Behind-the-scenes look at Navy training exercises

MAYPORT, Fla. – On an aircraft carrier, leading a Carrier Strike Group, there are a lot of moving parts that must all be working together perfectly to make sure they have a successful deployment. That's why Carrier Strike Group 12, which includes the Mayport based USS Farragut, have been training off the northeast Florida coast recently.

Launch after launch. About one per minute. Landing after landing, at a rate of about three every 2 minutes.

For the last day and a half, News4Jax reporter Chris Parenteau got a behind-the-scenes look at the USS Theodore Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier as its sailors trained before deployment.

"We have to be ready," said Rear Adm. Andrew Lewis. "We have to be ready to fight at the high end.

Lewis, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 12, is leading the current training operation to make sure all the ships are working together as they prepare to deploy together. The Mayport-based USS Farragut is in the destroyer squadron attached to the group.

"We are responsible for everything on the surface of the ocean, undersea warfare, also known as ASW or anti-submarine warfare, looking beneath the surface, looking for things like submarines and mines, and maritime security operations where we are working things like piracy," Capt. Fred Pyle said.

As planes are launched and recovered day or night, sometimes scripted, sometimes reactionary to what the simulated adversary is doing, it seems like it never stops. News4Jax is told the training mission is by far the most thorough and the most vigorous that these men and women go through.

"This is the graduate exam, the thesis program to make sure we are fully integrated, we can operate as a strike group and deploy," said Pyle, commander of Destroyer Squadron 2. "This is the hardest part of that training phase we are going through right now."

"The big challenge with that is communication and understanding commanders," Lewis said.

As planes are moved and shuffled around the flight deck for training and other ships appear on the horizon, what seems so planned and well-calculated is actually a great training tool because of how quickly things change.

"We accelerate through this period of conflict from peace time ahead to a simulated conflict over the course of 36 hours rather than 36 days or 36 months," Lewis said.

These training exercises will continue through the beginning of February, at which point the group will be certified for deployment, which is scheduled to begin shortly after that.