Landing Ship Medium requirements in final approvals with Navy, Marines
By Megan Eckstein
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are nearing agreement on the requirements and cost of the Landing Ship Medium program, formerly called the Light Amphibious Warship, after the services previously diverged in their visions for this program, officials said.
The capability development document for the program has been drafted and is working its way through the approval process now, Brig. Gen. Marcus Annibale, the director of expeditionary warfare on the chief of naval operations’ staff, said Tuesday at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference.
Annibale called this a “chief procurement goal” for his office, which would serve as a “key maneuverability capability for a Marine littoral regiment or stand-in forces” operating in the Pacific. He’s aiming to award a contract and get the LSM program into construction in fiscal 2025.
The Marines originally envisioned a vessel that would each carry about 75 Marines and their gear, would resemble a commercial vessel and could beach itself for shore-to-shore operations. The service was looking to buy 35 units for about $100 million to $130 million apiece starting in FY22.
The Navy — which must manage and buy this shipbuilding program despite it being a Marine Corps priority — postponed the start of the program to FY23 and then to FY25, at first citing a too-tight shipbuilding budget and then citing a need to reconsider the survivability and lethality of the ship, which would support Marine Corps operations but be crewed by Navy sailors. Amid this debate over requirements, the cost ballooned to perhaps $350 million a copy.
Vice Adm. Scott Conn, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities, said during the same panel discussion that there had been a “healthy friction” over the requirements and cost of the ship but that “there is no daylight between us” on the importance of getting this small ship out to the fleet.
Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, said during the panel discussion that his office, working with Conn’s and Annibale’s teams and the Program Executive Office for Ships, “found some pretty good middle ground on recoverability and vulnerability additions we’re going to put into the medium landing ship, LSM, that I think are going to be very helpful.”
“A very large part of the concept initially was, low cost, large numbers, hide in plain sight. We did not want to look like a military vessel. We’re talking about the most traversed maritime lanes in the world; we needed to look and sound like other vessels, to make it a little more difficult” for China or other adversaries to detect Marines on these ships.
Though the discussions with the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense had previously led to much greater requirements for capability and survivability, and therefore much greater cost, “we’re coming back around to the size and correspondently the cost … where we initially had our sights,” Heckl said.
Conn acknowledged that this back-and-forth delayed the program and “it will be late to need.” The Marines’ specialized stand-in force unit, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, is on track to hit initial operational capability in September, years ahead of the 2028 first delivery of the LSMs they’ll operate from.
Still, Annibale said his directorate is working to ensure the program can move quickly from here, awarding a contract in FY25 and preparing industry to hit the ground running.
The Navy awarded five concept design study contracts for the program to begin a dialogue with builders, though the detail design and construction contract will be open to any company.
Annibale said PEO Ships commander Rear Adm. Tom Anderson will host an industry engagement day after the capability development document is signed. He hopes this will be a chance for the Navy and Marines to explain what they want to do with this ship and why, which may inspire better ideas from engineers than will the thick stack of paper outlining the formal requirements.
Maj. Gen. Roger Turner, the director of the operations directorate at the Marines’ Plans, Policies and Operations, explained during the discussion the need for the Landing Ship Medium.
The laydown of forces in the Indo-Pacific is vastly different today than just a few years ago; the service is currently conducting or recently held major exercises in the Philippines and Japan, respectively; Marines have rotated into Australia for the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin six-month deployment; for the first time in 22 years, the Southern California-based Marine expeditionary unit spent its entire deployment in the Pacific instead of passing through en route to the Middle East; and Marines are focused on areas like Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and the South China Sea.
To support all this movement to and from Pacific islands, the service needs traditional amphibious warships, and it needs the Landing Ship Medium — a requirement that will be filled in part by a surrogate stern landing vessel until the LSM program delivers to the fleet.
Turner said the change in laydown is partly due to strategy but also drive by “the bad behavior of the [People’s Republic of China] in that they are basically frightening everybody in the region with their behavior and the like. So the allies and the partners are thirsty for American security partners, and they’re looking to build trust and capabilities integrated with our capabilities” — and for smaller navies that spend their time operating in and out of archipelagos, the LSM program is just what the Marines need to do this job, he said.
US Navy News
Re: US Navy News
Sourcing Parts for Submarine Maintenance a 'Wicked Hard Problem', Said Navy Official
April 5, 2023
By Laura Heckmann
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — As the Navy continues to prioritize readiness, sins of the past are presenting challenges for the future as the service attempts to revamp and rethink its maintenance and sustainment efforts, according to one senior Navy official.
“We tend to hyperfocus on get the flying saucer out the door, get it under budget, with all the capabilities, and then we’ll let the fleet worry about how they’re going to sustain it,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth Epps, commander of Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support.
Speaking at a panel on ship and submarine maintenance at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition Apr. 4, Epps said “that has worked for us for some time … until now. And we are living with the results of decisions made decades ago that are eating our lunch.”
“We took some risk on sustainment,” Epps said. “We said, ‘We’ll figure this out, or these parts that we built will last forever, so you’ll never need to replace them.’ And then we took the boats out and we broke them and now we have to replace them.”
The Navy’s on-time maintenance delivery percentage is 40 percent, said Vice Adm. William Galinis, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, during the panel. That rate applies to private and public sector yards, he added. Private sector yards are running at 90 to 95 percent on getting material on site in time.
“I can't say we're doing the same thing on the on the public sector side,” he said.
Epps said getting parts for submarines is difficult, and a “wicked hard problem to solve.” The reason has to do with two types of materials: small and big. Small materials are the kind where the Navy can go out and contract to get the parts, Epps said.
But there’s a larger narrative where every weapon system must be properly “big,” he said. “When we go out and build a new aircraft, submarine, ship, there is a very complex ecosystem that supports not only getting the key performance parameters, but also the sustainment.”
The number one challenge in the [original equipment manufacturing] world is obsolescence, Epps said.
“Not that they just stopped making them, but business is incentivized to go toward production, and to keep up with pace and demand,” he said. “Oftentimes we’ll run out of stuff, and we just kind of keep going … pulling parts, until we can’t anymore.” They’ll go back to the manufacturer, and the part is no longer made, or the substitute doesn’t exist, he said.
The key is in the acquisition process, he said. Primarily, it’s a conversation about planning. Epps said the service needs to ensure the planning and the material ordering are married in a way that both can be successful.
Most other problems the Navy encounters, they can begin the cycle to correct the mistakes they’ve made — math problems they can solve, he said. “We cannot solve that problem when an OEM stops making something and their production line ends, and this boat is going to be operating for 30 more years. How do we do that? That is symbolic of the entire supply chain challenge that we live with right now.”
Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage, commander of Navy Regional Maintenance Center and director of surface ship maintenance, modernization and sustainment, said there is also a money piece. He said time recently spent on the Hill revealed “some frustration,” mostly dealing with parts. When pressed on the matter, he said a congressman admitted to not properly funding “sparing accounts,” or spare parts.
But it’s not just a money problem, Epps said. The discussion needs to change — a dialogue he said started two years ago, and has already begun a “foundational shift” for sustainability and self-sufficiency.
Another hindrance to the Navy’s maintenance and sustainment efforts is its antiquated shipyard infrastructure, in some cases dating back before World War II, said Rear Adm. Dean VanderLey, commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems and Chief of Naval Engineers.
The Navy’s answer is the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or SIOP. The plan is a once-in-a-lifetime investment the Navy is making in its four public shipyards, VanderLey said. In many cases, the yards were built at a time when their mission was “very different” than the mission they’re executing today, and as a result, the configuration and layout are “not great,” he added.
The plan focuses on three areas: dry dock capability and capacity, addressing a recapitalization and modernization of the facilities and infrastructure and a recapitalization of the industrial equipment, VanderLey said.
The plan has involved industrial modeling work developing what VanderLey called “area development plans,” or master plans, to ensure the shipyards aren’t built back the same way. The service is “really looking at how we can build back the infrastructure in a way that maximizes the effectiveness and the efficiency of the maintenance that’s going on there and really create a return on investment.”
Shipyards need people, and Rear Adm. Scott Brown, deputy director of NAVSEA Industrial Operations, said they are at the center of it all. Listing goals in capacity, throughput and safety, Brown said his highest priority is the safety of their people.
Brown also acknowledged the hiring challenge currently facing the Navy and spoke to several initiatives in place to improve pay for artisans in the shipyards. One such effort is a promotion for expert mechanics, something that has never been done before, he said.
“You reach a certain journeyman level in the shipyards and historically you cap out,” he said. “You’ve now given them a promotion ability … to become a master in their trade.”
The Navy also needs to offer support to their people wholistically, said Ver Hage. “Are they financially healthy? Do they feel valued? Do they get the right medical care? Physical fitness, mental fitness?”
Making the maintenance cycle more livable for employees “is fundamentally about whole-person support,” he said.
Overall, Ver Hage said he sees “real progress” in maintenance and sustainment from both industry and the Navy. “Not enough progress, but real progress. We’re certainly pulling together and on a campaign to get better.”
April 5, 2023
By Laura Heckmann
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — As the Navy continues to prioritize readiness, sins of the past are presenting challenges for the future as the service attempts to revamp and rethink its maintenance and sustainment efforts, according to one senior Navy official.
“We tend to hyperfocus on get the flying saucer out the door, get it under budget, with all the capabilities, and then we’ll let the fleet worry about how they’re going to sustain it,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth Epps, commander of Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support.
Speaking at a panel on ship and submarine maintenance at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition Apr. 4, Epps said “that has worked for us for some time … until now. And we are living with the results of decisions made decades ago that are eating our lunch.”
“We took some risk on sustainment,” Epps said. “We said, ‘We’ll figure this out, or these parts that we built will last forever, so you’ll never need to replace them.’ And then we took the boats out and we broke them and now we have to replace them.”
The Navy’s on-time maintenance delivery percentage is 40 percent, said Vice Adm. William Galinis, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, during the panel. That rate applies to private and public sector yards, he added. Private sector yards are running at 90 to 95 percent on getting material on site in time.
“I can't say we're doing the same thing on the on the public sector side,” he said.
Epps said getting parts for submarines is difficult, and a “wicked hard problem to solve.” The reason has to do with two types of materials: small and big. Small materials are the kind where the Navy can go out and contract to get the parts, Epps said.
But there’s a larger narrative where every weapon system must be properly “big,” he said. “When we go out and build a new aircraft, submarine, ship, there is a very complex ecosystem that supports not only getting the key performance parameters, but also the sustainment.”
The number one challenge in the [original equipment manufacturing] world is obsolescence, Epps said.
“Not that they just stopped making them, but business is incentivized to go toward production, and to keep up with pace and demand,” he said. “Oftentimes we’ll run out of stuff, and we just kind of keep going … pulling parts, until we can’t anymore.” They’ll go back to the manufacturer, and the part is no longer made, or the substitute doesn’t exist, he said.
The key is in the acquisition process, he said. Primarily, it’s a conversation about planning. Epps said the service needs to ensure the planning and the material ordering are married in a way that both can be successful.
Most other problems the Navy encounters, they can begin the cycle to correct the mistakes they’ve made — math problems they can solve, he said. “We cannot solve that problem when an OEM stops making something and their production line ends, and this boat is going to be operating for 30 more years. How do we do that? That is symbolic of the entire supply chain challenge that we live with right now.”
Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage, commander of Navy Regional Maintenance Center and director of surface ship maintenance, modernization and sustainment, said there is also a money piece. He said time recently spent on the Hill revealed “some frustration,” mostly dealing with parts. When pressed on the matter, he said a congressman admitted to not properly funding “sparing accounts,” or spare parts.
But it’s not just a money problem, Epps said. The discussion needs to change — a dialogue he said started two years ago, and has already begun a “foundational shift” for sustainability and self-sufficiency.
Another hindrance to the Navy’s maintenance and sustainment efforts is its antiquated shipyard infrastructure, in some cases dating back before World War II, said Rear Adm. Dean VanderLey, commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems and Chief of Naval Engineers.
The Navy’s answer is the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or SIOP. The plan is a once-in-a-lifetime investment the Navy is making in its four public shipyards, VanderLey said. In many cases, the yards were built at a time when their mission was “very different” than the mission they’re executing today, and as a result, the configuration and layout are “not great,” he added.
The plan focuses on three areas: dry dock capability and capacity, addressing a recapitalization and modernization of the facilities and infrastructure and a recapitalization of the industrial equipment, VanderLey said.
The plan has involved industrial modeling work developing what VanderLey called “area development plans,” or master plans, to ensure the shipyards aren’t built back the same way. The service is “really looking at how we can build back the infrastructure in a way that maximizes the effectiveness and the efficiency of the maintenance that’s going on there and really create a return on investment.”
Shipyards need people, and Rear Adm. Scott Brown, deputy director of NAVSEA Industrial Operations, said they are at the center of it all. Listing goals in capacity, throughput and safety, Brown said his highest priority is the safety of their people.
Brown also acknowledged the hiring challenge currently facing the Navy and spoke to several initiatives in place to improve pay for artisans in the shipyards. One such effort is a promotion for expert mechanics, something that has never been done before, he said.
“You reach a certain journeyman level in the shipyards and historically you cap out,” he said. “You’ve now given them a promotion ability … to become a master in their trade.”
The Navy also needs to offer support to their people wholistically, said Ver Hage. “Are they financially healthy? Do they feel valued? Do they get the right medical care? Physical fitness, mental fitness?”
Making the maintenance cycle more livable for employees “is fundamentally about whole-person support,” he said.
Overall, Ver Hage said he sees “real progress” in maintenance and sustainment from both industry and the Navy. “Not enough progress, but real progress. We’re certainly pulling together and on a campaign to get better.”
-
Johnnie Lyle
- Posts: 2876
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 2:27 pm
Re: US Navy News
Good.
Damn shame it cost 17 lives for the Navy to remember how to teach seamanship and navigation, but at least they improved things.
Damn shame it cost 17 lives for the Navy to remember how to teach seamanship and navigation, but at least they improved things.
Re: US Navy News
Yes, but you still haveJohnnie Lyle wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 11:56 pm Good.
Damn shame it cost 17 lives for the Navy to remember how to teach seamanship and navigation, but at least they improved things.
The OOD is not the primary lookout, nor are they there to training the boatswain lookouts. Their primary task is to maintain situational awareness, maneuver the ship so that it doesn't come into hazard, and lead the bridge crew.“You almost feel over-prepared for some of the positions that you’re in because when you get to the ship, you’re not doing anything close to what you were doing [in the simulator.] You’re conning, which has its own aspects to it that are a little challenging,” said Hoefner. “You’re going to be looking out the windows the entire time when you’re on watch. You’re the primary lookout on the ship. You should be training the boatswain lookouts that are rotating through on the bridges.”
OTOH, the one providing the quote was a wet-behind-the-ears LTJG on their first deployment.
Re: US Navy News
For the life of me, I don't see why we can't build a few dedicated training ships. I mean, other navies do.
The sailors would get practical experience at sea and hopefully check off some qualifications before they reach their first assignment.
The sailors would get practical experience at sea and hopefully check off some qualifications before they reach their first assignment.
Re: US Navy News
Navy cancels ‘Snakehead’ large undersea drone competition after decade of development
By Justin Katz
April 12, 2023
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — The Navy has cancelled a previously planned industry competition to manufacture a large unmanned undersea vehicle, Breaking Defense has learned.
The program, the Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, also dubbed Snakehead, has been in development for more than a decade and has produced at least one prototype vessel that measures roughly four feet in diameter and is seven-to-eight feet long.
“The original acquisition strategy for LDUUV planned a competitive contract for phase 2 industry prototyping, but this was cancelled due to the decision to pause the program,” said Alan Baribeau, a Navy spokesman, told Breaking Defense in response to an inquiry. “Future acquisition strategy plans will be reassessed as the Navy continues experimentation, study, and planning for this class of UUVs.”
Breaking Defense previously reported the service had opted to restart research and development efforts in fiscal 2024, following a pause that was driven in last year’s budget by uncertainty in how the drone could be deployed from a next-generation attack submarine.
“We needed to align with the next generation SSN(X)… So, when the Virginia Payload Module that was going to be the primary launch [and] recovery method for LDUUV went away, then our way to get on and off submarines went away,” said Capt. Scot Searles, the program manager, during the Sea Air Space exposition earlier this month.
The program previously planned on the Naval Undersea Warfare Center working with industry to develop a preliminary design. Companies would then compete to be the prime contractor responsible for producing the UUV.
With that competition cancelled, and only $7 million requested in the new president’s budget to continue experimenting with the current prototype, the Navy may be left with a large gap in its family of UUVs at a time the service leaders say they are ready to integrate the technology more deeply into the fleet.
The next step up in UUVs is the Boeing-made Extra Large UUV, called Orca, which is anticipated to first deploy in 2026. That drone, however, is too large to be carried by a submarine and must deploy from pier-side.
Stepping down in size, the service is working with Leidos on its Medium, and HII on its Small, UUVs, both of which can be useful to the Navy in their own rights, but will always lack the long distances and powerful batteries that larger unmanned vessels can accommodate.
By Justin Katz
April 12, 2023
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — The Navy has cancelled a previously planned industry competition to manufacture a large unmanned undersea vehicle, Breaking Defense has learned.
The program, the Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, also dubbed Snakehead, has been in development for more than a decade and has produced at least one prototype vessel that measures roughly four feet in diameter and is seven-to-eight feet long.
“The original acquisition strategy for LDUUV planned a competitive contract for phase 2 industry prototyping, but this was cancelled due to the decision to pause the program,” said Alan Baribeau, a Navy spokesman, told Breaking Defense in response to an inquiry. “Future acquisition strategy plans will be reassessed as the Navy continues experimentation, study, and planning for this class of UUVs.”
Breaking Defense previously reported the service had opted to restart research and development efforts in fiscal 2024, following a pause that was driven in last year’s budget by uncertainty in how the drone could be deployed from a next-generation attack submarine.
“We needed to align with the next generation SSN(X)… So, when the Virginia Payload Module that was going to be the primary launch [and] recovery method for LDUUV went away, then our way to get on and off submarines went away,” said Capt. Scot Searles, the program manager, during the Sea Air Space exposition earlier this month.
The program previously planned on the Naval Undersea Warfare Center working with industry to develop a preliminary design. Companies would then compete to be the prime contractor responsible for producing the UUV.
With that competition cancelled, and only $7 million requested in the new president’s budget to continue experimenting with the current prototype, the Navy may be left with a large gap in its family of UUVs at a time the service leaders say they are ready to integrate the technology more deeply into the fleet.
The next step up in UUVs is the Boeing-made Extra Large UUV, called Orca, which is anticipated to first deploy in 2026. That drone, however, is too large to be carried by a submarine and must deploy from pier-side.
Stepping down in size, the service is working with Leidos on its Medium, and HII on its Small, UUVs, both of which can be useful to the Navy in their own rights, but will always lack the long distances and powerful batteries that larger unmanned vessels can accommodate.
Re: US Navy News
US Navy aims to field manned-unmanned fleet within 10 years
By Megan Eckstein
April 12, 2023
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to operate a fleet of crewed and unmanned platforms within the next 10 years — an ambitious timeline that will require the service to quickly develop and mature autonomous systems, while ensuring confidence in the technology.
In the air, for example, the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems set to replace the Super Hornet fighter fleet will include a combination of the piloted F/A-XX fighter with drones dubbed loyal wingmen. This is something the Navy already budgeted for, even as it’s only barely scratched the surface of testing how a large UAV can interact with the air wing.
Still, the Navy is confident unmanned technology will be central to nearly everything it does in the future, according to Vice Adm. Scott Conn, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities. Indeed, the chief of naval operations has called for six D’s — more distance, deception, defense, distribution, delivery and decision advantage — and unmanned can play a role in most or all of those.
Conn told Defense News in an April 4 interview that early operations of large unmanned aircraft, surface systems and underwater vessels will likely be tethered to a manned platform as the Navy learns to trust the technology. A fighter pilot by trade, Conn likened unmanned systems to the smart weapons affixed to fighter jets.
“I’ve carried a lot of them, and I’ve employed a few of them. Not one of them was very smart; they were obedient. They did what they were told,” Conn said at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference.
Similarly with unmanned systems, he added, “how do we assure that those — whether it’s in the air, on the surface or in the subsurface — are going to be obedient in terms of what they’re programmed to do in a complex environment? And until we have a full understanding of that level of obedience, then they’re probably going to be tethered to a ship [or] another aircraft.”
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday made similar remarks to reporters later that day, discussing the potential use of unmanned vessels for resupplying Marines in the Pacific.
“We do see great potential in leveraging unmanned in a lead/follow-like manner … to sustain a force forward. If you think about what we’re doing in the air with Next Generation [Air Dominance], where you would have a quarterback that would be a manned [tactical aircraft] with unmanned as his or her wingmen, same kind of approach,” Gilday said.
Conn said the Navy views its modernization efforts as a three-FYDP process, referring to the Future Years Defense Program that lays out budget plans five years in advance. In this first FYDP, from fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2028, the Navy is investing in buying and testing unmanned prototypes. In the second FYDP, from FY29 through FY33, the manned-unmanned fleet will become reality.
That means the service needs to modify aircraft carriers now so they can accommodate the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker, which Conn called this decade’s “pathfinder” for the Next Generation Air Dominance drones that will join the air wing.
On the ocean surface, that schedule means the Navy must stress the hull, mechanical and electrical systems on unmanned surface vessel prototypes to ensure they can operate for weeks and months without human intervention. The service must also gain confidence in the sensing and autonomy technology of the USVs through operations in complex environments. And the Navy needs to develop networks, combat systems and payloads to make these USVs operationally effective.
Several leaders at Sea-Air-Space presented updates on key unmanned programs. Here are a few:
Large USV
Gilday outlined a path to award a construction contract on the first Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles in FY25.
“The [capability development document] is being developed right now. It will deliver in ’23, and it actually lays out the specific requirement for LUSV,” he said during a lunchtime speech April 4.
Meanwhile, the Navy is turning to industry to begin tests on engineering plant designs that are reliable enough to operate for a month or more at sea without human intervention.
He told reporters after his speech that “within two months, we’ll be doing land-based engineering testing” at commercial test locations. Rather than wait until the Navy finalizes requirements and selects a vendor to put its design through round-the-clock operations ashore, the service plans to start testing multiple industry offerings now.
Defense News previously reported the Navy would begin industry-led testing even as the service builds a test site at Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division in Pennsylvania.
Following a year of testing at these industry sites, the Navy will “decide how we’re going to put that engineering plant together and then make the investment in a land-based test site up in Philly, where we’ll run that engineering plant just like we’ve done with [destroyers], just like we intend to do with frigate(s),” Gilday said.
Gilday noted the service will complete the requirements document by the end of FY23; the land-based testing at commercial sites will begin in the next two months and wrap up in FY24; and the Navy will select an LUSV builder by the end of FY25.
The Medium USV program — for which there are seven prototypes in the water or on contract to be built — will follow behind the LUSV program. As Gilday explained, LUSV is paving the way in maturing the hardware for unmanned vessels and the software for autonomous behavior.
LUSV is to serve as an adjunct magazine, hauling around missiles that a crewed ship could remotely launch. MUSV will carry sensing and non-kinetic weapons payloads.
Even as this programmatic work on LUSV continues, Gilday said, the Navy must also invest in making the Large and Medium vessels operationally useful. He noted the service will experiment with underway refueling, remote firing, and new payloads for surveillance, electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare and more.
“We’re going to improve our ability to command and control this ocean of things that a manned and unmanned navy brings to the fore,” he added.
Orca XLUUV
The Navy’s first Extra Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicle hit the water in March for testing, after years of delays to the program.
The Government Accountability Office wrote in a November 2022 report that “the XLUUV effort is at least $242 million or 64 percent over its original cost estimate and at least 3 years late. The contractor originally planned to deliver the first vehicle by December 2020 and all five vehicles by the end of calendar year 2022. The Navy and the contractor are in the process of revising the delivery dates. But both expect the contractor to complete and deliver all five vehicles between February and June 2024.”
Capt. Scot Searles, the unmanned maritime systems program manager at the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, acknowledged it took a while to work through technological and production challenges on what he called a first-of-kind, 85-ton, diesel-electric submarine.
Searles said the tech challenges are solved, though some industrial base and supply chain issues remain.
The first delivered XLUUV, called XLE-0, will serve as a test asset. After hitting the water last month, the “initial results are good,” Searles explained, though he warned testing is still in its nascent stage.
The purpose of this test vehicle is to rapidly “test, fix, test” and allow builder Boeing to insert changes into the five Orcas in production.
“Instead of building it very quickly fives times wrong, let’s go build it once, figure out is it right or is it wrong, figure out how to make it better, and then implement all those changes before you start final assembly” on the five vehicles, he said during an April 4 program update at Sea-Air-Space.
Boeing has about 90% of the material on hand for the five vehicles. The remaining 10% is caught up in supply chain backlogs. Resulting delays “are in the order of about 12 weeks,” Searles said.
Despite delays and ongoing supply chain concerns, Searles said the Navy plans to push an XLUUV forward for operations by FY26.
Snakehead LDUUV
The Navy’s Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle was all but canceled in FY23, given the service didn’t ask for funding, and Congress didn’t provide it.
Searles said this was due to a decision that made Snakehead less useful in the short term: The LDUUV was supposed to be compatible with the Virginia Payload Module inserted into the Block V Virginia-class submarines, allowing the subs to launch and recover these drones underwater. But that submarine-UUV interface was dropped from the Virginia Payload Module design, Searles added, meaning the Navy’s next chance to pursue it wouldn’t come until the Navy designs and builds its next-generation attack submarine, SSN(X), in the 2030s.
So the Navy nixed Snakehead.
But members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees agreed there was a place for a large UUV in the fleet, and they told the Navy to keep the program hanging by the barest of threads.
“We understand significant advances in commercial technology have occurred since the start of the Snakehead LDUUV program and believe commercially available LDUUVs operated independently from submarines could be rapidly fielded to address current Department of Navy mission needs and capability gaps,” according to a statement accompanying the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act.
The law directed the Navy secretary to conduct analysis and experimentation “with the objective of identifying commercially available LDUUVs that could be fielded as rapidly as possible and deployed at scale as early as fiscal year 2024.”
Searles said Snakehead was revived — sort of. The Navy is now using the last of its FY22 funds to wrap up some experimentation. There was no funding in FY23, but the service did ask for about $7 million in FY24 to continue Snakehead experimentation.
If Congress grants that money, the Navy wants to begin testing Snakehead in deeper waters, having only operated it in shallow waters to date, Searles said.
The captain added that the congressionally mandated market research is underway. As the Navy understands what large UUVs are on the market, it will determine a formal path forward.
By Megan Eckstein
April 12, 2023
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to operate a fleet of crewed and unmanned platforms within the next 10 years — an ambitious timeline that will require the service to quickly develop and mature autonomous systems, while ensuring confidence in the technology.
In the air, for example, the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems set to replace the Super Hornet fighter fleet will include a combination of the piloted F/A-XX fighter with drones dubbed loyal wingmen. This is something the Navy already budgeted for, even as it’s only barely scratched the surface of testing how a large UAV can interact with the air wing.
Still, the Navy is confident unmanned technology will be central to nearly everything it does in the future, according to Vice Adm. Scott Conn, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities. Indeed, the chief of naval operations has called for six D’s — more distance, deception, defense, distribution, delivery and decision advantage — and unmanned can play a role in most or all of those.
Conn told Defense News in an April 4 interview that early operations of large unmanned aircraft, surface systems and underwater vessels will likely be tethered to a manned platform as the Navy learns to trust the technology. A fighter pilot by trade, Conn likened unmanned systems to the smart weapons affixed to fighter jets.
“I’ve carried a lot of them, and I’ve employed a few of them. Not one of them was very smart; they were obedient. They did what they were told,” Conn said at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference.
Similarly with unmanned systems, he added, “how do we assure that those — whether it’s in the air, on the surface or in the subsurface — are going to be obedient in terms of what they’re programmed to do in a complex environment? And until we have a full understanding of that level of obedience, then they’re probably going to be tethered to a ship [or] another aircraft.”
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday made similar remarks to reporters later that day, discussing the potential use of unmanned vessels for resupplying Marines in the Pacific.
“We do see great potential in leveraging unmanned in a lead/follow-like manner … to sustain a force forward. If you think about what we’re doing in the air with Next Generation [Air Dominance], where you would have a quarterback that would be a manned [tactical aircraft] with unmanned as his or her wingmen, same kind of approach,” Gilday said.
Conn said the Navy views its modernization efforts as a three-FYDP process, referring to the Future Years Defense Program that lays out budget plans five years in advance. In this first FYDP, from fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2028, the Navy is investing in buying and testing unmanned prototypes. In the second FYDP, from FY29 through FY33, the manned-unmanned fleet will become reality.
That means the service needs to modify aircraft carriers now so they can accommodate the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker, which Conn called this decade’s “pathfinder” for the Next Generation Air Dominance drones that will join the air wing.
On the ocean surface, that schedule means the Navy must stress the hull, mechanical and electrical systems on unmanned surface vessel prototypes to ensure they can operate for weeks and months without human intervention. The service must also gain confidence in the sensing and autonomy technology of the USVs through operations in complex environments. And the Navy needs to develop networks, combat systems and payloads to make these USVs operationally effective.
Several leaders at Sea-Air-Space presented updates on key unmanned programs. Here are a few:
Large USV
Gilday outlined a path to award a construction contract on the first Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles in FY25.
“The [capability development document] is being developed right now. It will deliver in ’23, and it actually lays out the specific requirement for LUSV,” he said during a lunchtime speech April 4.
Meanwhile, the Navy is turning to industry to begin tests on engineering plant designs that are reliable enough to operate for a month or more at sea without human intervention.
He told reporters after his speech that “within two months, we’ll be doing land-based engineering testing” at commercial test locations. Rather than wait until the Navy finalizes requirements and selects a vendor to put its design through round-the-clock operations ashore, the service plans to start testing multiple industry offerings now.
Defense News previously reported the Navy would begin industry-led testing even as the service builds a test site at Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division in Pennsylvania.
Following a year of testing at these industry sites, the Navy will “decide how we’re going to put that engineering plant together and then make the investment in a land-based test site up in Philly, where we’ll run that engineering plant just like we’ve done with [destroyers], just like we intend to do with frigate(s),” Gilday said.
Gilday noted the service will complete the requirements document by the end of FY23; the land-based testing at commercial sites will begin in the next two months and wrap up in FY24; and the Navy will select an LUSV builder by the end of FY25.
The Medium USV program — for which there are seven prototypes in the water or on contract to be built — will follow behind the LUSV program. As Gilday explained, LUSV is paving the way in maturing the hardware for unmanned vessels and the software for autonomous behavior.
LUSV is to serve as an adjunct magazine, hauling around missiles that a crewed ship could remotely launch. MUSV will carry sensing and non-kinetic weapons payloads.
Even as this programmatic work on LUSV continues, Gilday said, the Navy must also invest in making the Large and Medium vessels operationally useful. He noted the service will experiment with underway refueling, remote firing, and new payloads for surveillance, electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare and more.
“We’re going to improve our ability to command and control this ocean of things that a manned and unmanned navy brings to the fore,” he added.
Orca XLUUV
The Navy’s first Extra Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicle hit the water in March for testing, after years of delays to the program.
The Government Accountability Office wrote in a November 2022 report that “the XLUUV effort is at least $242 million or 64 percent over its original cost estimate and at least 3 years late. The contractor originally planned to deliver the first vehicle by December 2020 and all five vehicles by the end of calendar year 2022. The Navy and the contractor are in the process of revising the delivery dates. But both expect the contractor to complete and deliver all five vehicles between February and June 2024.”
Capt. Scot Searles, the unmanned maritime systems program manager at the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, acknowledged it took a while to work through technological and production challenges on what he called a first-of-kind, 85-ton, diesel-electric submarine.
Searles said the tech challenges are solved, though some industrial base and supply chain issues remain.
The first delivered XLUUV, called XLE-0, will serve as a test asset. After hitting the water last month, the “initial results are good,” Searles explained, though he warned testing is still in its nascent stage.
The purpose of this test vehicle is to rapidly “test, fix, test” and allow builder Boeing to insert changes into the five Orcas in production.
“Instead of building it very quickly fives times wrong, let’s go build it once, figure out is it right or is it wrong, figure out how to make it better, and then implement all those changes before you start final assembly” on the five vehicles, he said during an April 4 program update at Sea-Air-Space.
Boeing has about 90% of the material on hand for the five vehicles. The remaining 10% is caught up in supply chain backlogs. Resulting delays “are in the order of about 12 weeks,” Searles said.
Despite delays and ongoing supply chain concerns, Searles said the Navy plans to push an XLUUV forward for operations by FY26.
Snakehead LDUUV
The Navy’s Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle was all but canceled in FY23, given the service didn’t ask for funding, and Congress didn’t provide it.
Searles said this was due to a decision that made Snakehead less useful in the short term: The LDUUV was supposed to be compatible with the Virginia Payload Module inserted into the Block V Virginia-class submarines, allowing the subs to launch and recover these drones underwater. But that submarine-UUV interface was dropped from the Virginia Payload Module design, Searles added, meaning the Navy’s next chance to pursue it wouldn’t come until the Navy designs and builds its next-generation attack submarine, SSN(X), in the 2030s.
So the Navy nixed Snakehead.
But members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees agreed there was a place for a large UUV in the fleet, and they told the Navy to keep the program hanging by the barest of threads.
“We understand significant advances in commercial technology have occurred since the start of the Snakehead LDUUV program and believe commercially available LDUUVs operated independently from submarines could be rapidly fielded to address current Department of Navy mission needs and capability gaps,” according to a statement accompanying the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act.
The law directed the Navy secretary to conduct analysis and experimentation “with the objective of identifying commercially available LDUUVs that could be fielded as rapidly as possible and deployed at scale as early as fiscal year 2024.”
Searles said Snakehead was revived — sort of. The Navy is now using the last of its FY22 funds to wrap up some experimentation. There was no funding in FY23, but the service did ask for about $7 million in FY24 to continue Snakehead experimentation.
If Congress grants that money, the Navy wants to begin testing Snakehead in deeper waters, having only operated it in shallow waters to date, Searles said.
The captain added that the congressionally mandated market research is underway. As the Navy understands what large UUVs are on the market, it will determine a formal path forward.
Re: US Navy News
Navy begins long haul to inactivate second nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz
Meanwhile, the decommissioned Enterprise remains at Newport News Shipbuilding awaiting its final disposal.
By Justin Katz
April 13, 2023
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — The Navy this month began planning the years-long ordeal to defuel and dispose of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz (CVN-68), only the second ship of its kind to undergo that process.
The fiscal 2024 budget request extends the Nimitz’s service life by 13 months, from April 2025 to May 2026, a Navy spokeswoman told Breaking Defense. But the disposal process for a massive warship, commissioned in 1975, that has long carried nuclear reactors requires the service to begin planning years in advance.
To do that, the Navy has tapped HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding to help establish the requirements, according to a publicly available notice posted last week to the government’s contracting website, SAM.gov.
“Our Newport News Shipbuilding team is experienced at inactivating and defueling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. We look forward to leveraging our expertise and industrial relationships to team with the Navy on preparing for the defueling and inactivation of USS Nimitz (CVN 68),” said HII spokesman Todd Corillo.
As the Navy and HII begin work on how to safely shut down the Nimitz, the former aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-65), which was decommissioned back in 2017, is also awaiting its final disposal. That ship is sitting at Newport News Shipbuilding just a few hundred yards away from where the next ship to carry its name is being built.
The process for how the Navy defuels and inactivates the former Enterprise will likely set precedents the service will follow when disposing of the Nimitz and other nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. But all aircraft carriers are not alike. Jamie Koehler, the Navy spokeswoman, told Breaking Defense that while the ships are similar in type, they also contain significant design differences which will be reflected in the disposal process.
“Ex-Enterprise and Nimitz are similar in that they are large, rugged ships containing low levels of various hazardous materials. However, they are of considerably different design, so the approach to inactivation will reflect those differences,” she said. “Any disposal options that involve Nimitz will be evaluated to ensure [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance, as is currently being done with ex-Enterprise.”
One of the key reasons the disposal process for the Enterprise has taken this long is because it will be the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the service has had to defuel and the Pentagon is obligated, under the National Environmental Policy Act, to minimize potential harm to the environment.
The latest step in the process involved the Navy publishing a draft environmental impact statement in August 2022, a document that outlines a handful of options.
The first involves employing a commercial dismantlement facility for non-radiological portions of the ship, while the reactors would be transported to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard “for recycling, construction of eight single reactor compartment packages, and shipment by barge to the Port of Benton near the Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site, and via a multiple-wheel, high-capacity transporter to the DOE Hanford Site for disposal,” according to the draft impact statement.
The second method is largely the same as the first, except the service would construct “four dual reactor compartment packages” rather than eight. “The packages would be heavier and larger than reactor compartment packages currently transported to the Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site under the existing Navy program,” the statement adds.
The third alternative, which the Navy indicates is its preferred method, involves contracting with industry for all parts of the disposal, including the reactors. “The Navy is evaluating three locations for commercial dismantlement: the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area, Virginia; Brownsville, Texas; and Mobile, Alabama,” according to the impact statement.
The Navy said it prefers this option because it allows workers at Puget Sound to stay focused on fleet maintenance, rather than diverting their attention to the Enterprise.
In its environmental impact statements, the Navy also routinely includes a “no action alternative,” which in this case states the service would effectively have to keep the former Enterprise in port indefinitely and continue to monitor and maintain its nuclear components.
The draft statement was subjected to a period of public comment last year which has now closed. Koehler, the Navy spokeswoman, said the final impact statement is expected to be published by the end of 2023.
Koehler also did not directly address a question about whether the Nimitz would require a separate environmental impact statement, except to say the Navy would comply with NEPA.
Meanwhile, the decommissioned Enterprise remains at Newport News Shipbuilding awaiting its final disposal.
By Justin Katz
April 13, 2023
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — The Navy this month began planning the years-long ordeal to defuel and dispose of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz (CVN-68), only the second ship of its kind to undergo that process.
The fiscal 2024 budget request extends the Nimitz’s service life by 13 months, from April 2025 to May 2026, a Navy spokeswoman told Breaking Defense. But the disposal process for a massive warship, commissioned in 1975, that has long carried nuclear reactors requires the service to begin planning years in advance.
To do that, the Navy has tapped HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding to help establish the requirements, according to a publicly available notice posted last week to the government’s contracting website, SAM.gov.
“Our Newport News Shipbuilding team is experienced at inactivating and defueling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. We look forward to leveraging our expertise and industrial relationships to team with the Navy on preparing for the defueling and inactivation of USS Nimitz (CVN 68),” said HII spokesman Todd Corillo.
As the Navy and HII begin work on how to safely shut down the Nimitz, the former aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-65), which was decommissioned back in 2017, is also awaiting its final disposal. That ship is sitting at Newport News Shipbuilding just a few hundred yards away from where the next ship to carry its name is being built.
The process for how the Navy defuels and inactivates the former Enterprise will likely set precedents the service will follow when disposing of the Nimitz and other nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. But all aircraft carriers are not alike. Jamie Koehler, the Navy spokeswoman, told Breaking Defense that while the ships are similar in type, they also contain significant design differences which will be reflected in the disposal process.
“Ex-Enterprise and Nimitz are similar in that they are large, rugged ships containing low levels of various hazardous materials. However, they are of considerably different design, so the approach to inactivation will reflect those differences,” she said. “Any disposal options that involve Nimitz will be evaluated to ensure [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance, as is currently being done with ex-Enterprise.”
One of the key reasons the disposal process for the Enterprise has taken this long is because it will be the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the service has had to defuel and the Pentagon is obligated, under the National Environmental Policy Act, to minimize potential harm to the environment.
The latest step in the process involved the Navy publishing a draft environmental impact statement in August 2022, a document that outlines a handful of options.
The first involves employing a commercial dismantlement facility for non-radiological portions of the ship, while the reactors would be transported to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard “for recycling, construction of eight single reactor compartment packages, and shipment by barge to the Port of Benton near the Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site, and via a multiple-wheel, high-capacity transporter to the DOE Hanford Site for disposal,” according to the draft impact statement.
The second method is largely the same as the first, except the service would construct “four dual reactor compartment packages” rather than eight. “The packages would be heavier and larger than reactor compartment packages currently transported to the Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site under the existing Navy program,” the statement adds.
The third alternative, which the Navy indicates is its preferred method, involves contracting with industry for all parts of the disposal, including the reactors. “The Navy is evaluating three locations for commercial dismantlement: the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area, Virginia; Brownsville, Texas; and Mobile, Alabama,” according to the impact statement.
The Navy said it prefers this option because it allows workers at Puget Sound to stay focused on fleet maintenance, rather than diverting their attention to the Enterprise.
In its environmental impact statements, the Navy also routinely includes a “no action alternative,” which in this case states the service would effectively have to keep the former Enterprise in port indefinitely and continue to monitor and maintain its nuclear components.
The draft statement was subjected to a period of public comment last year which has now closed. Koehler, the Navy spokeswoman, said the final impact statement is expected to be published by the end of 2023.
Koehler also did not directly address a question about whether the Nimitz would require a separate environmental impact statement, except to say the Navy would comply with NEPA.
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clancyphile
- Posts: 473
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 11:28 am
Re: US Navy News
Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
Saves the scrapping issue.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4191
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: US Navy News
You'd still have to remove the reactors.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
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Johnnie Lyle
- Posts: 2876
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 2:27 pm
Re: US Navy News
Completely unaffordable, though.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
Re: US Navy News
Unaffordable for a ship that big.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
Re: US Navy News
Speaking of big ships, how is the Midway museum doing? I believe that's your neck of the woods.Poohbah wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:44 amUnaffordable for a ship that big.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
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MikeKozlowski
- Posts: 1503
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: US Navy News
...There's actually been some discussion of saving her island (or substantial chunks thereof) to the Mariner's Museum, though I'm not sure how far that's gotten.Johnnie Lyle wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 12:31 amCompletely unaffordable, though.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
Mike
Re: US Navy News
It's doing OK, because it's a labor of love for everyone concerned, and it's a major events center as well.James1978 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 6:52 amSpeaking of big ships, how is the Midway museum doing? I believe that's your neck of the woods.Poohbah wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:44 amUnaffordable for a ship that big.clancyphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 10:54 pm Here's a thought... museum ship for ex-CVN-65.
Saves the scrapping issue.
Re: US Navy News
TRANSCOM’s Unreadiness
By Seth Cropsey
March 27, 2023
U.S. Sealift is Insufficient for a Major Power War
The United States is a maritime power in disarray, as the U.S. Navy’s current woes indicate: the Navy cannot build enough ships, with designs from the 1980s, to maintain the fleet’s current size, nor can it keep ships in the active battle force to preserve a fleet large enough to even maintain an acceptable balance of forces against China.
Yet the issue of sealift may be more critical, and more eroded, than that of active combat capacity. American political figures should take note, and resource the U.S.’ maritime transport capabilities as thoroughly as what is required to sharpen the U.S.’ naval combat fleet’s power.
America is a bizarre maritime power. From the view of national interest, the U.S. is indisputably a maritime nation. It exists at significant remove from Eurasia, but fundamentally depends upon the free flow of goods along Eurasia’s littorals, and between Eurasia and the Americas, for its political-economic model to be sustained. In this sense, the U.S. is a maritime power in the same mold as the UK or Imperial Japan, with a distinct interest in the freedom of the seas, stable international chokepoints, and most fundamentally, an existential interest in the denial of any power or coalition hegemony upon the Eurasian landmass.
Yet the U.S. is also a continental power, one that has a historical industrial heartland, massive agricultural capacity, and energy reserves large enough to sustain domestic and international consumption. There is a distinct strain in American strategic thought, driven by this hybrid nature, that downplays the role and relevance of Eurasia in American policy and towards American interests. This strain has sought all sorts of quick-fixes to the American strategic problem, including the overwhelming deployment of nuclear weapons, the exclusive use of airpower, and the continuous underestimation of naval power.
Even American navalists misunderstand the role of maritime strength in U.S. policy. The U.S. must fight every war in an expeditionary manner. The reality of a great-power war, or even a limited war on the Eurasian rimland, is that it will be fought thousands of miles from the United States, and therefore requires the U.S. to transport men and materiel over those thousands of miles of the open ocean, and do so continuously – after all, even the Korean police action of 1950-1953 required hundreds of thousands of troops, multiple aircraft carriers, and a continuous “tail” of ships to support the forward-deployed force in the field.
America’s strategic “tail”, the critical link between the continental United States and the Eurasian landmass, is as brittle as a thin sheet of ice. U.S. TRANSCOM, the umbrella for each service’s transportation functions, is far smaller than what it was during even the Gulf and Iraq Wars. Most critical among TRANSCOM’s service elements, however, is Military Sealift Command (MSC), the U.S. Navy’s logistics component. The U.S. Army’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) manages supply flows to units on the ground and ensures they reach port rapidly and in the correct numbers. Meanwhile, the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC) maintains rapid-deployment capacity and the essential tool that is the U.S. tanker fleet of range-extender aircraft. But MSC, given its maritime nature, carries the bulk of the materiel needed in any major conflict.
MSC maintains a number of ships under its continuous control for sustainment of peacetime operations. But these ships are grossly insufficient to support a wartime surge. For that, MSC would need to turn to chartered ships, almost invariably crewed by U.S. Merchant Mariners. This has been the case, whether the U.S. charters a major supplementary fleet or moves mothballed ships out of storage, since the Second World War.
The distinction today is that the U.S. Merchant Marine lacks the ships and mariners to execute a major expansion in a great-power conflict, while the U.S. Navy and military more broadly has no experience defending American logistics from enemy predation.
The U.S. Merchant Marine is comprised of under 200 vessels that can carry over 1,000 tons, of which 152 the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) considers as having military utility. Even in 1996, decades after the U.S. Merchant Marine’s 1950s-1970s global market peak, the U.S. Merchant Marine still maintained 320 relevant ships. The U.S., to sustain major Eurasian combat operations, and assuming no damage to American logistics, would need some three times this force at minimum for a large-scale Eurasian war and, of equal relevance, to ensure that U.S.-bound shipping remains regular enough to sustain the American economy.
The U.S. could purchase several hundred ships from foreign buyers. American allies, most notably South Korea and Japan, are both major shipbuilders. Japan in particular is expanding its merchant ship construction industry to compete with South Korea and China, specializing in liquified natural gas (LNG) powered ships, which the U.S. would be especially suited to use considering its domestic reserves.
Yet this would solve only part of the issue. Only one institution, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), trains mariners with a service obligation in crisis. The USMMA produces just over 200 graduates per year and has not received a funding injection in decades – one of its major academic facilities quite literally lacks in-building toilets and heating. It will take several years for the U.S. at minimum to train enough mariners to crew new ships, assuming the USMMA were to maximize class capacity and receive funding to sustain training programs.
In turn, the issue of adversary logistics targeting comes to the fore. The most vulnerable and least adequate part of the American military is its logistics system. The same system is the lynchpin in conducting successful expeditionary warfare. U.S. adversaries, particularly China in the Indo-Pacific, will target American and allied ports and logistics vessels to disrupt the U.S.’ long-term sustainment capacity and cripple U.S. military power after just weeks of war.
The solution is as clear as it is difficult. The U.S. must expand its merchant capacity through foreign purchasing, ensure that the USMMA has the financing to produce the merchant mariners the U.S. so desperately requires, and construct the warships needed to defend American logistics during a great power war.
Re: US Navy News
MARAD Head ‘Not At All Confident’ Ready Reserve Fleet Could be Crewed in a Crisis
By: John Grady
March 29, 2023
The head of the Maritime Administration “was not at all confident” that all the ships in the Ready Reserve Fleet could be crewed if called to duty in a crisis.
The United States was already short 1,8000 credentialed mariners for its vessels before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, retired Rear Adm. Ann Phillips said Tuesday in a joint hearing of the House Armed Services readiness and seapower and projection forces subcommittees.
She pointed to the addition of five more vessels transferred from Military Sealift Command to MARAD control and retirements of an aging workforce as likely pushing the gap for merchant mariners even higher.
While the House Armed Services Committee last year approved a grant program for MARAD to expand its Centers of Excellence program to attract and retrain mariners, there were no funds set aside to pay for it.
Phillips said programs like that are essential for the future, and MARAD is working closely with community colleges, union schools and others to demonstrate to young people there are careers open to them.
“We have to have ships for them to sail on,” she said.
But the questions facing MARAD is who does it have and if they will said, Phillips asked rhetorically. She referred both to the age of the ships in the fleet and the workforce. In her opening statement, she noted that the Ready Reserve Fleet is increasingly “difficult and challenging” to repair. Some of its vessels use propulsion systems that were retired decades ago in commercial shipping and exist in no other vessels.
At the same time, space for repair in the nation’s shipyards is at a premium with the Navy, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and commercial shippers needing dry dock work. USNI News reported four Puget Sound dry docks were pulled from service over concerns of their viability to survive major seismic event. Should there be a mention of the timeline to reopen here?
The nation is “a generation late” in modernizing its roll-on, roll-off ships critical to military sealift, Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, head of Transportation command, said. She and others noted the ships’ average age is 44, and 17 of them are over 50.
The remark caused Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), chairman of the readiness panel to say he saw “a red-light cluster” blinking.
The age and condition of the MARAD fleet “just screams out” for attention, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-R.I., and ranking member of the seapower panel, said, citing reports of problems in their readiness to supply Ukraine.
During her opening remarks, Waltz said the sealift fleet had concerning readiness rates in recent exercises.
Van Ovost said Transportation Command was analyzing the results of the 2022 Turbo Activation exercise and using better metrics so it would have more confidence in being able to assess the fleet’s readiness.
“We have not yet seen the return on investment” in various modernization efforts and reforms that followed after the 2019 exercise, Van Ovost said. Only 40 percent of the ships involved in the exercise were capable of being put to sea on short notice.
When asked, Van Ovost said that recapitalizing the Ready Reserve Fleet is on a schedule of buying two used vessels and modifying them for military use and also building would not be complete until 2032.
One way to speed construction would be follow the model used in Philadelphia to build Empire State VI for MARAD, Courtney said. In Philadelphia, there was a designated vessel construction manager whose duties were to keep the building on schedule and held to the fixed price.
Phillips confirmed the vessel is being delivered “on time and on budget.”
“Accelerating the recapitalization … will be very helpful,” Van Ovost said. It would also allow these ships to be ready to operate under cyber threat and in a contested environment.
Phillips said the first two used vessels – Cape Arundel and Cape Cortes — to begin modernizing the Ready Reserve Fleet have been made, and MARAD is moving ahead to buy three more starting in April. Both modified vessels were in the American roll-on/roll-off Carrier program and are being transferred from Defense Department control to MARAD in the Department of Transportation.
MARAD also will take possession of Empire State VI, its first National Security Multi-Mission vessel this year. Empire State will first see service as an up-to-date training ship for New York’s Maritime Academy, but can also serve in humanitarian and disaster relief missions. The next four will go to the other state maritime academies.
Phillips and Van Ovost said the Tanker Security Program to overcome shortfalls in fuel delivery and ensure access to U.S.-flagged vessels is progressing on schedule. Phillips expected to add “the next 10 vessels very shortly” and “go to 20 ships in 2024.”
Committee members repeatedly mentioned how important this was for dispersed operations in the Indo-Pacific and even more so now with the closing of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii. The bulk fuel storage facility – used by all services – was ordered closed following leakages into Oahu’s water system.
Van Ovost added the key to future readiness in the air and maritime transportation is “consistent funding [and] a budget on time,” so modernization programs can move along and the command and MARAD can launch new starts.
Continuing resolutions put tight controls on spending to previous year’s spending and even tighter restrictions whether to allow new program starts.
Re: US Navy News
Lack of funds hampers emergency naval fleet from growing faster
By Megan Eckstein
April 6, 2023
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Maritime Administration is pursuing a three-pronged approach to update and grow the nation’s surge sealift capacity, according to its leader Ann Phillips, but she can’t go after the third one until Congress funds it.
Following a 2018 requirements study by the Navy that, among other things, highlighted insufficient sealift, the Defense and Transportation departments developed a plan to recapitalize and extend the service life of some existing ships in the Maritime Administration’s sealift fleet. The plan also kicked off efforts to buy used sealift ships from the commercial market, which Congress authorized and for which the Navy budgeted at a rate of two per year. And finally, plans were made to design and build new ships.
That last one hit a snag last year when the House and Senate armed services committees authorized a new-construction sealift program, but the appropriations committees didn’t fund it.
“We’re moving forward … with all best speed to execute the Vessel Acquisition Management program, the buy-used [effort], with the assets that we have available,” Phillips said during a panel discussion at the Sea-Air-Space conference on April 3. “If an opportunity is presented to accelerate that, that is another way to move forward there.”
“With these three prongs, we’re focusing on the two that we have right now, the tools at our disposal: rehab-wise, and buy used. … As long as we are able to keep doing that, we begin to make headway” in making the sealift fleet larger and more capable, she added. “But we can’t afford a lapse, I’ll be honest there. Any hesitation, and we’re going to start to slip back.”
The Ready Reserve Fleet, which U.S. Transportation Command would call upon to move Army and Marine Corps gear into theater during conflict, and which is required to scramble into service on five days’ notice, is a subset of the Maritime Administration’s larger National Defense Reserve Fleet.
Today the Ready Reserve Fleet includes 45 ships with an average age of 45 years, Phillips said.
In congressional testimony to two House Armed Services Committee panels on March 28, Phillips said the Ready Reserve Fleet would soon grow to more than 50 vessels following both the transfer of a few Military Sealift Command vessels into her administration’s custody and the two-a-year procurement of used vessels from the commercial market.
But that’s still too small, warned military leaders, including Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday.
The Navy is conducting another study on its fleet size requirements based on the 2022 National Defense Strategy and evolving operating concepts like the Joint Warfighting Concept, he said at the Sea-Air-Space panel discussion.
“That applies to sealift as well. And so the sealift we needed, the current figures that we have, are grounded on analysis that was done decades ago. And so that’s an obvious question to ask: The Marines are operating differently. The Army’s operating a little differently. Exactly how much sealift do you need?”
Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, spoke forcefully at the March 28 hearing about the need to more rapidly grow the sealift fleet by building new ships in the United States. Today’s fleet faces an uphill battle to meet its mission due to its age, he said.
Philipps noted at the conference that some Ready Reserve Fleet vessels were activated to move weapons and supplies into Ukraine, but Courtney said in the hearing that mission was hampered due to ships breaking down.
‘Made in America’
Meanwhile, the Philly Shipyard is building a training ship — a National Security Multi-Mission Vessel — for the nation’s maritime academies. The business could continue building that same ship design to support the Ready Reserve Fleet, but only if appropriators earmark enough money for this last piece of the three-pronged approach.
Courtney called the training ship “one of the most promising ‘made in America’ programs.” These academy training ships already face the prospect of being scrambled into service in response to a military or first responder emergency, he added, but once the shipyard finishes building the five training ships, it could continue the production line and build more, albeit specifically devoted to sealift missions.
The shipyard “was almost down to 20 workers when this program started; it’s 2,000 today. And the fact is that they can take on more after they are done with this maritime training ship procurement, which is to basically have a ‘made in America’ sealift fleet. We do not need to be buying ships overseas on the used market. When will we learn the lesson of COVID, that international supply chains cannot be relied on in terms of price or accessibility, and we need to bring back the commercial and shipyard sector in this country? And we showed with this program that we can actually do it,” Courtney said in the hearing.
He later noted that the acquisition model used for this — the Maritime Administration hired a vessel construction manager to ensure the program stayed on track — has led the first ship, the Empire State, to remain on schedule and on budget. It will deliver to the Maritime Administration this summer.
In contrast to this predictability, he said he’s heard anecdotally that the pricing and availability of used ships isn’t steady right now, as demand for moving commercial goods globally remains high.
“I’m certainly ready to do everything I can to talk to appropriators about the fact that we really should not just put all our eggs in the commercial market” and should, instead, pay to build new ships.
The armed services committees last year wanted to build 10 new ships, and Courtney said he’d continue his push for funding to do so.
Re: US Navy News
CNO: ‘Very Important’ to Add 2nd Constellation-class Shipyard, Build 4 Frigates a Year
By: Sam LaGrone
April 18, 2023
Navy leadership wants to expand construction of its new guided-missile frigate to four ships per year as soon as practical, service leaders told the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday.
By the end of the year, the service expects Constellation-class (FFG-62) shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine to have the technical data package ready for a second shipbuilder to start constructing more Connies, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in response to SASC ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)
“We’re actually waiting for the completion of the technical design package, which is expected by the end of this year,” Del Toro said.
“We will review it and at that point, we’ll make a decision on whether we have the ability to actually take that technical data package and make sure that it’s mature enough to actually compete for another shipyard so that we can have two shipyards.”
In follow-up comments to Wicker’s questions, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the service would want both Marinette and the second yard to each eventually produce two Connies a year.
“I think it’s very important … that we could get to the second shipyard and a two-a-year [rate] from each shipyard,” he told the committee.
Marinette started fabrication on the first ship, Constellation (FFG-62), last year after a $795 million award in 2020. The Navy exercised options for the second frigate Congress (FFG-63) in 2021 and Chesapeake (FFG-64) last year.
The call for four Constellations a year is a departure from the Navy’s current long-range outlook for the frigate line. Based on two of the three alternatives in Fiscal Year 2024 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Navy is not planning to hit a sustained two-a-year rate for frigates until the 2030s.
The current “saw-tooth” pattern alternates the buy between one and two frigates every two years through 2027 for a total of seven in the current five-year budget outlook.
While the shipbuilding plan, also released on Tuesday, is a placeholder ahead of the Navy’s planned force structure assessment due in June, the new report gave insight into why the service would want to accelerate the line.
“Increased numbers of smaller multi-mission combatants, such as Constellation-class Frigates (FFG 62), enable more efficient distribution of missions across the surface fleet, freeing up the more capable [guided-missile destroyers] for critical high-end missions,” reads the long-range shipbuilding plan, obtained by USNI News on Tuesday.
The current Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have been tasked with low-intensity missions as part of individual deployments, like providing host platforms for Coast Guard law enforcement missions.
The 7,300-ton frigate is based on the Italian and French navies’ FREMM frigate, but was heavily modified to meet U.S. military survivability standards, growth margins and government-furnished equipment. Leidos subsidiary Gibbs & Cox reworked the original design.
The Navy bought the guided-missile combatant after intense congressional pressure led by the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was highly critical of the Littoral Combat Ship program and wanted the Navy to pursue a warship with more capabilities, like expanded anti-air capabilities and anti-submarine warfare roles.
Included in the terms after Fincantieri Marinette Marine won the original contract in 2020 was service ownership of the technical data packages needed to build the ship so the Navy could hold a competition for the second yard.
Gulf Coast yards Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., have both positioned themselves to take on roles as the second frigate yard. Austal, which once only built aluminum ships, has stood up a steel line to expand the types of ships it can build. Ingalls is completing the final National Security Cutters for the Coast Guard and has construction capacity available.
In the hearing, Gilday stressed that maximizing production is the Navy’s goal across the seven yards that build warships.
“Two shipyards is in the plan,” Gilday said. “We want to make sure that we’re measuring twice and cutting once before that decision is made.”
Re: US Navy News
No Timeline Yet to Add Tomahawk, SM-6 to Constellation Frigates, Says Program Manager
By: Sam LaGrone
April 11, 2023
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The Navy is still working through a timeline to meet a congressional mandate to add Standard Missile 6 and the Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to future Constellation-class guided-missile frigates, service officials told USNI News.
A requirement from the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act directed the Navy Secretary to add SM-6s and Tomahawks to the Connies starting with the second hull. The frigates, based on the Italian and French navies’ FREMM frigate, are multi-mission, but will specialize in anti-submarine warfare.
The original design of the 7,300-ton frigate called for a 32-cell Mark 41 vertical launch system that would field the smaller Evolved Seasparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 2 anti-air missile and the SM-2 Block IIICs.
In an explanatory statement accompanying the FY 2023 NDAA, Congress said it wants the integration of the Tomahawk to serve as a test bed for a virtualized system to control the Tomahawk and to experiment with the missile options for future unmanned surface vehicles.
“The committee notes the Navy is developing and fielding ‘virtualized’ weapons control system technology, including systems to support its vision for Tomahawk-capable unmanned surface vessels. The committee believes the FFG-62 class should include optimized Tomahawk Weapons System hardware and software, which would both provide a necessary lethality increase for the FFG-62 class and serve as a key technical risk reduction advance in realizing Tomahawk-capable USVs,” reads the statement.
“The committee believes that jumping directly to Tomahawk-capable USVs without first having ensured that the FFG-62 class is Tomahawk-capable presents excessive technical risk in such USV programs.”
SM-6 and Tomahawks are larger missiles and require a longer version of VLS and additional software – and in the case of Tomahawk – additional control stations.
Constellation-class frigate program manager Capt. Kevin Smith told USNI News last week that the program office, Naval Air Systems Command and Naval Sea Systems Command are working to feather the new requirements into the frigates starting with the second frigate, but there is no firm timeline.
“It’s been very clear to me from my leadership, we don’t want to make changes to the baseline until we get to a certain point,” Smith said in a response to a question from USNI News at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space symposium.
“From an Aegis perspective, with the [Aegis] common source library, you can imagine SM-6 may not be that far out of reach … Tomahawk is a little different. If you were trying to install a Tomahawk suite, like on a Flight III [Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer], it wouldn’t fit on a frigate.”
Constellation (FFG-62) is under construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine’s shipyard in Wisconsin following a $795 million contract award that the Navy issued the yard in 2020. Since then, the service has awarded follow-on contracts for Congress (FFG-63)in 2021 and Chesapeake (FFG-64) last year.
The first hull is set to deliver to the Navy by Fiscal Year 2026. The service will then install the new capabilities on the other ships in the class.
“The plan here is to get at that after we get through our initial operational capability and our test events. We are working right now with NAVAIR, as well as NAVSEA on a roadmap to get us that capability,” Smith said.
“Nothing is decided quite yet but we are working on meeting the tenant and language, but right now the plan is not to cause any disruption to the lead ship as far as production and integration.”