ACC) 1 and Engineers from the Louisiana Air National Guard’s 159th Civil Engineering Squadron (ANG 159CES), partnered together during Operation Turning Point, to conduct expeditionary rapid airfield damage repair (ExR-ADR) in an effort to bolster branch interoperability aboard Naval Air Station Join Reserve Base (NASJRB) New Orleans in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, 10-16 Feb., 2024.
Operation Turning Point is an exercise designed to test and evaluate a U.S. Navy Mobile Construction Battalion in a simulated Distributed Maritime Operations environment and communications degraded environment. The new Airfield Damage Repair (ADR) training area located at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans provided realistic conditions to exercise engineering operations and expedient repair capabilities on an airfield.
While conducting this exercise, the 159th Civil Engineers shared their knowledge with the Seabees on how to perform different methods of ADR construction, including expedient and sustainment methods of repair. The 159th Civil Engineers are known as a Prime Base Emergency Force (PRIME BEEF) unit, which is a unit that regularly trains in and exercises ADR capability. The Seabees also demonstrated their ability to conduct Command and Control (C2) as a Unit of Action in support of a notional Airfield Commander.
During this exercise, the two methods of repair that were used provided strategically different but equally important methods of repair. For expedient repairs used for EXR-ADR, rapid-set concrete and flowable fill were used to fill in craters, enabling repairs to reach full strength in less than 24 hours. This enables a damaged runway to land planes in 24 hours from the time the minimum airfield operating strip is repaired. For standard ADR, Seabees utilize the mobile concrete batch plant, which takes raw materials in three large hoppers and mixes them with water in the truck. This is similar to a standard concrete placement, creating a runway that is smooth. This repair requires a standard 7 days to reach initial strength without the use of any additives. For long-term repairs, this is the preferred method due to the quality of finishing and the availability of materials at the repair location.
While out on this exercise, two of the Seabees who are licensed drone pilots were able to use the SKYDIO and SKYRAIDER unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms to conduct aerial damage assessments. This method guided the damage assessment team to quickly identify and report the craters and spalls to the minimum allowable operating strip (MAOS) team that was plotting this damage in the command post in order to provide courses of action (COA) to the Airfield Commander. UAS technology assists in assessing a damaged runway significantly faster and safer, by performing initial damage reconnaissance, unexploded ordnance (UXO) identification, as well as LIDAR scans of craters and spalls to determine the volume of repair material needed. The PRIME BEEF engineers also shared the capability of these drones to upload this information to a cloud-based computing system that is able to provide multiple COAs to an Airfield Commander instantly.
The ExR-ADR portion of Operation Turning Point provided an invaluable opportunity to demonstrate the ability of a leaner, task tailored Company within the NMCB to restore the Minimum Allowable Operating Strip to a damaged runway in under 24 hours. In future combat operations, where distributed maritime operations are crucial to sustaining logistical support, this capability will enable aircraft to rapidly get back into the fight.
“All of our Seabees from (ACC) 1 have demonstrated an incredible ability to specialize in ADR in order to align with the new force design.” said Lt. William Perry, the assistant company commander of (ACC) 1. “This in turn, allows a greater specialization in skills that allows the traditional battalion to operate across a wide range of projects and have a larger impact in the theatre of operations.”
The Seabees are working on the development of future training opportunities for Airfield Construction Companies at NAS Belle Chasse in Louisiana. As part of a groundbreaking memorandum of agreement (MOA), Seabees now have access to an inactive WWII-era runway which will provide an area for further construction and tactical training, with the possibility of integrating with EOD units to create realistic airfield damage and to train in the disposal of UXO.
“Providing opportunities for our Airmen to train alongside Seabee’s allows us to exercise joint capability that is typically not afforded in our current training construct. Thinking outside of the preverbal box will allow us to transcend fiscal constraints to accomplish future training requirements.” said Maj. Joshua Spiers, Air National Guard’s 159th Civil Engineering Squadron’s deputy base civil engineer “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Brown, has provided guidance to accelerate change or lose. This exercise is just one step in overcoming parochial service barriers and learning how to work seamlessly across domains.”
NMCB 1 assigned to Naval Construction Group TWO, is homeported in Gulfport, Mississippi, as part of the Atlantic Naval Construction Force (NCF). The NCF is a vital component in U.S. Maritime Strategy and is composed of deployable battalions capable of providing contingency construction, disaster preparation and recovery support, humanitarian assistance, and combat operations support for regional partners and combatant commanders.

• Date Taken: 02.19.2024
• Date Posted: 03.05.2024 12:58
• Story ID: 465373
• Location: MS, US