Tuesday, January 03, 2012

SUBLANT Announces Battle 'E' Winners


NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic (COMSUBLANT), announced the winners of the 2011 Battle Efficiency (Battle "E") competition Jan. 1.

"The Battle E competition measures our crews against the three tenets laid out for us by the CNO: 'Warfighting first, operate forward, be ready,' as well as the call to action embodied in the design for undersea warfare," said COMSUBLANT Vice Adm. John M. Richardson. "This year's competition showed that across the board, our submarine force is manned by teams that are keenly focused on achieving these goals and are providing our nation's leaders with capability they can use today and into the future. The results were very close and these awards should be a source of great pride for the whole force. Congratulations."

The Battle "E" competition is conducted to strengthen individual command performance, overall force readiness, and to recognize outstanding performance. The criterion for the award is the overall readiness of the command to carry out its assigned wartime tasks as a unit of the Atlantic Submarine Force, and is based on a yearlong evaluation.

One submarine from each submarine squadron in the Atlantic Fleet is recognized. The awards are presented by the commodore of each squadron to the submarine under their command which has demonstrated the highest level of battle readiness during the evaluation year.

The 2011 COMSUBLANT Battle "E" winners, homeports, and commanding officers are:

Commander, Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 2 (Groton, Conn.) - USS Providence (SSN 719), commanded during the competition by Cmdr. Michael Quan and Cmdr. Ray Gabriel.
SUBRON FOUR (Groton, Conn.) - USS New Hampshire (SSN 778), commanded by Cmdr. John McGunnigle.

SUBRON 6 (Norfolk, Va.) - USS Newport News (SSN 750), commanded by Cmdr. Carl Hartsfield

Commander, Submarine Development Squadron 12 (Groton, Conn.) - USS Annapolis (SSN 760), commanded by Cmdr. John Gearhart.

SUBRON 16 (Kings Bay, Ga.) - USS Florida (SSGN 728) (Blue) commanded during the competition by Capt. Gregory Ott and Capt. Randy Crites, and USS Florida (SSGN 728) (Gold), commanded during the competition by Capt. David Kirk and Capt. Thomas Calabrese

SUBRON 20 (Kings Bay, Ga.) - USS Alaska (SSBN 732) (Blue), commanded by Cmdr. Kevin Byrne, and USS Alaska (SSBN 732) (Gold) commanded during the competition by Cmdr. Robert Wirth and Cmdr. Cory Jackson.

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