In a former life, I spent a good bit of time in and out of Stennis Space Center in that great green buffer zone along Mississippi’s Pearl River back when I was doing a lot more federal contract firearms training and, besides all the NASA stuff and the Navy’s AGOR/METCOM guys, there is also another very low-key tenet DOD tenant on the huge complex– the river rats of Special Boat Team 22 and NAVSCIATTS.
The Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School dated back to the 1960s and was based at Rodman in the Canal Zone for decades, specializing in running a hands-on schoolhouse for teaching riverine warfare, mainly to students from Latin America. Basically the Navy’s version of the old Army’s School of the Americas.
These days, they have expanded their reach but still run regular courses for brown water navies and coast guards from not only down south but from points more Asia, Africa, and the Middle East as well. They recently posted some photos of AFRICOM students on a training ex in the muck of the Pearl River showing some interesting watercraft.
“NAVSCIATTS students from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) area of operations participate in a Patrol Craft Officer Riverine training exercise on the Pearl River near the John C. Stennis Space Center, Dec. 2, 2020. Our 21-1 semester consists of AFRICOM students from Chad, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierre Leon, and Togo. (Photos by Michael Williams)”
Note the twin M240 GPMGs. Now that’s a go-getter
While SBT22 runs 33-foot SOC-Rs (built here in Gulfport), the NAVSCIATTS schoolhouse seems to be using some pretty neat Gator-Tail aluminum skiffs. Made in Loreauville Louisiana, Gator-Tail is well-known (around here anyway) for their mud motor outboards, which are ideal in moving around in the swamp and bayou where traditional motors would get gummed up by vegetation and sediment every five feet.
Speaking of which, it is getting duck season.