US Navy News

[James1978]

Citing shipyard squeeze, Navy wants commercial option for dismantling nuclear-powered carrier
By Justin Katz
July 10, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Navy has published the final draft of its environmental impact statement assessing how it should go about dismantling the former aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-65), a process that will likely set decades-long precedents for future nuclear-powered ships.

Environmental impact statements, as the name implies, are lengthy documents that outline the dangers to the ecosystem that disposing of decades-old nuclear reactors can pose, as well as identify one of several courses of action with which the Navy prefers to move forward. Due to the numerous state and federal agencies that must weigh in, as well as considering the general public’s comments, the documents often take years to produce and finalize.

In this case, the Navy’s preferred method involves contracting with commercial industry to dispose of the former ship’s nuclear components. In its final impact statement, published June 30, the service says the other two alternatives, which would rely heavily on employing one of the public shipyards, would negatively impact the Navy’s ability to conduct maintenance on the operational fleet.

“As a result of growing workload due to a higher fleet operational tempo and capacity shortages across all of the Navy public shipyards, [Puget Sound Naval Shipyard] is challenged to execute their current and projected workload with existing and planned facilities,” according to the impact statement. “Leveraging options to perform ex-Enterprise disposal at commercial facilities is advantageous to the Navy and allows [Puget Sound Naval Shipyard] to prioritize the limited public shipyard infrastructure and workforce for active fleet maintenance.”

If the service were to use Puget Sound for the dismantlement, it estimates the work would not finish until between 2030 and 2040, whereas the Navy believes a commercial company could finish the job “sooner and at a lower cost.”

Under the law that requires the Navy to produce these impact statements, the service also must present a “no action alternative,” which would essentially require the service to store the former Enterprise in port indefinitely.

In April, the service published a notice indicating it would begin discussions with HII about going through the same process for the second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier slated for inactivation, the Nimitz (CVN-68). HII, which has long been the prime contractor for the US Navy’s aircraft carriers, has had the former Enterprise at its dock in Newport News, Va., while the Navy works through the process of planning its dismantlement.

A Navy spokeswoman today told Breaking Defense the service will wait 30 days for the public to review the final impact statement before moving forward to select a contractor.

“After the wait period, the Navy will select an alternative and issue a record of decision. Once the record of decision is issued, the Navy will be able to begin the standard contracting process,” she said.

[James1978]

USS Boxer Water Incident Prompts House Lawmakers to Call for Navy Accountability
12 Jul 2023
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin

A group of House lawmakers is demanding answers and accountability from the Navy in the wake of an [ur=https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... crew.htmll]exclusive Military.com repor[/url]t that found that the USS Boxer sickened its own crew by intentionally dumping fuel into the ocean.

In a Wednesday letter obtained by Military.com, four House members of the California delegation and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee asked Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro to "hold accountable those responsible for this incident." They also urged Del Toro to brief Congress on the Navy response to the contamination incident in 2016.

Military.com used interviews with key personnel who were on the ship at the time of the incident, as well as documents obtained from sources and the Navy, to piece together the story in June of how sailors on the Boxer chose to dump the fuel, how it contaminated the ship's water supply, and the health impacts on the crew. Following the story's release, veterans groups also began calling for answers.

"It is critical that we learn from this incident to prevent similar situations from happening again," the lawmakers wrote in the letter to the Navy.

While on a deployment in 2016, sailors in the USS Boxer's engineering department were ordered to dump fuel into the ocean by a senior enlisted sailor. Sailors who served on the ship said that, while the procedure is not uncommon, it requires the ship to keep moving to prevent sucking contaminated water into the drinking water system.

However, in this case, the exact opposite happened: The ship stopped, causing the crew's water to become tainted, according to sailors who were aboard the ship and documents from that time. Following the Military.com reporting, the Navy publicly admitted for the first time that the contamination occurred.

The ship was not ready to deal with the massive contamination that ensued. Rations of bottled water quickly ran out. Crew members were told that if they wanted drinking water, they could buy it from the ship's store but soon that ran out too.

Meanwhile, sailors and Marines were told by the ship's top doctor that the water was safe and, eventually, they had no choice but to drink, bathe and cook with it.

The letter is signed by California Reps. Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin, Scott Peters and Juan Vargas, as well as Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., the ranking member on the Armed Services' seapower and projection forces panel. The lawmakers demanded that the Navy provide details on the contamination -- as well as answer why it took the service seven years to publicly acknowledge the contamination.

The Messenger was the first outlet to report on the letter.

A spokesperson for Del Toro said that they "look forward to responding to and working with our partners in Congress on this matter."

The Boxer contamination is not an isolated incident. Last fall, the Navy acknowledged that it had had two recent instances of water contamination aboard aircraft carriers.

One, aboard the USS Nimitz, involved jet fuel -- often referred to by its official designation, JP-5 -- getting into the water supply after the crew tried to clean a water tank that they didn't realize contained the substance. The other involved bacteria in the water system aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln.

However, in both instances, the admissions came after sailors posted details and images of the contamination on social media.

The contamination on the Boxer lingered for months until the ship was able to pull into Dubai and fully flush and clean the entire drinking water system. However, years later, service members from that deployment told Military.com they are experiencing health problems that range from skin and eye issues to infertility.

In addition to demanding answers on how the incident was allowed to happen in the first place, the lawmakers say they want to know what steps the Navy is taking to prevent similar contamination in the future, and whether the service is working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to help address the disability claims of those affected.

"We have a responsibility to protect the health and quality of life of our service members, so it is vital that we prioritize their well-being, offering comprehensive and high-quality health care, as proof of our commitment to their service," the five lawmakers wrote.

There is a significant amount of uncertainty surrounding the actual effects of diesel ingestion or inhalation on the body. As a result, many of the sailors and Marines on the Boxer who spoke to Military.com have been left wondering whether the 2016 incident is connected to any health issues they are now experiencing.

Military.com is not aware of any disciplinary action taken against any of the leaders on the Boxer connected to the incident.

The ship's commander, Capt. Michael Ruth, has since retired from the Navy. The senior enlisted sailor who ordered the fuel be dumped was later selected to become a chief warrant officer, but he too has retired from the service.

Other officers, like the ship's chief engineer and senior medical officer, appear to still be in the Navy.

"Incidents such as the one on the USS Boxer not only endanger the lives of our sailors and Marines but also risk undermining the trust of current and potential future service members, consequently jeopardizing our recruitment and retention efforts," the lawmakers wrote.

[James1978]

Navy Raises Battle Force Goal to 381 Ships in Classified Report to Congress
By: Sam LaGrone
July 18, 2023

The Navy is now more than 80 ships short of the latest estimate of what the sea service thinks it needs to fulfill the Biden administration’s national security strategy.

The Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement, a congressionally-mandated report, requires 381 ships, up from 373 in the 2022 report, the first year it was released. As of Monday, the Navy’s battle force was 299 ships.

“The analytics-based report determined a future battle force objective of 381 ships is required to meet future campaigning and warfighting demands,” the Navy said in a statement given to USNI News.
“This report supports the 2022 National Defense Strategy and will inform future budget submissions and force structure requirements. The 2023 BFSAR reinforces the need for a larger, more capable, more distributed naval force.”

The details of the report are classified with no unclassified report planned to be released, Navy officials told USNI News on Tuesday.

“The Navy will continue to work with Congress and discuss the classified report, which was submitted in accordance with law,” reads the statement.
”A classified report enables the Navy to share greater insights and information about force structure requirements and the composition of our Navy.”

The requirement for the BFSAR was created to get an unvarnished assessment of what the Navy needed directly from the service after complaints from the Hill and after the Office of the Secretary of Defense took control of the service’s force structure assessment process in 2020.

A week after the BFSAR was released last year, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday outlined its public Force Design 2045 plan with additional details and a breakdown of the 373 total.

“In the 2040s and beyond, we envision this hybrid fleet to require more than 350 manned ships, about 150 large unmanned surface and subsurface platforms, and approximately 3,000 aircraft,” reads last year’s NAVPLAN.
“Strategic competition with China is both a current and long-term challenge. Focusing our force design on 2045 will inform the most consequential decisions and investments the Navy needs to make in the critical decade ahead.”

The report was delivered to Congress on June 20 with no announcement, and several legislative sources contacted by USNI News this week were unaware the report had arrived.

The service did say that the report said the Navy had a “future objective” in the report for 31 amphibious ships and that the analysis affirmed the amphibious ship total.

The future of the amphibious force has been a major point of friction between Congress, the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Former commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger testified multiple times this year that there was no path to the 31 amphib force while construction of new gators were undergoing a “strategic pause.”

“Since 2019, four Department of the Navy studies… have examined amphibious ship force structure requirements. With slight variations, each found that an inventory of between 31 [to] 28 L-class ships and up to 35 LAW are necessary for naval forces to sustain consistent forward-deployed campaigning objectives and reliably react to unforeseen contingencies,” Berger wrote a letter to Congress, USNI News reported in May.

The total does not include unmanned ships the Navy is currently developing, the service told USNI News.

“While unmanned platforms are not counted in the battle force, they are additive to Battle Force ships and will continue to be an important part of the Navy. Modeling incorporated the use of unmanned platforms. Additional analysis is required to determine future unmanned vehicle inventory objectives,” reads the statement.
“The Navy has and continues to focus on unmanned capabilities on, above, and below the sea.”
Other details from the BFSAR were not made available.

The NAVPLAN from 2022 called for a notional unmanned force of 150 ships.

Under the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan released in April, the service would reach a battle force of 367 by 2053 in its most optimistic funding scenario.

The BFSAR is one of almost a dozen overlapping reports, studies and analyses that have all called for the Navy to grow significantly since 2016. At the time, then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, in opposition to Pentagon leaders at the time, called for a fleet of 355 ships in the fleet assessment. Congress quickly enshrined the 355-ship total into law as part of the Fiscal Year 2018 budget bill.

More recently, the Navy has been more reluctant to be as bold and public about what it needs, naval analyst Bryan Clark told USNI News

“There’s a big question on why not be public on the number,” he said.
“The Navy has been in the mode to obscure what it needs to do because they are under budgetary constraints and can’t meet those goals.”

[James1978]

Selling the P-8A Poseidon Short
By Giselle Donnelly & Gary Schmitt
July 20, 2023

At the end of June, the State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency gave the green light to the Royal Canadian Air Force to purchase up to $6 billion worth of P-8A Poseidon submarine-hunting aircraft, the U.S. Navy’s most sophisticated land-based maritime patrol plane. The announcement came just two days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned from a trip to Iceland to discuss common concerns about Arctic security. NATO’s Nordic states – including prospective new member Sweden – voiced increasing worries not only about the Russian presence in the far north but the meaning of China’s declaration that it considers itself a “near Arctic” nation with a regional interest. The United States, too, has long urged the Trudeau government to bolster its contributions to North American defense.

Yet Ottawa may have waited too long. Not only is State Department approval just the first step in the bureaucratic process of procurement – and Trudeau is under domestic pressure to purchase a similar-but-less-capable aircraft from Canadian maker Bombardier – but the U.S. Navy, under increasing budget pressure, has for several years wanted to stop buying the P-8A. That’s bad news for other American allies, too; the British Royal Navy has acquired 9 P-8s and has expressed an interest in possibly acquiring six more. Terminating the program would also leave the U.S. Navy with fewer sub-hunters than it needs. The decision to cease buying Poseidons also ignores one of the most profound lessons of the Russo-Ukraine War: The Western defense industrial base is dangerously atrophied.

Right now, there are 161 P-8s in service worldwide. In addition to the U.S., the UK, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, and India are operating the plane. The bulk of the 161 are flown by the US Navy, with Boeing having delivered 117 and a total of 128 on contract.

In the spring of 2018, the Navy set a warfighting requirement for the P-8s of 138. So, the Navy is ten planes short of that requirement. That’s not great, but it could have been worse: the only reason the fleet was even close to what it should be is that, in the 2021 budget, Congress added 9 additional aircraft to the Navy’s acquisition program. The Pentagon’s intent was to stop procuring P-8s at 118—a full 20 planes short of what the Navy stated it needed.

This tightrope act has been repeated several times. For the past three years, the Defense Department’s budget request had no new monies for closing the existing gap. But, thanks to the budget deal struck in the course of negotiations between the White House and Congress over the debt ceiling, this could well be the year where the safety net is removed. While the House Armed Services Committee has added two new P-8s in its markup of the 2024 Pentagon budget, the Senate’s version of the bill accepts the administration’s decision to stop buying the plane. Of course, the final reckoning will come during the appropriations process, where Congress allocates actual dollars. However, to fail at the authorization stage would likely mean curtains for the program. Hence, the House needs to hold firm in conference to its addition of the two P8s.

Ionically, and in contrast to so many other defense procurements, the Poseidon’s program has been a relative model of management and engineering efficiency—being both delivered on time and under budget. Of course, it helps that Boeing has built more than 11,000 737 airframes, including the larger and more efficient 737-700, the platform for the P-8s electronics and weaponry. However, Boeing’s production lines have almost entirely pivoted to the 737-MAX family, a substantially different airframe. The Pentagon undoubtedly hopes that foreign sales of the P8s will keep the old production line at Boeing up and running until some magical time in the future when the Navy can get back to addressing the existing gap between the fleet size and the

existing warfighting requirement. But, as noted, there is no sure foreign contracts actually on the books right now and procurement of Lot 12 of the P8s will be completed this year and, with the lot’s completion, it is the end of the line. There is no successor system in sight. The shortfall in the P-8A fleet is especially troubling given the sorry state of U.S. Navy submarine readiness. In recent weeks, Ronald O’Rourke, the dean of naval analysis for the Congressional Research Service, released his periodic assessment of the state of the fleet. He found that fully 37 percent of the Navy’s fleet of 50 attack submarines – designated as “SSNs” – were undergoing long-term maintenance or waiting to do so and thus idle and unable to go to sea. The unreadiness rate has roughly doubled over the past decade and has risen above 30 percent every year since 2018. Wrote O’Rourke: “[T]he number of SSNs in depot maintenance or idle has substantially reduced the number…operationally ready at any given moment, reducing the…force’s capacity for meeting day-to-day mission demands and potentially putting increased operational pressure on SSNs that are operationally ready.”

It naturally also places increased stress on the P-8A fleet to be operationally present. Anti-submarine warfare is a complex of systems from underwater sensors, satellites to surface combatants to patrol aircraft to attack submarines. Handicaps or shortcomings in any one element can degrade the overall system. And while the Congress added P-8s in the FY 20and FY 21 budgets, those will go to creating two naval reserve squadrons—obviously useful in a contingency but less so to meet day-to-day requirements.

Since its introduction to active service a decade ago, the P-8A fleet has been busy—and increasingly so. The Navy keeps half of the planes on the East Coast, at Jacksonville, Florida, and the other half at Whidbey Island, Washington, just north of Seattle. As with Navy ships, these are “homeports,” not operational locations and the P-8s are deployed forward across both the Atlantic and Pacific. U.S. regional commanders have an almost insatiable appetite for the planes – and, indeed, for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance systems of all sorts – which is already difficult to satisfy. In contrast with the P-3, the P-8A’s faster airspeed and longer range enable it to cover a wider area in a single mission. Nevertheless, the number of P-8A squadrons is less than half the size of the P-3 Cold War fleet, while—climate change notwithstanding—the world’s contested seas and oceans have not shrunk. Arguably, the stated requirement of 138 P-8s—a requirement set before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the uptick in Chinese maritime aggressiveness in the South China Sea and in the waters around Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines—is too low to start with.

Today’s missions frequently take patrolling P-8s into contested airspace, such as Beijing’s claimed “East China Sea Air Defense Zone” or the skies over the Black Sea. There, they attract the attention of potentially hostile combat aircraft. Both Russian and Chinese fighters periodically “buzz” the planes in a menacing fashion, coming in some cases within a few feet. A Poseidon flying over the Black Sea in April 2022 was asked by Ukrainian armed forces to identify the cruiser Moskva, then the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and confirm its location. Shortly thereafter, two Ukrainian cruise missiles sank the ship.

In sum, it is also almost certain that the true requirement for sub-hunting and maritime patrol aircraft is substantially understated by the Navy. To begin with, there is the rapidly rising challenge of the Chinese navy, both in the surface and sub-surface domains. According to the Pentagon’s most recently published review of Chinese military, Beijing has “placed a high priority on modernizing its submarine fleet,” to become not just a regional but a global power. This means transitioning from older diesel designs augmented by a handful of nuclear-powered attack and ballistic missile boats to quieter designs with more modern acoustic systems and weapons, relatively quiet diesel-powered (air-independent propulsion) submarines and a higher proportion of longer-range nuclear-powered boats. Having expanded its nuclear submarine construction capacity, “The [Chinese navy] will likely maintain between 65 and 70 submarines through the 2020s, replacing older units with more capable units on a near[ly] one-to-one basis,” concludes the report. Chinese surface warships are also increasingly active – even in the South Atlantic – and, closer to home, the Chinese coast guard is becoming equipped with more powerful vessels. And, if that were not enough to worry about, Chinese “maritime militias” routinely harass commercial shipping and fishing boats of other regional nations, including those of U.S. treaty allies.

Russia, too, has taken care to maintain and modernize its submarine fleet of nearly 60 boats. In addition to traditional ballistic missile, diesel-electric and nuclear attack submarines, the Russians have built two massive “mothership” subs that carry one or two deep-sea submersibles that pose a threat to seabed communications cables – or pipelines like Nordstream 2. Russia has also upgraded newer boats, including its quieter diesel sub, with Kalibr cruise missiles, long-range weapons used extensively in the war against Ukraine in strikes against cities and civilian targets.

But perhaps most important, the number of potential maritime hotspots is increasing exponentially, as Canadian, and Nordic concerns about the Arctic and the war in the Black Sea indicate. For the United States, what was the Pacific theater has become the “Indo-Pacific,” emphasizing the criticality of Indian Ocean sea lanes and communications cables – which hug the South Asian coastline – to international commerce; perhaps not surprisingly, India wants to purchase as many as 24 P-8s. Add in, US Navy concerns over Russian attack submarines once again operating in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and keeping track of Iranian and North Korean submarines, and the menu for P-8A keeps expanding and not getting smaller.

It’s true enough that unmanned underwater and above ocean vehicles and platforms may well contribute substantially in the future to the anti-submarine warfare mission. But when and how much is still not known. Moreover, those platforms are no substitute for the command and control and the integration of sensor data that the P-8A can provide. Add in the Poseidon’s capacity to carry stealthy, longer-range air-to-surface cruise missiles, along with a variety of other modern counter-surface and anti-submarine munitions, and you have a stand-off, naval Swiss army knife that can’t help but complicate an adversary’s operational planning.

In other words, the Navy’s myopic and budget-driven decision to terminate P-8A production is momentous, with geostrategic consequences far above and beyond the sea service’s immediate needs. Further, if there is a single lesson of defense industrial policy of the post-Cold-War years, it is that halting current procurements is either a false economy or a pretense of innovation; “divesting to invest,” as “Pentagon propaganda has it, is still divestment, a net loss of both capacity and time. It is also a strong disincentive to defense companies to spend their own money to sustain research, factories, or work forces.

The Congress seems about to make itself a party to this error; while the House Armed Services Committee authorized two P-8s in its version of the annual defense policy bill, it is anyone’s guess that such money will actually be appropriated, thanks to the caps on defense imposed by the recent debt-ceiling negotiations. And since the Senate’s version of the authorization act did not grant authority for additional P-8s, the candle is nearly snuffed out.

As a practical matter, to keep the line open and supplies coming from subcontractors, Boeing needs to be building approximately one P-8A a month. If the Congress can squeeze out the funds for two more Poseidon planes, and Canada responds with an order that follows on rather than aiming at the end of the decade, it’s possible the line can be kept open. But the Navy’s game of acquisition chicken is one that others should refuse to play. It’s a problem for U.S. maritime security and allies who, belatedly, have recognized the need to rebuild their anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capabilities.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Giselle Donnelly and Gary Schmitt are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute.

[James1978]

Stricken sub Connecticut returns to maintenance after dry dock upgrade
By Geoff Ziezulewicz
July 13, 2023

The stricken fast-attack submarine Connecticut has returned to its Puget Sound Naval Shipyard dry dock in Washington state following construction work the Navy says will ensure the dock can better withstand a potential catastrophic earthquake.

Connecticut grounded during a mission in the West Pacific in October 2021, prompting a raft of reforms in the submarine community.

The stealthy and pricey Seawolf-class sub, one of just three, returned to the yard’s Dry Dock 5 on July 12 to continue repairs, with the boat expected to return to service in early 2026, according to Navy officials.

The Navy suspended submarine maintenance work at the four dry docks of the Puget Sound yard in January over concerns about whether they would hold up against a big earthquake, which could happen at any time due to a massive tectonic fault line off the Pacific Northwest coast.

Officials earlier this year emphasized that there was “no immediate risk” and that the work was largely preventative.

Work done on Dry Docks 4 and 5 involved installing anchors inside the dock walls that will enhance structural integrity and ensure the safety of personnel, the submarines and the outside environment, while providing better early warning systems for dock workers, according to the Navy.

Seismic work continues on the Trident Refit Facility Delta Pier at the nearby Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which maintains U.S. Pacific Fleet’s ballistic missile submarines.

Officials determined seismic mitigation work was not required for Dry Dock 6 at the Puget Sound yard because of future planned improvements and the fact that the dock focuses on ships and aircraft carriers.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is the primary location for attack submarine and aircraft carrier maintenance on the West Coast.

The Navy routinely conducts seismic risk assessments on all ashore facilities in earthquake-prone areas. The service has previously performed several of these assessments at Puget Sound and took corrective actions based on the results.

This time, however, more modern scientific techniques and technologies cued the Navy to concerns of which they were previously unaware. So-called Level 1 and Level 2 seismic events “could potentially cause dry dock structural failures that pose a risk to our sailors and workforce and damage to our submarines,” an official explained in January.

[James1978]

After 2-Year Overhaul, Navy Confirms USS Boxer Can't Get Underway

27 Jul 2023
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin

The USS Boxer, one of the Navy's amphibious warships, is struggling to get to sea despite recently coming out of a maintenance period that cost the Navy $200 million and was supposed to ready the ship for the service’s newest fighter jet.

The Boxer was supposed to go to sea on July 21 but couldn’t “because of ongoing maintenance issues,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Force, told Military.com in a statement.

The Navy did not offer details on what issues specifically kept the ship in port, citing “operational security,” but Abrahamson was clear that “the Boxer’s preparation for sea trials identified additional maintenance requirements before the ship could get underway.”

The problems for the Boxer come at a time when they should be least expected -- about a year after the ship left a maintenance period that began in the summer of 2020 and cost $200 million, according to a statement from BAE systems, the contractor for the work.

The most notable upgrade was a new deck that would be able to support the new F-35B Lightning II strike fighter. However, the ship also received work on its hull as well as tank and mechanical work and “other shipboard improvements,” according to BAE’s statement.

The ship began its service in the Navy in 1995, nearly 30 years ago.

Abrahamson confirmed that the Boxer completed this maintenance period "in mid-2022, undergoing upgrades and modernizations to the ship” while other Navy statements highlighted the fact that this overhaul lasted “more than two years.”

After the maintenance period, the ship briefly put to sea in June 2022. Images posted online show the ship at sea with an F-35B fighter flying near the ship’s deck. However, it appears that's the only time the ship managed to set sail since leaving the shipyards.

Abrahamson said that after this cruise, the "Boxer executed additional maintenance requirements in preparation for its sea trial period," but those sea trials have yet to take place.

"The ship expects to begin sea trials in the near future as part of its workup cycle for deployment," Abrahamson said.

Military.com also previously reported that the Boxer had an incident on a 2016 deployment in which its sailors were ordered to dump fuel overboard. That incident resulted in fuel-contaminated drinking water and suspected health impacts for the sailors aboard.

Now, Abrahamson said that "the ship's crew remains focused on readiness and preparing for sea trials and the eventual deployment of the ship."

[James1978]

Lockheed Martin’s new Dry Combat Submersible reaches IOC

By John Hill
July 25, 2023

Lockheed Martin‘s Dry Combat Submersible (DCS), which was manufactured for US Special Operations Command, has reached initial operating capability (IOC) last month, according to a recent announcement by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) on 24 July 2023.

Lockheed designed the DCS to transport a special operations team to their destination and enables personnel to arrive discreetly to their desired exit point.

The unique capability that sets the submersible apart is its lock-in/lock-out technology, which enables US special operators to get in and out of the vehicle while traversing long distances entirely submerged and undetected.

Additionally, Special Operations Forces will be safe to travel long distanced below the surface of the ocean without a wetsuit and without exposure to the elements.

Lockheed manufactures the DCS at its Palm Beach, Florida facility. Sustainment operations will include lifecycle support, post-delivery logistics support, pilot and special operator training, and training equipment to ensure the safe and effective operation of the new capability in future special forces efforts.

“The DCS provides safe, clandestine delivery for occupants over long distances in a completely dry environment and features a lock-in and lock-out chamber.

“Occupants arrive at the mission warm, rested, hydrated and ready, making this vessel a key advantage in mission success,” Gregg Bauer, C6ISR Vice President and General Manager at Lockheed Martin, stated.

The DCS adds to the global underwater warfare market

The ‘Global underwater warfare systems market’ was valued at $4.9bn in 2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.41% by 2032. GlobalData expects it to reach $6.8bn by 2032 and cumulatively value $64.9bn over the forecast period.

The market is expected to be dominated by the Sonar segment, which accounts for 58.8% of the market, followed by Torpedo segment with 13.5% share. The Asia-Pacific dominates the sector with a share of 35.3%, followed by Europe and North America, which shares of 30.0% and 24.6%, respectively.

Submersibles provide little to Special Force operations as the market is dominated by systems that provide particular capabilities, such as tracking, mapping, and torpedo strikes. However, Lockheed Martin’s DCS has entered an untapped potential use case for submersibles, which validates the OEM’s assertion that the submersible’s IOC is a “milestone [that] represents a transformational capability for US Special Operations Command forces in Maritime and Undersea Systems.”

[James1978]

Navy Awards Ingalls 6 Flight III Arleigh Burke Destroyers, Bath Iron Works 3 as Part of 5-Year Deal
By: Sam LaGrone
August 1, 2023

HII Ingalls Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works won contracts to build nine Arleigh Burke-class Flight III guided-missile destroyers (DDG-51) in a five-year deal, according to a Tuesday Pentagon announcement.

The Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding will build six of the nine Burkes from Fiscal Year 2023 to 2027 for the contract while BIW will build the other three, according to the announcement. The contracts include an unspecified number of additional contract options.

Flight III, built around the new AN/SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar, is set to be the replacement for the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser as the primary air defense platform of the carrier strike group.

“These ships were procured using a limited competition between the current DDG 51 class shipbuilders, HII Ingalls and GD BIW, in order to generate the best price for the government and its taxpayers,” reads a statement from Naval Sea Systems Command provided to USNI News.
“This acquisition strategy leveraged competition, fixed-price contracting, and workload stability in order to meet the Defense Department’s overarching objectives of achieving increased capability affordably. This is the fifth MYP for the DDG-51 class shipbuilding program.”

The Navy did not disclose the total value of the contract in the award.

As of the latest estimate, each Flight III costs about $2 billion, a number that includes the Navy providing about $1 billion of equipment for the ship. The cost to build the hull, electrical and mechanical components is $1 billion. However, the cost for each shipyard to build the hull is considered business-sensitive information, the Navy said.

“The dollar values associated with the multiyear contract are considered source selection sensitive information and will not be made public at this time,” reads the announcement.

In 2018, the Navy awarded a similar split contract, with Ingalls awarded $5.1 billion for six Burkes and BIW $3.9 billion for four.

“The Navy considered government and industry objectives to include workload stability at both shipbuilders in developing the competitive strategy. The Navy’s goal was fair competition to continue procurement of the critical Flight III capability for our nation, while maintaining two shipbuilders capable of building DDG 51 class ships and fostering competition for DDG 51 shipbuilding to achieve savings,” reads a statement from NAVSEA.

The difference in the award is an acknowledgment of Bath’s delay in delivering destroyers it’s currently on contract to build, compared to Ingalls, two sources familiar with the award confirmed to USNI News on Tuesday.

“We appreciate the opportunity to build on our history of providing these highly advanced ships for the U.S. Navy fleet and are honored to do our part to contribute to protecting the nation and our families,” reads a statement from BIW president Chuck Krugh. “Flight III destroyers have significantly increased capability, and our skilled shipbuilders are committed to producing ships that meet the quality standards that our Navy sailors deserve.”

BIW delivered USS Carl M. Levin (DDG-120), a Flight IIA destroyer, in January and the ship was commissioned in June.

The Maine yard laid the keel for its first Flight III, Louis H. Wilson (DDG-126), in June.

Bath is working on destroyers Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124), John Basilone (DDG-122), Patrick Gallagher (DDG-127), Quentin Walsh (DDG-132) and William Charette (DDG-130), USNI News previously reported.

Ingalls delivered the first Flight III, Jack Lucas (DDG-125), to the Navy in June. The larger Mississippi yard builds DDGs, San Antonio-class and America-class amphibious warships and is wrapping its final Legend-class National Security Cutter for the Coast Guard.

“It is a privilege for our shipbuilders to build these ships in service of our Navy,” Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement.
“We look forward to the years of stability that this award provides and the opportunity to continue working with our industry partners on this important class of ships.”

Ingalls is currently building four Flight III destroyers at its yard in Pascagoula: Ted Stevens (DDG-128), Jeremiah Denton (DDG-129), George M. Neal (DDG-131) and Sam Nunn (DDG-133).

[James1978]

Navy says destroyer deal helps two yards boost capacity at best pace
By Megan Eckstein
4 August 2023

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy believes a pair of contracts it awarded this week for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers — covering as few as nine and as many as 15 ships over the next five years — is the best way to help two shipyards recover from challenges and increase their output.

However, the quantity — fewer than two per year guaranteed — stands in contrast to another program with multiyear shipbuilding contracts, the Virginia-class attack submarine program, where the government continues to award industry with more work than it can accommodate to help encourage investments.

The destroyer-industrial base is currently running behind schedule. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro previously told Defense News the service is buying two ships a year, but industry is delivering an average of 1.8 annually.

The Navy awarded a pair of five-year, multi-ship contracts to the two prime shipbuilders on the program. HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding will produce six destroyers from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2027. The work will see two in FY25 and one in each of the fiscal years.

General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works will build a ship in FY23, FY24 and FY26.

Those nine ships are the only guarantees to industry, though the contract also covers options for a second ship in FY27 and for a third ship in each fiscal year.

Jay Stefany, the acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters Wednesday he believes the yards’ bids, which led to the Navy picking the 6-3 split, indicated each shipyard knew what its ideal workload would be to get back on track and grow its capacity.

“The way it turned out is probably the best way for each of them to grow, so they bid it in a way that would allow them both to grow … at the right pace for them and their suppliers,” he told Defense News at a media roundtable.

“The contract, I think, allows the two companies [and their suppliers] to continue the recovery from COVID and, in Bath’s case, the strike from two or three years ago,” he said.

He added that the workload “does allow both companies the best path forward” and to “surge or flex” if the Navy requests or Congress demands more than two ships a year.

Rear Adm. Tom Anderson, the program executive officer for ships, said the Navy considered each yard’s workload and throughput as it developed a strategy for writing the request for proposals. Both yards submitted offers for a 6-3 split and a 5-4 split for the nine guaranteed ships, as well as offers for all the optional ships.

Anderson, too, said he believes the yards knew what workload would be most efficient, which affected pricing for the two scenarios and the options. The Navy is not releasing information about the price of the ships because any options that are exercised will undergo competition, with Ingalls and Bath allowed to lower their original bids.

Without getting into specifics, Anderson said the bids also revealed how the two yards are looking at their current and future workforce needs. This is the first contract to include a measure passed into law in the FY23 defense policy bill — Section 122 — which creates a Navy shipbuilding workforce development special incentive and calls for between 0.25% and 1% of the contract value to fund workforce recruiting and retention measures such as training, housing and bonuses.

Anderson later said the Navy’s confidence in the yards’ performance is increasing as they come out of the pandemic.

“We certainly had some challenges with workforce and throughput, but we are seeing improving trends with regards to schedule performance. There are also a number of capital investments that are being made: HII has made their ‘Shipyard of the Future’ investments, and we’re starting to see payoff in efficiency,” Anderson explained. “And Bath Iron Works is undergoing a number of capital improvements, in large part supported by the surface combatant-industrial base funds that Congress has appropriated.”

But one expert thinks awarding more work in this multiyear contract would have better helped stabilize the workforce and the supply chain.

Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute think tank, said only guaranteeing as much work as the yards can comfortably build “makes sense in that you’re not putting demands on them that they can’t meet” and putting them at risk of delivering late.

“But the problem with that logic is, the alternative would be, I’m going to contract with you to do more ships, but I’m going to give you more time. I’m going to give you the money to generate a backlog, and then you can go make the investments necessary to deliver on that backlog. And that’s a way to fund their infrastructure and workforce improvement efforts,” he said.

The submarine-industrial base, with General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding as the construction yards, is delivering about 1.2 boats a year, despite the Navy buying two annually.

Despite the larger delay in this program, the Navy continues to buy at a steady pace and re-baselined the ship delivery schedules, extending those timelines so the yards aren’t penalized for late deliveries.

Clark said this gives the shipbuilders and their suppliers enough cash on hand to invest in infrastructure and workforce to get back to at least two deliveries a year.

By guaranteeing the destroyer-industrial base fewer than two a year, Clark said, “then you’re really not incentivizing them to expand their capacity; you’re just making it so that you’re not putting unreasonable demands on them.”

Clark said he thought Bath might have a maximum production rate between four and five ships in five years, once the company gets back on track — but awarding just three ships doesn’t help the company get to that better throughput any faster.

At Ingalls, Clark said there’s a great opportunity to increase destroyer production, if the Navy wanted to. The Mississippi yard is about to wrap up its work on the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter program, and could move around people and resources to build more destroyers.

There has been longstanding support from Congress for buying three destroyers a year, but top Pentagon and Navy leaders aren’t interested in budgeting for those ships. Defense Department Comptroller Mike McCord said in March the “track record” of industry shows it can’t build three a year. Del Toro, too, cautioned against buying three a year until industry makes investments to increase capacity.

“That’s true, they don’t have that capacity,” Clark said. “Well, the only way you get there is if you create the demand signal for three destroyers per year. In the submarine force, they’ve created that demand signal for two, two-plus submarines per year, so they’re building to reach that inside the submarine-industrial base. And we just haven’t done the same thing in the surface-industrial base, and there’s sort of this implication that the shipbuilders need to do that with their own money — build this capacity and have it standing by.”

With the U.S. government being the only customer for Bath and Ingalls, Clark noted, they wouldn’t hire the additional workforce unless there was work to perform, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation.

Ingalls Shipbuilding spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard told Defense News the company believes industry could build a total of three destroyers a year if given “a consistent and timely demand signal.”

“Early notification and long lead time material funding are critical elements to a successful destroyer program so that the destroyer industrial base can do what is necessary to support the cadence of three DDGs a year,” she said.

Clark said he believes awarding all 15 ships upfront but agreeing to longer delivery timelines would have been a better way to incentivize these investments to create greater production capacity and grow the fleet.

But, he added, the fundamental problem is “they don’t have the money to pay for more ships.”

[James1978]

Navy extends service lives of four more destroyers
By Geoff Ziezulewicz
9 August 2023

The Navy plans to extend the service life of four guided-missile destroyers that were slated to be retired in the coming years, adding four or five years to each of the warships’ standard 35 years of service.

Under a plan announced last week, the destroyers Ramage and Benfold will see their services lives extended to fiscal 2035 and fiscal 2036, respectively, according to the Navy.

The destroyers Mitscher and Milius will each have their service life extended by four years, to FY34 and FY35, respectively.

Mitscher was commissioned 29 years ago, while Ramage entered service 28 years ago. Benfold and Milius joined the fleet 27 years ago.

The move follows a similar service life extension announced in March for Arleigh Burke, the first destroyer in the class.

It reflects the sea service’s desire to maintain fleet size and capability in a time of intense competition for defense dollars, while showing Congress that the service can spend judiciously.

While the Navy scrapped a plan in 2020 to extend the service lives of every destroyer in the fleet, the sea service is now analyzing each ship in the class to determine whether extending its life makes sense.

“These extensions align to Secretary of the Navy [Carlos Del Toro’s] commitment to Congress during the FY-24 posture hearings to analyze service life on a hull-by-hull basis and extend the correct ships in order to be good stewards of resources invested in the U.S. Navy by the American people,” said Rear Adm. Fred Pyle, head of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ Surface Warfare Division, in a statement.

Each of the four ships has received Baseline 9 upgrades to its Aegis combat system via the destroyer modernization program, which provides comprehensive midlife upgrades to the ships.

“Based on analysis by the Navy’s technical community, these extensions were feasible because each ship properly adhered to lifecycle maintenance plans and were well maintained in good material condition by their crews,” the Navy said in a release announcing the life extensions.

The Navy has 73 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in service and is continuing to evaluate the feasibility of extending each ship’s service life.

While extending the service lives of these destroyers partly reflects concerns about maintaining the size of the fleet, it also takes other factors into consideration, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and and director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.

For one, upgrades are getting easier, and the Navy already keeps amphibious assault ships, aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines in service for 45 years or more, Clark said in an email.

“The original 35-year life of the (Arleigh Burke) class was based on an expectation that they would become obsolete before they got too old to maintain,” he said. “With increasingly digital Aegis, combat system upgrades are getting easier and less expensive.”

Money for new destroyers remains limited, and the readiness of that fleet is uneven as well, Clark said.

The plan to extend the life of all destroyers was first announced in 2018; it would have modernized every ship in the class under a “no destroyer left behind” approach that was later scuttled.

“The Navy took five years to announce these extensions because, in part, the condition of ships was not well understood,” Clark said. “There are many more ships whose service lives have not been extended because their condition is not well understood enough.”

[Johnnie Lyle]

What’s the point of spending all this money on new ships if we’re not going to properly maintain the ones we have got?

They’re just going to rust in port.

[James1978]

USS Zumwalt Arrives in Mississippi for Hypersonic Weapon Installation
By: Sam LaGrone
August 19, 2023

Guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) arrived in Mississippi on Saturday to begin a two-year process to install hypersonic missile tubes, USNI News has learned.

“USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) arrived in Pascagoula, Miss., today to enter a modernization period and receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon system,” reads a statement from the Navy provided to USNI News.
“The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the U.S. Navy.”

The ship arrived Saturday afternoon after leaving San Diego earlier this month.

“To the crew and families of the guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000), we would like to extend the warmest welcome to the newest members of our shipyard community. It is an honor for us to serve you and the Navy by doing this important work,” Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement.

The 16,000-ton warship pulled into Ingalls Shipbuilding for the availability that will pop off the existing twin 155 mm Advanced Gun Systems and replace them with four 87-inch missile tubes.

The tubes will each hold three Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) – hypersonic missiles being developed jointly between the U.S. Army and the Navy – for a total of 12 missiles on the ship.

The C-HGB is part of a Department of Defense effort to field multiple conventional prompt strike platforms that can strike targets anywhere in the world with no warning.

The Navy also plans to upgrade USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) at Ingalls. Monsoor is currently in San Diego and LBJ is currently at the yard undergoing combat system installation and activation.

The Navy wants the weapons installed and the destroyer ready to deploy by 2025. Initially created as a littoral combatant that would support troops ashore with the Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP). The rocket-assisted LRLAP would have fire guided rounds from the AGS to hit targets up to 60 nautical miles. However, when the class was reduced to three ships from 30 the cost of the rounds became unaffordable. USNI News reported in 2016 that it would cost $1.8 to 2 billion to buy 2,000 rounds for the three ships.

The Navy decided instead to shift the focus of Zumwalt from close to shore to blue water with the installation of hypersonic weapons.

“We’re talking about deploying this system on DDG-1000 in 2025, that’s three years from now,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the head of the Navy’s strategic systems programs, told reporters at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium in November.

In June, the Government Accountability Office raised doubts the weapons will be ready in time.

“The CPS program office noted that significant scope and challenges associated with the first-time integration of CPS may present risks to achieving DDG 1000’s installation schedule. In reviewing CPS program office information on critical technologies, we found that significant work remains for the program to demonstrate technology maturity,” reads the report.
“If the hypersonic weapon is not ready for integration on the DDG 1000 at the time of the aforementioned maintenance period, the Navy may have to extend the duration of the planned maintenance period or wait for the next scheduled period to incorporate the system on the ship.”

[James1978]

Navy Plant Discharges 14,500 Gallons of Wastewater
2 Aug 2023
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser | By Kevin Knodell

The Navy this week reported accidental discharges of partially treated waste ­water from its troubled wastewater treatment plant at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

In separate news releases, the Navy reported that a total of 14, 500 gallons was discharged Sunday and Monday into Mamala Bay through an outfall the service uses about 1.5 miles from shore.

According to a news release Tuesday on the most recent releases, there are two active projects at the plant tied to a Federal Facilities Compliance Agreement and that to "enable the execution of these projects, the plant is required to perform adjustments which will include a series of deliberate outages, to include partial shutdowns, at the (plant ). The team is developing mitigation for future releases but expects the event to occur again tonight."

According to a Monday news release, 9, 500 gallons of partially treated waste ­water was discharged at around 6 p.m. Sunday as a result of an apparent pump failure that caused the water to bypass the sand filter stage in the facility's four-step process.

"The wastewater underwent three steps of a four step process, " JBPHH commander Capt. Mark Sohaney said in a statement. "The partially treated wastewater was discharged a mile and a half from the shore, therefore, there should be no impact to beaches or nearshore waters along the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam shoreline."

On Monday, also at 6 p.m., 5, 000 gallons of partially treated wastewater again bypassed the filtration system, according to the Navy. "Unlike the previous night, the discharge was not the result of a pump failure, " a Tuesday news release said.

"The initial assessment attributes the bypass to a higher-than-average flow at the plant. The Navy's investigation attributes this higher flow rate to the King Tide that is causing additional water to be introduced into the system."

The Navy said plant modifications to support ongoing improvement projects were in progress and that Navy officials think that "impacted the plant's capacity to handle higher than normal flow rates." Officials added that additional mitigations are being put in place to ensure that higher-than-normal flow rates experienced during the cycle of exceptionally high tides do not cause another bypass.

The Navy also said prior water testing has shown in instances when a bypass has occurred that the discharged water was still in compliance with the plant's discharge permit.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Health said its Clean Water Branch is awaiting sampling results from Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command to determine whether further action is required.

Concerns about the site go as far back as 2019 when officials from the Clean Water Branch tried to inspect the plant but reported they found it in such a state of disrepair that they did not believe they could safely complete the inspection.

Inspectors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Navy followed up and reported that the plant had cracked concrete tanks, warped and disconnected parts in its machinery and severely corroded equipment. The EPA found that the plant was well exceeding its discharge limits for zinc, cadmium, oil and grease, and pH and total waste toxicity under the federal Clean Water Act.

In June 2021 the Navy entered a Federal Facilities Compliance Agreement with the EPA that required it to make a series of repairs and upgrades to the facility by the end of 2024.

In September the DOH slapped the Navy with a notice of violation and order that included an $8.7 million fine over repeated spills and maintenance problems with its wastewater system. DOH cited 766 counts of discharging pollutants into the ocean from January 2020 to July 2022 ; 212 counts related to operation and maintenance failures ; and 17 counts of bypassing filters without authorization.

The violation order said the Navy exceeded the limit every day in 2020 as well as 276 days in 2021 and 122 days in 2022.

Just two days after the DOH issued the fine, another wastewater spill of 1, 000 gallons poured into Pearl Harbor from a broken 12-inch wastewater line. Utility workers secured the leak and installed a plug, but the Navy said the leaked wastewater was "unrecoverable."

In March approximately 14, 000 gallons of partially treated wastewater was released from the facility after a power spike at the military base caused the water treatment process to be "interrupted for a few minutes."

[Johnnie Lyle]

The only worse polluter than DoD is DoE.

[James1978]

U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX in Design Maturation, Competing Companies Announced
Brian Everstine
August 27, 2023

SPARKS, Nevada—The U.S. Navy’s secretive next-generation fighter program has completed concept refinement and has moved into a design maturation phase, while the service has officially announced the companies vying for the contracts.

Confirming the long-expected names, the Navy announced Aug. 26 that Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are in the running for the airframe, while GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney are competing for the engine.

The announcement follows the U.S. Air Force’s connection of these companies to its separate Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform. In June, Northrop Grumman announced that it was not pursuing the Air Force’s NGAD as a prime contractor.

In a statement to Aerospace DAILY, Tom Jones, president of Northrop’s Aeronautics Systems, says the company is pursuing F/A-XX development work and that the company is “well positioned” to perform on advanced aircraft programs based on its B-21 bomber, work on the F-35, components for the F/A-18 and the Navy’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

“Our focus and investment in digital engineering, advanced manufacturing and legacy in designing and fielding aircraft with advanced mission systems allow us to rapidly design, execute, and sustain current and future systems,” Jones says.

Boeing in a statement pointed to recent investments in the company’s infrastructure such as a series of new advanced production facilities at its St. Louis site for how it is positioning itself for the future fighter programs.

“Boeing fighters are the backbone of today’s carrier air wing, and we’re using what we’ve learned to inform the multibillion-dollar strategic investment we’re making in advanced open mission systems and brand-new, all-digital factories of the future,” says Steve Nordlund, Boeing’s vice president of air dominance. “We are fully committed to helping the U.S. Navy achieve its future vision.”

The potential engine providers are the same for the Air Force’s program—however, the Navy has been more secretive about this development, as well. The Air Force is undertaking a program called Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion for its NGAD.

During a panel discussion Aug. 26 at the Tailhook Symposium here, Cmdr. Mark Cochran—the F/A-XX requirements officer in the Navy’s Air Warfare Division N98—says the Navy is prioritizing operational reach on top of operational capacity for the program. This means a family of systems, coupled with Collaborative Combat Aircraft, to counter advanced threats at long distances.

The F/A-XX needs to use advanced weapons and data links, with planners focusing on what apertures will be on the aircraft for sensing and communications.

In July, the White House connected the F/A-XX program with a special access program in the budget called Link Plumeria. This classified program is the Pentagon’s fourth-largest research and development program, with $11.5 billion for fiscal 2023-27 included in the Defense Department’s recent budget request.

[Lordroel]

The ninth Block V Virginia-class nuclear attack boat will be named after San Francisco, Calif., Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced, thus the last ten 774 class boats we have: state, state, state, fish, fish, fish, fish, former SECNAV, island, city.

[Poohbah]

The ninth Block V Virginia-class nuclear attack boat will be named after San Francisco, Calif., Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced, thus the last ten 774 class boats we have: state, state, state, fish, fish, fish, fish, former SECNAV, island, city.

We need a USS USTAFISH in honor of everyone's previous boat.

[James1978]

Good lord - Long Island (SSN-809) - really?
Can we not try to follow some damn naming continuity within a class, hell, even a Flight?

[Johnnie Lyle]

Good lord - Long Island (SSN-809) - really?
Can we not try to follow some damn naming continuity within a class, hell, even a Flight?

Nope.

[clancyphile]

Good lord - Long Island (SSN-809) - really?
Can we not try to follow some damn naming continuity within a class, hell, even a Flight?

The first CVE was USS Long Island.