US Navy News

[Rocket J Squrriel]

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.

Good name for a carrier or a big amphib but NOT a submarine.

[James1978]

I have no objection to the name "Long Island".
My objection is to the utter lack of naming continuity within a class.

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

To be fair to the Navy, they did stick with the modern naming convention, States, for the most part, until they ran out of state names. Then they tried to make the switch back to fish. The last three just stink of politics messing about, sadly.

[MKSheppard]

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

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

[James1978]

Surface navy emphasizes frigates in its latest modernization plans
By Megan Eckstein
December 27, 2023

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s recent force structure study puts even greater importance on small combatants, the director of surface warfare said, a shift in priorities that could require the surface navy to rebalance its ongoing modernization plans.

“We want to build a lot of frigates and [have] somewhat smaller, very capable ships being proliferated out through the fleet,” Rear Adm. Fred Pyle told Defense News on Dec. 7.

The 2023 Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement study, which concluded in June but remains classified, did not bring “significant changes” to Pyle’s portfolio at OPNAV N96. However, it did shift the balance among large, small and unmanned combatants.

Asked whether the study called for more frigates generally, or more frigates at the expense of larger Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Pyle said only that the Navy has “that constant challenge of trying to balance” the portfolio to fit the budget. His main takeaway from the new force structure assessment, Pyle added, is “the value of having numbers for small surface combatants.”

Navy spokesman David Clark told Defense News the study called for a 381-ship fleet ­— up from the previous call for 373 vessels — and “reinforces the need for a larger, more capable, more distributed naval force.”

Pyle said the Constellation-class frigate, for which construction began in August 2022, can help distribute the force by offering a capability similar to the Arleigh Burke destroyers but in a smaller, less expensive package.

For now, Pyle’s directorate is focused on keeping the frigate program fully funded so the Navy and Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine shipyard can finish the design and construction.

“Eventually we’d like to get to four frigates a year, and that will take a second yard,” Pyle said, without providing a timeline for ramping up production.

Although Navy leaders have long talked about wanting to build four a year to support a larger small combatant fleet — as the recent study emphasized — the Navy’s most recent long-range shipbuilding plan never reaches that rate. Leaders have said they want to see Fincantieri mature the design and production line before a second shipbuilder joins the program.

Pyle said the Navy and Pentagon are still finalizing what the force structure study means for the budget and ongoing modernization plans, and that more details would be released with the fiscal 2025 budget request around February.

Fielding new ships
Pyle said he views the surface force modernization plan in three Future Years Defense Programs — or five-year budgetary planning windows for the Pentagon.

The first Future Years Defense Program, which spans the current FY24 to FY28, focuses on building the Constellation-class frigate and the Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers, the first of which was commissioned in October.

It will also include the start of the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel program.

Pyle said three unmanned surface vessels currently deployed in the Pacific are medium prototypes. While their mission and payloads are different than the planned large USV, which will use the Aegis Combat System to remotely launch missiles on behalf of crewed ships, these medium USVs are still generating applicable lessons on hull and navigational autonomy.

But “there is still a ton of learning ahead of us on LUSV,” Pyle said, “because once you start integrating an adjunct weapons platform into the Aegis system, that is non-trivial work.”

He said integration remains his primary concern for the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel program, for which a contract is expected to be awarded in FY25.

“We have the structure; we have the expertise in place to be able to do that,” Pyle noted. “Bottom line is, we will keep those vessels within line of sight [of manned combatants], where we can maintain positive control of them, until we have a very high confidence level that we can send them over the horizon and maintain [command and control] of those platforms and do what we need to do.”

Upgrading the fleet
The second Future Years Defense Program, which runs from FY29 to FY33, aims to add capability to the surface ships already in the fleet through the DDG Mod 2.0 program and the development of the Lockheed Martin-made Integrated Combat System.

Pyle called DDG Mod 2.0 — which adds Aegis Combat System Baseline 10, the AN/SPY-6 radar and the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 3 package to Flight IIA destroyers — the “centerpiece” of surface fleet modernization plans.

The destroyer Pinckney recently wrapped up its SEWIP installation at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California. The vessel caught attention online for its new look, with what the shipyard dubbed “bug eyes” and Pyle called “Princess Leia buns” on the sides of the ship. (They’re formally known as sponsons, with precisely angled steel planes to enable the electronic warfare tools housed inside.)

Pinckney will go through SEWIP testing, then deploy, then return to the yard for its radar and combat system upgrades. Around FY28, after a couple more ships go through this split installation, the DDG Mod 2.0 program will begin in earnest, Pyle said, and ships will receive all three upgrades in the same yard period.

This second Future Years Defense Program, he said, kicks off a flurry of work: $17 billion over 17 years to upgrade the 25 Flight IIA ships. “We’re constantly looking at not only SEWIP installs, but SPY-6 installs, of how we can reduce that time frame and be more efficient on the install process,” including ideas such as prefabricating the sponsons before a destroyer arrives at the yard.

Pyle said this would not only reduce cost, but get the new capability to the fleet faster.

“The warfighting capability that those systems bring, we really value in the high-end fight. So that’s the sense of urgency. That’s the imperative of why we need to fully fund these installs, and then we need to smartly execute them to get the capability back out there in the fleet,” he said.

The Integrated Combat System is also scheduled for fielding in greater numbers around this time. The Navy awarded Lockheed a contract worth up to $1.1 billion over 10 years to merge the codes for the Aegis Combat System and the Ship Self-Defense System into the same combat technology. Aegis runs on large, small and unmanned surface combatants, while the Ship Self-Defense System runs on amphibious ships and aircraft carriers.

“There’s a strong business case that we’ve laid out on why this makes sense: One system is much better than multiple from a training standpoint, from a funding standpoint,” Pyle said. “The warfighting aspect is what’s most exciting from [the N96 directorate’s] perspective because it gives us the ability to pair any decision-maker, any sensor and any desired effect at machine speed.”

Pyle said Lockheed has started installing code on individual ships for testing. By the FY28 or FY29 time frame, he added, entire carrier strike groups or amphibious ready groups will deploy with the Integrated Combat System as part of the development and deployment effort. The contract’s options could extend the work through FY30.

A next-gen combatant
The third Future Years Defense Program, from FY34 to FY38, includes the DDG(X) next-generation destroyer program.

Pyle said the Navy will build as many as 30 of the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which would put the program at more than 100 ships total.

But, he noted, “those ships are maxed out on space, weight, power [and] cooling. If something comes along in the form of directed energy or a larger sensor that we need to fill a warfighting capability, it’s not going on the Arleigh Burke class — period. So we need to transition to a new hull form, and that is DDG(X).”

Though the Navy had repeatedly delayed the DDG(X) in the past — from FY23 to FY25 to FY28 — Pyle said the current planned FY32 start is holding steady.

Pyle’s N96 directorate is working with the service’s Program Executive Office Ships on the DDG(X) combat system and propulsion plant designs.

The Navy’s imperative in moving to the DDG(X) design is to accommodate directed-energy weapons and a larger launcher for longer-range missiles, Pyle said. But also of importance, he added, will be the ability to remain on station longer and require less help from fleet tankers and other logistics ships.

[James1978]

Time to test a ship-based hypersonic missile launcher
By Diana Stancy Correll
December 31, 2023

Flight tests using a ship-based hypersonic missile launcher will start in 2024, according to Lockheed Martin.

The Navy aims to field hypersonic weapons aboard the destroyer Zumwalt in 2025, and the ship is currently undergoing a modernization period to install the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile system, among other updates. American Shipbuilder HII is outfitting the destroyer with the weapon system in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

“The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the U.S. Navy,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesperson for the Naval Surface Force, told Navy Times in a statement in August.

Lockheed Martin, which is developing the launcher, the weapon control system and other pieces of the missile, announced in February that flight tests would commence in 2024.

USS Zumwalt to receive hypersonic missile upgrades at HII
By Diana Stancy Correll
August 31, 2023

The guided-missile destroyer Zumwalt, which arrived at its new home port in Pascagoula, Mississippi, this month, is being outfitted with a hypersonic missile system by American shipbuilder HII.

The Zumwalt, which had returned to San Diego for an undisclosed maintenance system issue after departing for Mississippi, arrived in Pascagoula Aug. 19. The ship is now going through modernization, including installation of the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile system.

“The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the U.S. Navy,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesperson for the Naval Surface Force, told Navy Times in a statement earlier this month.

The service aims to field hypersonic weapons on the Zumwalt by 2025, and Lockheed Martin announced in February it was preparing a ship-based hypersonic missile launcher for flight tests in 2024. Lockheed is developing the launcher, the weapon control system and other pieces of the missile.

Meanwhile, the Army, which has worked with the Navy to develop the missile, is set to field the weapon system by the end of this year.

On Tuesday, the Navy awarded HII a $154.8 million contract modification to update the Zumwalt, after previously awarding the shipbuilder a $10.5 million planning period contract in January for the modernization of the Zumwalt and the guided-missile destroyer Michael Monsoor.

The Monsoor will receive the Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile system “during a future modernization period,” HII said in a news release.

“It is an honor to serve the sailors of Zumwalt and to welcome them to our community,” Ingalls Shipbuilding DDG 1000 ship construction manager Bruce Knowles said in a news release. “The Ingalls team is ready to support you in completing this important work.”

The Zumwalt concluded three months of operations in the Western Pacific last fall, where it conducted a series of joint and bilateral operations as part of its first operational employment.

The Zumwalt’s first full deployment is expected during late calendar year 2026 or early 2027, when it will operate under U.S. 7th Fleet and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leadership.

[James1978]

Navy planning to execute 3-year Ohio-class sub life extensions
By Justin Katz
November 07, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Navy is planning to move forward with extending the service life of up to five Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, starting with the Alaska (SSBN-732), a senior officer overseeing submarine construction said today.

Rear Adm. Scott Pappano, the program executive officer for strategic submarines, told attendees here at the Naval Submarine League symposium the Navy has programmed in the service life extension for Alaska in fiscal year 2029 as a “hedge” against the building schedule of the newer Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.

The maintenance period to extend the sub’s life by three years would take about 18 months and is called a pre-inactivation restricted availability. The Ohio class was originally designed in the 1970s and scheduled to be in service for 30 years, but incremental life extensions have continually elongated the boats’ time in service beyond four decades.

Speaking to reporters following his remarks, Pappano cautioned that although the service has opted to include the life extension, or PIRA, in its long-term planning documents, that decision can ultimately be reversed if deemed necessary.

“We have the ability to come off at that decision at anytime, right,” he said. “I can decide not to do those up until the year of execution.”

Pappano declined to name other vessels being considered for the life extensions, but said there are certain “red lines” that would make extending a boat’s life cost prohibitive, such as needing to refuel the vessel or replace a reactor.

The Navy in recent years has floated the idea of extending the lives of certain Ohio-class submarines as a way to buy time in case the first Columbia-class boat does not begin patrols on time in the early 2030s. In parallel, the service has been extending the service lives of certain Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines, such as the Alexandria (SSN-757) and Scranton (SSN-756).

[James1978]

US Navy eyes two-submarine delivery rate in 2024 after schedule upset
By Megan Eckstein
November 9, 2023

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy and the submarine sector hope in 2024 they can begin reliably delivering two attack submarines annually, following work disruptions that threw off plans to do so this year.

Industry delivered one attack sub, the Hyman G. Rickover, this calendar year and will send a second, the New Jersey, to sea trials in December ahead of delivery early next year.

Rear Adm. Jon Rucker, the program executive officer for attack submarines, said his office enacted new construction and delivery timelines in February to begin achieving two-sub deliveries a year in 2023.

But almost immediately his office fell behind.

In addition to some unspecified issues that arose over the summer, General Dynamics Electric Boat had to delay launching a submarine in the spring when its launch pontoon broke, creating a backup of modules and parts since it didn’t have the space to let new material flow into its construction facilities until the boat left.

Rucker called the summer a low point in Virginia-class attack submarine production, but he said the overall production rate was already up and should be back to a 2.0 delivery cadence by fiscal 2028.

The Navy and industry are at a 1.3 attack sub construction cadence, which means all the phases of submarine construction — manufacturing, outfitting, assembly, final test and delivery — are humming along at a rate that would support delivering that number of subs year over year.

By the end of this calendar year, Rucker said while speaking at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium, the work across all phases of construction will be “rebalanced” after this summer’s backups, and the cadence should be able to continue creeping up toward the 2.0 goal.

The Navy has poured billions of dollars into the submarine-industrial base since FY18 to address some of the cadence issues. Matt Sermon, the executive director of Program Executive Office Strategic Submarines, told Defense News at the conference that investments from FY19 through FY21 targeting sequence-critical parts that were showing up late — forcing the construction process to either pause and wait, or continue without the part and then try to install it later in a costly or disruptive way — would help submarines under construction today.

For the Block V Virginia-class subs, as well as the second Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine that just formally began construction last month, “we’re going to see improvements in that space” as the vendors use the Navy’s money to expand facilities or improve work processes, and thus deliver their parts on time, Sermon added.

Boats in construction now will also benefit from workforce development spending, Sermon said, as key suppliers have been able to hire highly skilled tradesmen from formal training pipelines like the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing center in Virginia.

In FY24, the Navy plans to fund about 50 supplier development projects. The supplier development projects are still targeting sequence-critical parts: either new parts that have started delivering late and putting construction schedules at risk, or parts whose manufacturers have already received some money but need more help, Sermon said.

If there’s any leftover money, Sermon added, the Navy will begin targeting other suppliers who either can’t keep up with delivery schedules today, or who aren’t expected to keep up as the workload increases in the coming years.

Whitney Jones, the director of the Navy’s submarine-industrial base program, said her office is trying to take a smarter approach to where it puts this money.

“Historically, we have often looked at how we’re making these investments at a supplier level, and it’s been very whack-a-mole: For every one we address, five more pop up. It’s a challenge. What we have shifted to is looking at the health of a market space or the health of a commodity group, and figuring out where the investments need to be made for the health of a space,” she told Defense News.

[James1978]

The fine was less than the amount of the bribe payments

Lenient 27-Month Jail Term for US Navy Sailor in China Espionage Case
Reuters
January 9, 2024

A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to only 27 months in jail on Monday for accepting bribes from a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for photos of sensitive U.S. military information.

Petty Officer Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao, 26, pleaded guilty last October to conspiracy and receiving a bribe. Zhao, who had faced a maximum of 20 years in prison, received only 27 months and a light $5,500 fine for transmitting sensitive U.S. military information to an intelligence officer from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in exchange for bribery payments. That fine is considerably lower than the $14,866 in at least 14 separate bribe payments China paid Zhao.

“Mr. Zhao betrayed his oath to the United States and deserves to be held fully accountable for accepting bribes in exchange for transmitting sensitive U.S. military information to an intelligence officer from the People’s Republic of China,” said Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Special Agent Angel Cruz. “NCIS will continue to leverage its unique law enforcement and counterintelligence authorities to vigorously pursue those who attempt to compromise our national security information.”

Zhao transmitted plans for a large-scale maritime training exercise in the Pacific theatre, operational orders and electrical diagrams and blueprints for a Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar system located in Okinawa, Japan.

He used sophisticated encrypted communication methods to transmit the information. He also destroyed evidence and concealed his relationship with the intelligence officer. According to the Justice Department Zhao’s conduct violated his official duties to protect such information and the oath he swore to protect the United States.

[James1978]

Seeking 75 ships ready for combat, Navy turns to new readiness orgs
By Megan Eckstein
January 9, 2024

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet, still short of its readiness goal of 75 combat-credible surface ships at any given time, is pursuing new ways to boost its readiness.

Then-Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, who retired in August, announced in January 2023 the fleet would aim to have 75 mission-capable ships. The ships would be well maintained and the crews well trained, such that they could be sent into combat on a moment’s notice if needed.

At the time, Kitchener declined to say how many ships were mission-capable. A Navy official not authorized to speak on the record about the numbers recently told Defense News it was in the “low 50s” at that time.

Over the past year, current Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Brendan McLane told reporters the fleet has been able to “get up to over 60, but now it’s kind of hovering between 50 and 60 ships on any given day.”

McLane, speaking to reporters ahead of the annual Surface Navy Association conference, said the best way to have more ready ships is to get ships out of maintenance on time.

In fiscal 2019, the surface navy saw 7,094 delay days, meaning the cumulative amount that all ships overran their planned maintenance periods’ timelines.

In FY23, which ended Sept. 30, maintenance delay days dropped to 4,006, according to Naval Surface Forces numbers.

Those figures include delays on cruisers, many of which were put into a reduced readiness status for years and then struggled to come back online. Some of the cruisers have run years over schedule in their maintenance periods, contributing thousands of delay days to the tally.

For all surface ships except the cruisers in that lengthy modernization program, according to McLane’s office, the fleet had 5,641 delay days in FY19. That dropped to just 2,136 in FY23.

McLane said the fleet is making progress with on-time maintenance, but is struggling to fully achieve the goal of eliminating all delays.

To continue seeing improvements in maintenance performance, and therefore more ready ships, the fleet is doing a couple new things.

First, McLane said he’s looking at the success the fleet has in short depot maintenance availabilities to see how that could apply to longer yard periods.

The forward-deployed destroyers operating out of Rota, Spain, conduct shorter, incremental availabilities that take about 100 days, instead of more traditional ones that might take six months.

McLane said those were completed “100% of the time on time.”

The Navy applied that same maintenance model to its Task Group Greyhound ships on the East Coast that stand ready to hunt Russian submarines if needed. For the past two years, the Navy saw a perfect on-time record with these, too.

“There’s more to learn there. And obviously we can’t expand that to everybody all the time, but there are some things that we’re looking at with our overall maintenance scheduling, to see if we could expand” that shorter maintenance model to more of the fleet, McLane said.

Rear Adm. Joe Cahill, the commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic, said in the same call the fleet is also leveraging two new organizations.

First, so-called readiness operations centers are using data analytics to understand readiness trends and begin to make readiness predictions, so fleet leaders can make decisions and move resources at a force-wide level to support achieving 75 mission-capable ships.

“It just gives Adm. McLane and I tremendous visibility into where and how the force is positioned from a personnel, a material and from a training standpoint,” he said of this data-based work.

Cahill also pointed to the newly established naval surface readiness groups, located in fleet concentration areas such as Japan; Hawaii; San Diego; Norfolk, Virginia; and Mayport, Florida.

Cahill said these groups create a “single accountable officer” for ushering ships through the maintenance phase and into basic training, before they join up with strike groups for more advanced training and deployments.

[James1978]

Fincantieri taps welding robots to build US Navy frigates faster
By Tom Kington
January 8, 2024

ROME — As the builder of the U.S. Navy’s new Constellation frigates tries to ramp up schedules in Wisconsin, it is sending in the robots.

Seeking to shift up a gear and build two of the frigates every year at its Marinette Marine yard, faster than the current schedule of three every two years, shipbuilder Fincantieri says it is getting serious about automation.

“Welding is one of the skills it is hard to find, while the robot welding we plan to introduce triples productivity and increases quality,” said Pierroberto Folgiero, the CEO of the Italian company.

Fifteen years after buying Marinette Marine, Fincantieri is now building the first Constellation-class frigate for the US Navy with a planned completion date of 2026, part of an expected program of 20 vessels based on the FREMM frigate the firm has already built for the Italian navy.

In July Fincantieri unveiled MR4Weld, a tracked welding robot it developed with Italian firm Comau, which is active in the automotive industry. Equipped with a welding torch, the robot also has a video system which can autonomously identify welding joints or be told by a human operator where to weld.

“We are placing orders to start large-scale use of the robot in Italy and we want to export this as soon as possible to the US,” Folgiero told Defense News, adding, “that’s the big priority since we struggle to find welders in the U.S.”

He said, “The fact that Comau is part of the Stellantis group, which has operations in the U.S., should help.”

The robots are the latest tool Fincantieri hopes to use to accelerate production of the frigates.

“With the experience of the first of class being built now we have the objective of building two a year, up from the current contract which specifies three in two years,” Folgiero said.

That is faster than the rate of one FREMM frigate a year Fincantieri managed in Italy.

U.S. Navy officials have mulled exercising a contractual right to buy the frigate’s technical data package, or blueprints, from Fincantieri in order to qualify an additional shipyard to build the vessel, doubling annual production to four.

But Fincantieri said the Navy has yet to request the package.

The firm currently has a shortfall of 400 staff across its three Wisconsin yards which currently directly employ 2,100: Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay and Fincantieri ACE Marine in Green Bay.

“We still have the problem of finding people, and, as importantly, retaining them with incentives,” said Folgiero.

The shortfall is an improvement on this time last year, though, when it stood at 1,000.

Since then around 400 blue-collar and 150 management staff have been hired.

Folgiero said the reduction in the staff shortfall was due in part to recruitment, but also due to increases in productivity already underway, starting with transferring assembly work from on board vessels to dry land.

“Doing more assembly of modules on land is boosting productivity and helping reduce the workforce required,” said Folgiero, who visited Marinette in December for the inauguration of a new painting building.

Sub-sea ambitions
Back in Italy, with ten naval vessels and two submarines under construction, not to mention cruise ships, Fincantieri has a substantial workload at its eight Italian yards, just as the firm ventures into sub-sea technology for the civil and naval sectors.

The Italian state-controlled firm is a partner at a new sub-sea center in La Spezia, Italy, which brings industry, the Italian navy and academia together to study a domain drawing attention since the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic last year.

Fincantieri, which predicts military sub-sea spending will total € 94 billion ($103 billion) between 2024 and 2030, also signed a deal with fellow Italian defense giant Leonardo in November to work on drones to protect undersea cables and pipelines.

[James1978]

First Constellation Frigate Delayed At Least a Year, Schedule Assessment ‘Ongoing’
Mallory Shelbourne and Sam LaGrone
January 11, 2024

ARLINGTON, Va. – The first Constellation-class guided-missile frigate will deliver at least a year late due in large part to workforce shortfalls at the Wisconsin yard where it’s built, USNI News has learned.

The service has briefed Congress that the future USS Constellation (FFG-62) could deliver in 2027 and that shipyard Fincantieri Marinette Marine has undergone an independent review to assess the delay, a legislative source confirmed to USNI News this week.

During a program briefing on Thursday at the annual Surface Navy Symposium, the deputy manager for the frigate program acknowledged potential schedule slippage in the program due to the workforce issues. When asked for a ballpark on the schedule, Andy Bosak told USNI News the assessment is “ongoing.”

“We do have challenge in the schedule. We are working that. Fincantieri has communicated to us of challenges within the schedule,” Bosak told USNI News.

“We are doing our analysis, as the Navy does, of doing deep dives of causes and effects and various different levers of which we can pull within that shipyard,” he added. “And we need to, as a program, work with our leadership, kind of figure out what we want to do. And from that, we will make that assessment as to what the actual schedule impact is of where we are. And that effort is ongoing.”

Following an earlier version of this post, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced a review of Navy shipbuilding, citing concerns with the frigate program and the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program. NAVSEA head Vice Adm. Jim Downey and assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition Nickolas Guertin will lead the evaluation.

“The American public should know that the Department of the Navy is committed to developing, delivering, and sustaining the finest warfighting capability to our Sailors and Marines,” Del Toro said in a statement. “We will continue to work with industry and all other stakeholders to strengthen our national shipbuilding capacity, both naval and commercial.”

Fincantieri Marinette Marine is short by several hundred people across both the blue and white-collar workforce, Bosak confirmed.

The yard in Marinette, Wis., is having trouble hiring welders, Capt. Kevin Smith, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told an audience at the same symposium. The workforce issues extend across multiple trades and disciplines, Bosak said on Thursday.

To get after the workforce shortfalls, Fincantieri has received $50 million from the Navy for the surface combatant industrial base. The yard is using that money to issue bonuses to employees both in the blue and white-collar workforce to incentivize them to stay at Marinette. Employees who work on the frigate in the Marinette yard starting Jan. 1, 2024, and are still employed on Dec. 31, 2024, will receive $5,000, USNI News understands. Employees who are working on the frigate in the Marinette yard and remain with the program until the ship launches will receive another $5,000.

“We need young people in the country that are willing to take good-paying jobs – I mean I pay our skilled tradesmen well compared to the average blue-collar wage here in Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan,” Mark Vandroff, Fincantieri Marinette Marine’s chief executive officer, told USNI News last April during a visit to the Marinette yard. “But it’s a fight for talent – it really is. Labor is scarce.”

Fincantieri is also having issues managing the workforce rollover from its other programs, the last Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships and Saudi Arabia’s multi-mission surface combatant. Some engineers who were supposed to roll over to the Connie program are still working on the LCS or the MMSC.

During last year’s visit, USNI News observed a full yard trying to wrap up the Freedom-class LCS line, while building the Royal Saudi Navy’s surface combatants and the new Connies. While the Navy has planned a saw-tooth buying scheme – alternating between one and two frigates per year – Vandroff has said his yard cannot build more than two frigates per year. If the Navy wants to ramp up to three or four frigates, it will have to turn to a second shipyard.

The design of the Constellation-class ships is based on the Italian FREMM multi-mission frigate parent design that was modified by ship designer Gibbs & Cox to accommodate Navy survivability and equipment requirements. The Leidos subsidiary, Fincantieri and Naval Sea Systems Command wrestled with Americanizing the FREMM design for two and half years before it hit the 80 percent design completion and could begin fabrication on Constellation in 2022.

The modification of the design altered almost every drawing of the FREMM and required review from NAVSEA, USNI News understands.

“[The Navy] and the shipbuilder agreed that design maturity was probably the single biggest factor we could do to reduce the risk of production,” former program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton said in August of 2022.

For example, testing at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock found that the modified design did not meet service standards for operating in heavy seas, necessitating design changes that ate into the schedule margin the yard wanted to have for the first-in-class ship.

“We were already into the functional and detail design when that report came from Carderock – something of a surprise because the parent design didn’t really have that,” Vandroff said.

It’s unclear how the delay in the delivery of the first-in-class frigate will affect the deployment schedule of Constellation. The first dozen of the anti-submarine warfare-focused ships will be based at Naval Station Everett, Wash.

The Navy issued Fincantieri a $795 million detail design and construction contract for the first ship in 2020. Then, the service awarded follow-on contracts for Congress (FFG-63) in 2021, Chesapeake (FFG-64) in 2022 and Lafayette (FFG-65) in 2023.

[James1978]

Navy Wants 3-Year Overlap Between Arleigh Burkes and DDG(X), Considering Propulsion System
By Sam LaGrone
January 10, 2024

ARLINGTON, Va. – The Navy is looking for a three-year overlap between the start of construction on its next-generation guided-missile destroyer DDG(X) and its current crop of Flight III Arleigh Burke DDGs, the director of Navy surface warfare told USNI News on Wednesday.

Set to start construction in Fiscal Year 2032, the first DDG(X) will feature the combat systems, sensors and weapons of the current Flight IIIs fit inside a new hull with the space, weight power and cooling that can be expanded to include new weapon systems and sensors, Rear Adm. Fred Pyle said.

The Navy will build the new DDG(X) around the high-powered AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar developed for the Flight III, the current inventory of missiles for its vertical launch systems and service leaders have said it could be a platform for future hypersonic missiles.

“Just from a design standpoint, our shipbuilding programs are evolutionary vice revolutionary,” Pyle said.
“Where design and automation come in for DDG(X) is the hull form, what we’re doing in the propulsion plant, and those other enablers are the platform.”

At an estimated 13,500 tons with a cost of up to $3.4 billion, the DDG(X) is set to replace the legacy Burkes that have been in the fleet since the early 1990s.

The Navy will be the design agent for the new ship, working in conjunction with the two existing guided-missile destroyer yards – General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, and HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss.

The service is keen on feathering in the DDG(X) to create a smooth transition at the yards from the Flight IIIs.

“The answer is three years to make sure we do no harm to our shipbuilding industry, whether it’s Bath Iron Works or [Ingalls],” Pyle said.

While DDG(X) will have the weapons and sensors that are already on Flight IIIs, the propulsion system for the new destroyer is still not set, Pyle said.

Early discussions around DDG(X) indicated the new warship would have an integrated power system similar to the three Zumwalt-class destroyers in the Navy. The Zumwalt system of gas turbines drives a complex electrical grid that powers electric motors that drive the ship and has an excess margin for new sensors and weapons.

Last year, the service stood up a land-based propulsion test system in Philadelphia, Pa., to prove out the early propulsion train for DDG(X).

On Wednesday, Pyle said the Navy is still determining the make up of DDG(X)’s mechanical systems.

“We want a plant that’s efficient, and less dependent on the logistics for us. We’re looking at all options, as we look at propulsion,” Pyle said.

[jemhouston]

That actually makes sense. I'm shocked.

[clancyphile]

First Constellation Frigate Delayed At Least a Year, Schedule Assessment ‘Ongoing’
Mallory Shelbourne and Sam LaGrone
January 11, 2024

ARLINGTON, Va. – The first Constellation-class guided-missile frigate will deliver at least a year late due in large part to workforce shortfalls at the Wisconsin yard where it’s built, USNI News has learned.

The service has briefed Congress that the future USS Constellation (FFG-62) could deliver in 2027 and that shipyard Fincantieri Marinette Marine has undergone an independent review to assess the delay, a legislative source confirmed to USNI News this week.

During a program briefing on Thursday at the annual Surface Navy Symposium, the deputy manager for the frigate program acknowledged potential schedule slippage in the program due to the workforce issues. When asked for a ballpark on the schedule, Andy Bosak told USNI News the assessment is “ongoing.”

“We do have challenge in the schedule. We are working that. Fincantieri has communicated to us of challenges within the schedule,” Bosak told USNI News.

“We are doing our analysis, as the Navy does, of doing deep dives of causes and effects and various different levers of which we can pull within that shipyard,” he added. “And we need to, as a program, work with our leadership, kind of figure out what we want to do. And from that, we will make that assessment as to what the actual schedule impact is of where we are. And that effort is ongoing.”

Following an earlier version of this post, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced a review of Navy shipbuilding, citing concerns with the frigate program and the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program. NAVSEA head Vice Adm. Jim Downey and assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition Nickolas Guertin will lead the evaluation.

“The American public should know that the Department of the Navy is committed to developing, delivering, and sustaining the finest warfighting capability to our Sailors and Marines,” Del Toro said in a statement. “We will continue to work with industry and all other stakeholders to strengthen our national shipbuilding capacity, both naval and commercial.”

Fincantieri Marinette Marine is short by several hundred people across both the blue and white-collar workforce, Bosak confirmed.

The yard in Marinette, Wis., is having trouble hiring welders, Capt. Kevin Smith, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told an audience at the same symposium. The workforce issues extend across multiple trades and disciplines, Bosak said on Thursday.

To get after the workforce shortfalls, Fincantieri has received $50 million from the Navy for the surface combatant industrial base. The yard is using that money to issue bonuses to employees both in the blue and white-collar workforce to incentivize them to stay at Marinette. Employees who work on the frigate in the Marinette yard starting Jan. 1, 2024, and are still employed on Dec. 31, 2024, will receive $5,000, USNI News understands. Employees who are working on the frigate in the Marinette yard and remain with the program until the ship launches will receive another $5,000.

“We need young people in the country that are willing to take good-paying jobs – I mean I pay our skilled tradesmen well compared to the average blue-collar wage here in Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan,” Mark Vandroff, Fincantieri Marinette Marine’s chief executive officer, told USNI News last April during a visit to the Marinette yard. “But it’s a fight for talent – it really is. Labor is scarce.”

Fincantieri is also having issues managing the workforce rollover from its other programs, the last Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships and Saudi Arabia’s multi-mission surface combatant. Some engineers who were supposed to roll over to the Connie program are still working on the LCS or the MMSC.

During last year’s visit, USNI News observed a full yard trying to wrap up the Freedom-class LCS line, while building the Royal Saudi Navy’s surface combatants and the new Connies. While the Navy has planned a saw-tooth buying scheme – alternating between one and two frigates per year – Vandroff has said his yard cannot build more than two frigates per year. If the Navy wants to ramp up to three or four frigates, it will have to turn to a second shipyard.

The design of the Constellation-class ships is based on the Italian FREMM multi-mission frigate parent design that was modified by ship designer Gibbs & Cox to accommodate Navy survivability and equipment requirements. The Leidos subsidiary, Fincantieri and Naval Sea Systems Command wrestled with Americanizing the FREMM design for two and half years before it hit the 80 percent design completion and could begin fabrication on Constellation in 2022.

The modification of the design altered almost every drawing of the FREMM and required review from NAVSEA, USNI News understands.

“[The Navy] and the shipbuilder agreed that design maturity was probably the single biggest factor we could do to reduce the risk of production,” former program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton said in August of 2022.

For example, testing at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock found that the modified design did not meet service standards for operating in heavy seas, necessitating design changes that ate into the schedule margin the yard wanted to have for the first-in-class ship.

“We were already into the functional and detail design when that report came from Carderock – something of a surprise because the parent design didn’t really have that,” Vandroff said.

It’s unclear how the delay in the delivery of the first-in-class frigate will affect the deployment schedule of Constellation. The first dozen of the anti-submarine warfare-focused ships will be based at Naval Station Everett, Wash.

The Navy issued Fincantieri a $795 million detail design and construction contract for the first ship in 2020. Then, the service awarded follow-on contracts for Congress (FFG-63) in 2021, Chesapeake (FFG-64) in 2022 and Lafayette (FFG-65) in 2023.

The Alvaro de Bazan class would have been much simpler. Pretty much scaled-down Burke, used SPY-1 and current USN systems...

[Drunknsubmrnr]

And as the Norwegians found out, maybe not so survivable.

[James1978]

I suspect that even had another design been chosen, we'd be seeing most if not all of the same issues with any shipyard not named Bath or Ingalls.

[James1978]

Older article, but relevant to wartime sustainment.

US Navy Issues Updated Solicitation On AS(X) Submarine Tenders
By Zach Abdi
09 October 2023

On the 2nd of October, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) released an updated solicitation for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of a new class of Submarine Tenders under the AS(X) recapitalization program.

According to the updated announcement, the solicitation will cover the engineering and industrial support, crew familiarization, training equipment,and provisioned item orders of two AS(X) ships.

The updated solicitation points towards timely progress being made on the AS(X) program. In April 2022, NAVSEA awarded Concept Refinement and Preliminary Designs contracts to L3Harris Technologies, General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII).

The contracts, which were cumulatively worth $18 million, covered a study period of nine months, with options to extend this period by another nine months. The main objective of the studies was to develop ship specifications, cost estimates, construction timelines and other such program details to inform follow-on acquisition efforts.

The contracts were followed by a pre-solicitation announcement released on the 8th of March, 2023. The announcement stated that NAVSEA would conduct a full and open competition for the AS(X) program in the fall of 2023.

About the AS(X)-class ships
Details surrounding the AS(X) have been largely shrouded in secrecy due to the role the ships fill in repairing and rearming nuclear submarines.

However, we know that the AS(X)-class ships are meant to succeed the Navy’s aging Emory S. Land–class submarine tenders. The U.S. Navy currently operates two ships of the class, both of which entered service in 1979. The ships are currently homeported at Naval Base Guam located in Apra Harbor, Guam, where they provide hotel services and intermediate-level repair to five nuclear-powered attack submarines homeported there alongside the ships.

The solicitation announcement states that the AS(X) is being specifically designed to support the Virginia-class, Columbia-class, and future generation submarines in the 21st century. Furthermore, the class will also be capable of supporting Los Angeles-class and Ohio-class submarines until their retirement.

According to the announcement, the new AS(X)-class ships will: conduct steady state and wartime sustained, forward-based tending, resupply, and I-level repair operations on deployed submarines while at anchor or moored at a pier. In steady state, the AS(X) provides pier-side support in a forward deployed submarine homeport, providing sustained repair, supply, weapons handling/rearming, and tending operations for home ported or visiting submarines and ships, and fly-away emergent voyage repair services for other deployed submarines and ships.

The U.S. Navy expects to retire the first ship of the current class of submarine tenders in 2029 and the second ship in 2030. This gives a rough idea of the schedule the AS(X)-class is working with. While this schedule isn’t very tight, any delays incurred at later stages could severely impact the deployment and availability of submarines in the 7th Fleet.

A third ship in the Emory S. Land-class of submarine tenders is already decommissioned: The former USS McKee (AS-41) was struck from the Naval Register on 25 April 2006. The hull is now moored at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia and serves as a floating workshop.

[James1978]

NASSCO readying for one program’s end, downturn in repair workload
By Megan Eckstein
February 27, 2024

SAN DIEGO — General Dynamics’ NASSCO shipyard is nearing the end of its Expeditionary Sea Base shipbuilding program, which has been extended multiple times due to high demand.

It’s also eyeing a potential 2030 timeframe for a push to reinvigorate the sealift fleet.

Now, the California shipyard must determine how to best fill its order books between now and then.

The yard here is unique: it is the only one in the nation that builds new U.S. Navy and commercial ships and conducts repairs on both. This flexibility offers options as it seeks new work, NASSCO President David Carver said in a recent interview.

But after a couple years of turbulent labor and supply chain conditions, the yard is pursuing stability — something it thinks is achievable with a few key programs.

The San Diego shipyard just delivered its fourth Lewis B. Puller-class Expeditionary Sea Base this month and has two more under construction. After that sixth ESB delivers, the yard will need to fill its graving dock with another ship type.

“We’re looking at the [next-generation] sub tender program. We’re looking at commercial possibilities. So we fully intend to fill the graving dock, our build position, with another ship class,” Carver said Feb. 13 from his office overlooking the assembly area.

Or, it could use that space to accelerate the John Lewis-class oiler program.

The first nine oilers are on contract, with two delivered to the Navy and the next four in various phases of construction.

Carver said the program got off to a slow start, was abruptly accelerated in 2018 when a shipyard accident halted the ESB program and forced NASSCO to move those employees to the oiler program to avoid laying them off, and then slowed again when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Now, though, the oiler program “is really starting to hit its stride. We are seeing significant ship-over-ship learning, much like we did on our T-AKE program some years back.”

Carver said NASSCO and the Navy have discussed the pace of future oiler construction. He believes building two a year “is probably aggressive” — unless the yard can’t win a contract for the submarine tender or a commercial tanker program to replace the expeditionary sea base program, in which case it could use that graving dock to build more oilers. But, he said, the ideal rate might be alternating between one and two every year in what’s known as a sawtooth profile.

General Dynamics in December finished a capital improvement project to expand the block assembly line. Now, Carver said, production should be able to ramp up such that, by the end of the year, NASSCO is producing one additional block, or segment of a ship hull, each week.

“Seems minor, but one extra block [per week over the course of one year] is a quarter of a T-AO. So we’ll be able to build a quarter of a ship more every year by the end of the year,” he said, noting this would help the yard get to the 1-2-1-2 sawtooth pattern while also being able to pursue the submarine tender or commercial work.

Sealift, sooner or later
Carver is confident there will be a boon in sealift ship spending down the road, perhaps around 2030. A sealift fleet, along with the Air Force’s fleet of cargo aircraft, would carry the ground force and all its supplies to a fight overseas.

“We believe it’s going to happen, it’s just when,” he said. “Our nation’s in trouble in terms of that sealift capability — everyone understands it, but it’s just not a priority to be funded” yet.

Sealift has historically been a challenge because the Navy must buy them, even though the Army would be perhaps the biggest beneficiary of a strong sealift fleet. Because sealift ships don’t fill a Navy operational need, the ships don’t fare well when budgets get tight.

The Navy and the U.S. Maritime Administration have bought used sealift ships in recent years, but the ships have been more expensive than anticipated and required modifications to meet Defense Department sealift requirements.

“It’s a stopgap, but they’re going to have to build new sooner or later,” Carver said, adding that NASSCO has already drafted designs and shared them with the Navy.

The Navy took a stab at a multi-purpose sealift ship called the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform, or CHAMP, awarding contracts to NASSCO and three other companies in an industry studies phase in 2019. This common hull would have performed five separate missions: sealift, aviation logistics support, hospital, repair tender, and command and control. The cost, though, ballooned to more than $1 billion dollars per ship, leading the Navy to cancel the effort.

Carver said NASSCO’s design costs “a quarter of that price,” and the company continues to make its pitch to the Navy and lawmakers about the need to buy inexpensive sealift ships to reinvigorate the fleet and support the shipbuilding sector.

Repair workload continues to shrink
The shipyard has seen relative stability on the construction side compared to its the ship repair business.

“Ship repair … has dropped for the third year in a row,” with 2024′s workload down one-third compared to three years ago, Carver said.

The Navy has designated some of the work as small business set-asides, leaving companies like NASSCO and its next-door neighbor in San Diego, BAE Systems, ineligible, while other availabilities have been shortened or canceled due to extended deployments or funding shortfalls.

Carver said the ship repair industry overall is in a down cycle and that many other companies have had to lay off employees. NASSCO has avoided this, since it can move employees to the construction side — but Carver said the shipyard has struggled with the growing cost of repair work due to increases in the cost of labor, supplies and overhead related to reforms made after several shipboard fires.

The yard is hopeful the workload will increase beginning in 2025, especially as the Navy moves deeper into its DDG Mod 2.0 effort to upgrade all 25 Flight IIA Arleigh Burke destroyers.

[James1978]

Pentagon inspector general launches probe into Navy suicides
By Gary Warner - Stars and Stripes
March 7, 2024

The Defense Department inspector general is sending investigators to several Navy installations to evaluate suicide rates, the Pentagon confirmed Thursday.

Site visits are planned for Naval Base Kitsap in Washington, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia, according to a memo about the review. It will also look at suicides and suicide attempts on ships at sea. Dates for inspections at each facility have not been announced.

The Pentagon said investigators could visit additional installations as the review moves forward. The timing and scope of the review will not be released in advance.

The suicide review was mandated in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets policy and spending priorities for the Pentagon.

The Navy has reported an increase in suicides and suicide attempts in recent years, with 71 suicides by active-duty sailors in 2022. The service reported 65 suicides in 2020 and 59 in 2021. Final statistics for 2023 are not yet available.

Suicide rates differ because of fluctuations in the number of Navy personnel each year. The rate per 100,000 active-duty sailors was 20.6 in 2022, 17 in 2021 and 19 in 2020, according to the Pentagon’s 2022 annual report on suicide in the military.

A federal study in 2021 found 30,177 active-duty personnel and veterans in all service branches who served in the military died from suicide in the 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It was more than four times higher than the 7,057 service members killed in combat during the same time.

The review will “determine whether the Department of Navy effectively took actions to prevent and respond to incidents of deaths by suicide, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation among members of the Navy assigned to sea duty or shore duty,” according to a Feb. 27 memo from the inspector general’s office.

“Additionally, we do not disclose our tactics, techniques or procedures used to perform our evaluations,” said Mollie Halperin, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department Office of Inspector General.

Installations visited by investigators must also assign a rear admiral or high-ranking civilian employee to respond to questions. The Navy’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Health Agency will lead the review.

When the review is completed, it will be published on the inspector general’s website.

The memo said the review could lead to revisions in how the Navy manages and evaluates its programs.