Under current plans, the Royal Navy circa 2020 will be a very strange force. There will be just six high-end warships to protect two 65,000-ton super-carriers, plus a mixed flotilla of old Type 23s and FSCs numbering just over a dozen. It’ll be a top-heavy force with too few destroyers to escort the carriers into a shooting war, and too few frigates to perform day-to-day patrolling during peacetime. It’s a fleet optimized for nothing.
For the past few decades, Her Majesty's Armed Forces have steered away from the preservation of empire and colonies, instead configuring themselves in such a way that they can provide a solid bulwark to the US Armed Forces, while operating independently in a single theater, Falklands style scenario.
But, the backbone of any British strategy -from the pre-Victorian age all the way up until the Labour Party victory in the mid 1990s- has always been a powerful Royal Navy. The fleet's demise over the past several years has been one of the great tragedies in recent memory. There was a time when the Union Jack protected every major sea lane and trade route on the globe -- today the British can barely protect their own coastline. That's a terrible fall for what was once a mighty sea-faring empire.
What's troubling about this report, to me at least, is that the Brits are shaping their fleet in such a way that it will be largely reliant on American protection. Instead of existing as a powerful, independent ally that can operate jointly or independently with its US counterpart, the Royal Navy is becoming a welfare case -- where supporting it with anti-sub and anti-air protection becomes more of a drain on our own resources than a benefit.
Watching the British lose confidence in themselves, the oft-lamented "Suez Syndrome," is terrible. But, as much as it pains me to say so, perhaps it's time we look for new, stronger allies for our special defense relationship -- perhaps in the Aussies or Japanese.
Iranian technical university student Hassan Sharifzadeh drafted a new reconnaissance submarine that can avoid radar detection, the Iranian Fars news agency said.
Next up: an Iranian fighter jet that's invisible to sonar!
--John Noonan
Update: via the comments, we'll call this a 'lost in translation' moment.
Aegis v2.0
So with littoral combat being all the rage these days, what's being done to posture the fleet against the rising threat of enemy ballistic missiles? Rear Admiral Thomas Marfiak says "not enough."
With all the talk about the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the next guided-missile destroyer, DDG-1000, no one has seen fit to discuss the future of the next generation of cruisers-the CG(X), the follow-on to the present class of Aegis cruisers. Because those remarkable ships will reach their 30th anniversaries-and beyond-in the middle of the next decade, we need to confront the issue of their successors now.
The Analysis of Alternatives for the CG(X) has been in the works for several months, but the outcome is far from certain. And with the target initial operational capability of the new cruiser class set for 2019, the present study of required capabilities and how to develop and fund them has reached the point of urgency.
A knotty problem. Back during 2006's Lebanon War, Hezzy baddies killed four Israeli sailors with a UAV packed with explosives. Granted, textbook definition doesn't exactly qualify that as a ballistic missile. But it does raise the larger point of potential enemies like Iran, Syria, and North Korea -- and what tech they'd employ as a means of knocking back our air and sea power. Seeing that every dictator and his sweet mother have -at minimum- a few medium range ballistic missiles and a whole mess of lighter ship/aircraft killers, I'm thinking that the good Admiral has a point here.
Furthermore, most of our enemies (and potentials) are eager customers of a booming Russian defense industry. Taking into consideration the fact that Aegis was originally designed to protect our carriers from Russian missile attack, logic would dictate that as the Russians upgrade their ship-killing kit, we upgrade our seaborne defense systems as well.
--John Noonan
Key Lawmakers Clap While DD 1000 Sinks
I wrote earlier this week about the apparent demise of the DDG 1000 in the Navy's future budget planning. Well, in an unusual step, two very key lawmakers have come out in favor of curtailing the program.
“I am pleased with the Navy’s decision to focus its resources on the DDG 51 destroyer, with its known costs and capabilities, rather than the increasingly expensive DDG 1000,” said Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO). “Our committee recommended this action in the fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization Act, and I am pleased to see the Navy heed our advice. It is a responsible decision that will benefit both the Navy and the taxpayer for years to come.”
“I believe this is the right thing for the men and women of our Navy and the citizens who pay for these ships,” Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor (D-MS) commented. “The DDG 51 class destroyer is the premier destroyer in the world today. The ship has tremendous flexibility in a variety of warfighting missions, including the ability to serve as a ballistic missile defense platform. Just as important, the costs of these ships are well known. The Navy has built 62 of these superb vessels and our shipyards know how to build them on budget and on schedule.
Taylor continued, “The two DDG 1000s that our nation will build will be extremely capable ships. However, virtually every independent organization with expertise in ship cost analysis has predicted the first two ships will cost up to $5 billion each, or more than $1.5 billion more than the Navy has budgeted. Such cost overruns would cripple the Navy’s plan to reach a 313-ship fleet.
Now, as DT reader George Skinner noted in his comments from Monday's post, the DDG 1000 has been a great incubator for new naval technologies. I'm in favor of using programs such as this to develop new gear for the next generation of hardware -- I see the same thing happening with the FCS program and I'm all for it. And it's refreshing when services make a tactical retreat on some programs and admit that they'll be used essentially as R&D labs.
Continues Taylor:
"I believe that our Navy and our nation are better served by building a large number of DDG 51s and then proceeding with a timely and orderly plan to begin construction of the next generation of nuclear powered cruisers. I look forward to working with Admiral Roughead and Secretary Winter during the return to DDG 51 production."
Well said...
-- Christian
DDG 1000 Could Take Fatal Hit
It's like the Navy's version of the F-22 -- a lingering vestige of the "blue water" fighting force the service once was. But like the F-22, and despite the Navy's best efforts to shift its emphasis to surface fire support (a concept that still clings to life despite air-to-ground and surface to surface missile and artillery advancements) talk is that the DDG 1000 is slipping away.
The DDG 1000 series of ships would run on quiet and compact electric motors, not today's gas turbine engines. The ships would be unusually large but built with a radar-evading profile to make them appear small, and they would carry a new gun able to hit precisely targets 50 miles or more inland.
Most important for sailors, the destroyers would carry highly trained, computer-savvy crews half as large as the force on current destroyers.
As recently as early June, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer reaffirmed the Bush administration's support for the new ships. But as Congress refines spending plans for 2009 this summer, Navy leaders appear ready to abandon the DDG 1000 program, building only two destroyers for what once was seen as a force of two dozen or more.
The House of Representatives already has voted for at least a pause in DDG 1000 purchases, citing the cost - as much as $5 billion each - of the first two ships in the series and their dependence on still-unproven technologies.
In a statement released last week , the Navy seemed resigned to an early end for the program. "Even if we do not receive funding ... beyond the first two ships, the technology embedded in DDG 1000 will advance the Navy's future," the statement asserted.
And the sad thing is that the littoral combat ship was to precede the DDG 1000 and even that's on the skids (and is perhaps the most relevant ship the Navy's looking into right now). Rummy started it with the death of Cold War vestige programs in the Army (remember the Crusader and Comanche?) and Gates pounded a few more nails into the coffin with is "next-war-itis" crusade. The services are beginning to see the writing on the wall and refocus their efforts -- leaving a big job for the next defense secretary to get the procurement plans back on track.
-- Christian
Breaking the Ice with LCS
Things are heating up for the U.S. Navy's first Littoral Combat Ship, after a long frozen winter in a Wisconsin shipyard.
The 377-foot Freedom is expected to head for open water once the ice melts. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin had hoped to set sail before the winter freeze, but ended up needing a few extra months for further development.
This week, the company announced a new testing milestone, as the new warship's electric plant fired up for the first time. The so-called "light off" of four diesel generators and a three-megawatt electrical power plant involved putting the entire system through its paces, at full power.
"This marks a significant milestone for Freedom as her electric plant is completely functional and able to support all tests, evaluations and operations at sea," Lockheed Martin said at this week's Navy League conference.
Freedom will be delivered to the U.S. Navy in 2008 and will be homeported in San Diego. The new ships are intended to hunt mines, submarines and small boats in coastal waters. In addition to the Lockheed Martin design, the Navy also is buying a separate LCS design from General Dynamics. Both prime contractors are working with small U.S. shipyards to build the new ships, which are a lot smaller than the Navy's traditional carriers, cruisers and destroyers.
-- Rebecca Christie
USS New York Christened
The newest member of the United States Navy, the amphibious transport dock ship USS New York (LPD 21), was christened today at Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana.
The fifth ship of the new San Antonio class, the New York already holds a special place in the hearts of Americans because the steel that makes up her bow section includes steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.
Even with the headaches that came along with the first ship in the class (sort of expected with a new design and pretty much ironed out now), these are impressive machines. Designed to bring the Navy and US Marine Corp expeditionary combat capability into the 21st century, the ship was designed with low radar observables and is the first ship fully designed from the CAD-screen up to support all three of the Marine's primary mobility capabilities - Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC) and the MV-22 Osprey.
Welcome to the fleet!
Navy Ship With Steel From World Trade Center Ruins Christened USS New York
Associated Press
Avondale, LA
Thousands of people, including families of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, gathered Saturday for an at-times chilling and rallying service to christen a Navy ship built with twisted steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center.
The hulking grey USS New York, which abruptly rose from the horizon, bore a seal on the bow bearing 7.5 tons of steel from the site. The shield included two gray bars to symoblize the Twin Towers; a banner over that declared "Never Forget."
"May God bless this ship and all who sail on her," ship sponsor, Dotty England, said before smashing a bottle of champagne against it, producing a loud thump to go with the spurting liquid and flying streamers.
Story after story of lives lost, and touched, by the attacks peppered the ceremony, held under the blazing sun and broadcast on large screens.
"To New York, we say thank you for lending your sacred seal, your name," U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., said. More importantly was that New York lent its spirit, he said.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said ship names provide a legacy, and for their crews, serve as a source of strength and inspiration.
When the attacks occurred, the ship was planned but had no name. It was named the New York at the request of former New York Gov. George Pataki. The steel from the World Trade Center site is in the part of the ship that splices through the water, leading the way.
"It resurrects the ashes, so to speak, to do great things for our nation," said Bill Glenn, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, the ship builder.
The billion-dollar, 25,000-ton vessel is 684 feet long, 105 feet wide. It can carry about 360 sailors and 700 Marines who can be brought ashore via landing craft and helicopter. Its prospective commanding officer is Commander F. Curtis Jones, a native New Yorker. It is to be commissioned next year, said England's wife, Dotty England, before the christening.
Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., said Sept. 11th was a turning point in the nation, and will never be forgotten because remnants of the disaster are part of the ship.
"If the USS New York has to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, PCO Jones and his crew ... have my full support," he said to a standing ovation.
Photo credit: AVONDALE, La. (Mar. 1, 2008) Mrs. Dottty England, wife of Deputy Secretary of Defense The Hon. Gordon England, christens the amphibious transport dock Pre-Commissioning Unit New York (LPD 21) at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding New Orleans. U. S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tiffini M. Jones (Released)
Not exactly high tech news, but noteworthy nonetheless. In another move that signals how the machine is slowly sapping the elegance from the military experience, the Navy just released this message:
FM COMNAVAIRFOR SAN DIEGO CA//N43//
TO USS KITTY HAWK
USS ENTERPRISE
USS NIMITZ
USS DWIGHT D EISENHOWER
USS CARL VINSON
USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT
USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON
USS JOHN C STENNIS
USS HARRY S TRUMAN
USS RONALD REAGAN
SUBJ/REMOVAL OF CAPTAINS GIGS FROM ALL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS//
GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. OPNAV N88 APPROVED THE NAVAL AVIATION ENTERPRISE (NAE) CARRIER READINESS TEAM (CRT) REQUEST TO REMOVE THE CAPTAIN'S GIG FROM ALL CV/CVNS. REMOVAL OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG WILL REDUCE MAINTENANCE COSTS AND FREE UP VALUABLE HANGAR BAY SPACE.
2. PER REF A AND B, ALL CV/CVNS ARE REQUESTED TO PREPARE THEIR CAPTAIN'S GIG FOR DISPOSITION WITHOUT REPLACEMENT IAW REF C. SHIPS SHOULD COORDINATE THESE EFFORTS WITH THEIR TYCOM N43 MAINTENANCE PROGRAM MANAGER (MPM).
3. THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIGS ASSIGNED BY SHIP AND ACTION REQUIRED (READ IN THREE COLUMNS):
SHIP CAPTAIN'S GIG ACTION REQUIRED
CV 63 10MPE9319 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 65 12MPE9203 NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED
CVN 68 12MPE9201 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 69 40PE9004 NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED
CVN 70 40PE761 NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED
CVN 71 40PE8514 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 72 33PE8701 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 73 13MPE9902 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 74 33PE9006 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 75 33PE9007 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
CVN 76 10MPE9308 COMPLETE REF C REQUIREMENTS
4. REQUEST THAT CAPTAIN'S GIGS BE OFFLOADED AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY.
5. CAPTAIN'S GIGS MUST BE OFFLOADED BY 30 JUN 09.
6. UPON COMPLETION OF OFFLOAD, SHIPS SHALL NOTIFY THEIR TYCOM N43 MPM AND POC.//
Ah, memories . . . it seems like just yesterday we'd join the old man for the ride to shore, full of the kind of excitement that always preceded a great liberty call.
So it's goodbye, trusty friend. Regardless of sea state, you always got us there and back.
-- Ward
Inside a Russian Sub
Here's a rare look inside a Russian sub. Note the Jules Verne vibe surrounding the design -- all the tubes, wires, and pipes. This shows the classic Cold War era Soviet approach to the problem that stands in sharp contrast to the relatively anticeptic look of American submarines. And dig the sound of a million bees buzzing as the torpedoes translate forward.
(Gouge: CM)
-- Ward
America Talks but is the Navy Listening?
As of last October, the United States has had an up-to-date, formally articulated maritime strategy for the first time since the Reagan years. I believe you owe it to yourself to read “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” which at only 20 pages, including many great color pics, is refreshingly lively and concise.
Instead of a war-plan to defeat the Eurasian mono-threat of the USSR, our nautical services are now charged with sharing the workload and costs, with their counterparts in other nations, in order to prevent -- or at least mitigate -- human suffering, strife, terror, and war anywhere on the planet within range of the sea.
I was in the audience at the Naval War College, Newport, RI, in June, 2006 when then-CNO Admiral Mike Mullen first called for developing this New Maritime Strategy via a “Conversation with America.” The idea was to solicit lots of suggestions (and, yes, criticisms) from civilian folks all across the country who had some knowledge of or interest in naval matters, ocean-borne commerce, and maritime security. (This ought to be all of us, since 90% of the world’s trade goods travel by sea.) Mullen soon put Vice Admiral John Morgan, Deputy CNO for Information, Plans and Strategy in charge of this ambitious undertaking.
The Conversation with America was dismissed by some pundits, almost from the outset, as just politically-driven grandstanding or a public relations ploy by the Navy. Having attended some half dozen conferences as the process rolled along, throwing my own two cents in more than once, I beg to differ. The latest event in this Great Seapower Dialogue was a talk and dinner with about 50 people last night at NYC’s Cornell Club, where VADM Morgan spoke for ten minutes and then fielded Q&A for an hour. Yours truly was there, and was favorably impressed. The discussion was lively, at times even passionate. Morgan –- an effective public speaker –- answered every difficult question head on, with no evasion or double-talk, while absorbing valuable suggestions and acknowledging some serious admonishments.
Don’t get me wrong. The New Maritime Strategy is by no means perfect. For one good discussion of its evident flaws and drawbacks, see Chris Cavas’s “U.S. Roles Out New Maritime Strategy” in the October 17, 2007 Defense News. One thing that frankly puzzled me from the start was that the strategy was being developed only after an official 30-year Shipbuilding Plan was laid out and then set virtually in stone –- shouldn’t you know your strategy before you decide what your Navy needs to look like? (Apparently, the pressing need to control and stabilize costs is what made the cart come before the horse here.)
But I want to talk about the conversation process itself, not the end-result document. My impression is that the Navy certainly did listen. Please allow me a personal annecdote to illustrate.
The kickoff conference for the Conversation occurred at the Naval War College in November of ’06. The Spruance Auditorium was packed with an overflow crowd, about 1,200 people. Perhaps unfortunately, this was just after the Election Day where Democrats made a bit of a comeback in Congress. There was an odd tone of euphoric “peace in our time” among the outside academics and consultants whom the NWC had invited to be on the program. It came across as an article of faith that America would never again, ever, need to fight a major war. Global love was in the air and everywhere. I kid you not. By lunchtime I was rather disturbed. I ate with a couple of retired submariners who agreed, so it wasn’t just me. The first panel after lunch, refreshingly enough, used the word “threat” more than once, and seemed to suggest that some other countries might actually be or might become our enemies.
During the Q&A of this panel, I stood and asked a question, because I was honestly confused. “Since all missions of the U.S. Navy, such as strategic deterrence, and humanitarian aid, and even counter-terror containment, can be achieved if and only if the Navy has strong assets and skillsets for the core competency of major warfighting, why is major warfighting getting what seems to be such short shrift today? The meeting is almost over, and I think this panel was the first time I’ve heard mentioned the possible future existence of big nation-state combat threats.” The speakers backed off, explaining they hadn’t meant to say that serious threats or major wars were in the cards. Oh my.
After this kickoff, the Conversation with America held its planned series of interactive meetings in major cities. I went to one of the last of these, in March ’07, at the New York Athletic Club, in NYC. The Conversation had course corrected drastically. Major Warfighting was right up there, front and center, as a critical part of the budding New Maritime Strategy’s formative precepts. The final document, on page 10, states:
“While war with another great power strikes many as improbable, the near-certainty of its ruinous effects demands that it be actively deterred using all elements of national power.”
What might at first sound like mere wishy-washy compromise language is actually something of a breakthrough in developmental methodology and public presentation, namely the practical use of risk analysis concepts in formulating maritime strategy –- a topic which, admittedly, is near and dear to my heart as a former actuarial management consultant, and which was mentioned by one panelist in November ’06 and again in March ‘07. Instead of the Navy, now under new CNO Admiral Gary Roughead, trying to eke out a concensus best-estimate scenario and then optimizing everything to that one scenario as if it were certain, six months of intense open conversations (as well as heavy staff work and input from flag officers and the wider military) led to a clear recognition that the exact scenario of what the future will look like is impossible to know until it’s too late, and a big war is one not-entirely-implausible scenario. We do indeed really need to look across a broad spectrum of possible scenarios, and pay careful attention to those which, though the majority see them as unlikely, would have catastrophic effects on humanity if they occurred because we were caught unprepared.
The Conversation with America is by no means over. VADM Morgan announced that a whole additional wave of meetings is now underway. Why? A major issue raised by participants during the first go-round, and outspokenly reinforced by yesterday evening’s guests, is that most of the attendees had come already convinced that we need a strong Navy, so that Mullen, Roughead, Morgan, et. al. were listening to their own choir. The new set of interactive get-togethers during 2008, not part of the original plan, will reach out to much wider crowds, some of whom will undoubtedly be challenging to converse with. These include a number of university faculty and student bodies, trade associations, civic entities, and groups with diverse minority demographics.
As VADM Morgan said at the Cornell Club, “The Conversation with America is meant to engage people, not convince them.” The Navy is listening.
The British government has signed contracts for the construction of two large aircraft carriers -- the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy. Given the designation CVF (for aircraft carrier-future) during their development, the new carriers will displace some 65,000 (metric) tons full load compared to approximately 100,000 (long) tons for the Nimitz class nuclear powered carriers.
The aircraft carriers will enable the Royal Navy to remain a major political-military force despite the recent reductions in the Navy’s ships, aircraft, and submarines.
The two British ships, to be named Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, are scheduled for completion in 2014 and 2016, respectively. The ships will operate conventional aircraft, which will make arrested landings and will launch with a ski-ramp (rather than catapults, as in U.S. carriers).
The carriers will replace three small, “Harrier carriers” of the Invincible class, ships displacing 19,500 tons full load that were completed in the early 1980s. Those ships could only operate Harrier-type Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing (VSTOL) aircraft and helicopters. Despite her small size and being able to only operate VSTOL aircraft, the Invincible and the slightly larger VSTOL carrier Hermes were key players in the British victory against Argentina in the Falklands in 1982. (The Hermes has since been transferred to the Indian Navy.)
The British carriers are expected to operate the U.S.-developed F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as well as helicopters. The CVF design is unusual in having a “split” starboard-side island structure with two starboard, deck-edge elevators connecting the hangar and flight decks. The design provides for supporting 500 aircraft sorties over five days, consuming perhaps 800 metric tons of ordnance.
The ships will have gas turbine engines with electric motors providing a maximum speed of 25 knots (compared to 30+ knots for U.S. nuclear carriers). The manning goal for the carriers is some 600 plus up to 800 in embarked squadrons and command staff, i.e., a total of about 1,400 men and women.
The French Navy is planning to build a variant of CVF. That ship has a scheduled completion goal of 2015 when the one existing French carrier, the nuclear-propelled Charles de Gaulle, is scheduled for a refueling and major overhaul. It is unlikely that the French can meet that completion date.
The Navy - in part due to congressional pressure - is examining the possibility of a large, 25,000-ton missile cruiser with nuclear propulsion. Details of the proposals and analyses were revealed this week by Christopher P. Cavas in Defense News and Navy Times.
Two cruiser designs are being considered. The first is a new warship based on the controversial DDG 1000 (Zumwalt class) destroyer, which features the controversial “tumblehome” hull. This design is being called an “escort cruiser” to protect aircraft carrier strike groups. It would have gas turbine propulsion, as do all other U.S. cruisers, destroyers, and frigates.
The second cruiser would be a much larger, 25,000-ton, nuclear-propelled ship with a more conventional hull featuring a flared bow. This ship would be optimized for the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) mission.
Reportedly, five nuclear-propelled CGN(X) ships and 14 escort cruisers designated CG(X) would be built to fulfill the cruiser requirement in the Navy’s 30-year, 313-ship plan. These ships would be, in part, a replacement for the 22 remaining Ticonderoga (CG 47) missile cruisers, completed between 1986 and 1994.
These cruiser concepts are taking shape as part of an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA), due to the Navy’s leadership this fall from the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) in Arlington, Virginia. While details of the AoA have been closely held, sources confirmed to Mr. Cavas that two different designs are being considered. They also say the analysis will recommend dropping the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) from the CG(X) program.
The KEI is a large BMD missile under development by Northrop Grumman as a ground- or sea-based weapon to intercept ballistic missiles in their boost, ascent, and midcourse flight phases.
The KEI is much larger than the SM-3 Standard missile developed by Raytheon to arm Navy cruisers and destroyers for the BMD role. The 40-inch diameter KEI is nearly 39 feet long, while the 21-inch diameter SM-3 stands just over 21 feet tall. Both missiles use a kinetic energy warhead, intended to ram an enemy missile.
Sources said a missile launch tube for a KEI missile would take the place of six SM-3 launch cells in a surface ship.
The CNA team is said to be firm in its recommendation for the smaller escort cruiser. Details are less developed on the nuclear-powered variant, sources said.
USS Enterprise, the US Navy's oldest carrier, recently in-chopped into the Mediterranean while on its latest deployment. As part of its operations, cross-deck flight operations with French Rafael fighters were conducted, a rarity in these days of specialized aircraft and flight ops. Narrative comments are from an email received from a deployed Enterprise officer who participated in the events:
"We trapped two French Rafale fighters on board the Enterprise today, first time ever that they have trapped. They did touch and go's off other carriers before, but this was the first time to trap. They shut down, met with ENT heavies, French DVs (distinguished visitors), including one with 5 stars.
At the catapult, again a first, they took off with no issues. Then did a spectacular formation fly-by at deck level.
On-deck pics include side-by-side of Rafale on Cat 1 and F/A-18F Super Hornet on Cat 2. Another Rafale has just come off Cat 4 and is using afterburners on the climb-out. Their catapult procedure are a little different. They do wipeout checks before crossing the JBD; once in tension they just go straight to MIL power, salute, and launch. AB comes once down the cat. Note the moveable canards just aft of the canopy."
As a former catapult officer, I can attest how this would have generated a fair amount of interest from the air and flight-deck crews, if for nothing else than to be a break from the every-day monotony of launching flight operations. Having the French carrier Charles De Gaulle's catapult and arresting gear systems designed and installed by our NAVAIR guys and gals from Lakehurst, NJ helps in that the systems used by both French naval aircraft and our our aircraft are similar (if not almost identical).
Score a few points for combined interoperability! We've come close in recent years, at least with regards to joint aircraft naval flight operations - I've seen flight deck videos of a French F-8 Crusader do touch and go's on board USS John F Kennedy (our Landing Signal Officer call for the pilot to add a bit of power during the approach is "Power". The French call is "Moteur") and the Argentines bounced A-4 Skyhawks on the deck of USS Ronald Reagan a few years ago, but this is the first time I've seen actual traps and cats done in a long time. We scream about the aforementioned "interoperability" (or the capability of a piece of equipment/hardware/weapon/whatever to be able to function with different systems) in the halls of the Pentagon all the time - its nice to be able to see it executed on La pointe pointu du javelot again.
Britain’s newest warship, the Type 45 guided missile destroyer Daring (pennant D-32), has left the BAE Systems shipyard on the Clyde to begin sea trials. The Daring is the first of a class of destroyers that, under current plans, could total 12 ships.
The construction of the Daring-class ships is highly significant for the Royal Navy in view of the recent cutbacks in surface fleet strength and the reduction in the number of nuclear-propelled submarines being planned. The Darings are to replace the aging Sheffield-class destroyers (Type 42).
According to the website Military Periscope, the multi-purpose destroyers will have a theater ballistic missile-defense capability with the U.S.-developed
Standard SM-2 (Block IVA) surface-to-air missiles. The ships will use the Principal Anti-Aircraft Missile System (PAAMS), currently in development by France and Italy. PAAMS will be a long-range air/missile defense weapon, capable of simultaneously engaging multiple targets.
The Daring-class ships will also have the 4.5-inch Mark 8 Mod 1 gun for shore bombardment, a standard weapon in British surface ships, and will embark a multi-purpose large Merlin or smaller Lynx helicopter. The ships also have the Harpoon anti-ship missile and anti-submarine weapons.
The ship will have advanced electronic systems, including radars, sonars, electronic countermeasures, and data links.
Five additional ships are now on order or under construction.
The Darings will have a full load displacement of 7,450 tons with an overall length of 499 feet, making them smaller than the improved U.S. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which displace 9,200 tons on a length of 509 feet. Also, the British ships are rated at 29 knots, about two knots slower than their U.S. contemporaries.
Venezuela has placed a preliminary order for five advanced diesel-electric submarines with Rosoboronexport, Russia's arms export company. The submarines will be of the Project 877EKM or Varshavyanka series, known in the West as the Kilo class.
The announcement came during the visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - known for his strong anti-U.S. views - to Moscow earlier this month to discuss additional weapons purchases and wider economic ties with Russia. Upon his arrival in the Russian capital he declared, “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land."
Chavez continued, "We support Russia, we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day." He added that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere.
After visiting Russia and meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Chavez planned to go on to Belarus and then to Iran, where both governments are portrayed by the U.S. government as outlaw regimes. Chavez had previously visited Iran. (He has also made several highly publicized trips to Cuba.)
In conjunction with Chavez’s trip to Russia, Konstantin Makiyenko, Deputy Director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said: "Most likely, [Venezuela] will buy five. . . submarines with missile systems ... but they could end up buying nine."
The Project 636/877 submarines are advanced diesel-electric submarines, which first entered service with the Russian Navy in 1981. Similar submarines are in service with the Algerian, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Iranian, Polish, and Romanian navies. (The Venezuelan Navy now operates two German-built Type 209/1300 diesel-electric submarines.)
Reportedly, Chavez is also negotiating with Russia for the purchase of an advanced air-defense system.
Last year Chavez signed agreements for the purchase of Russian-made helicopter gunships, fighter aircraft, and small arms for a total of $3 billion.
The folks over at the Federation of American Scientists broke an awesome story the other day with the publication on their Blog of a picture clipped from Google Earth of a purported Chinese Jin Class nuclear missile submarine.
The FAS write-up is interesting in its own right, but what never ceases to amaze me is the availability of information these days that at one time might have been considered a major intelligence breach. It reminds me of the story of Sam Morison, a former Navy Intelligence official who leaked sat photos of Russian shipbuilding pens on the Black Sea to the media.
Morison was convicted of espionage in 1985 and sentenced to two years in prison for providing the hazy, low-rez photo to Jane’s Defense Weekly. He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. But it’s interesting that in today’s age, freely available satellite photos with much higher resolution such as this one can make it around the world on the Internet in just a few seconds – with no fingerprints.
(Update from Norman Polmar)
A commercial satellite image appears to have led to revelation of details of the new Chinese nuclear-propelled ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) of the Jin or Type 094 class. The new submarine was initially photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006 and the image was available on the Google Earth web site. Coupled with later satellite photography, the submarine was identified by Hans M. Kristensen, Director, Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.
The Type 094 submarine has long been expected by Western analysts and intelligence experts. China has previously constructed only a single SSBN, the Xia or Project 092 submarine, launched in 1983. That submarine has twice test fired the JL-1 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), but is not considered an operational submarine. The improved JL-2 SLBM will probably arm the Type 094 submarine, with that missile expected to become operational between 2007 and 2010, according to U.S. officials.
The lead Type 094 submarine is apparently undergoing trials. One or more units may be under construction with U.S. naval intelligence estimating that up to five will be built. That number could enable the Chine Navy to maintain at least one SSBN on continuous patrol.
The Type 094 appears to be a modification of the Type 093 nuclear-propelled attack submarine (SSN) now in production. The Chinese have added a missile compartment and other equipment to the SSN design, similar to the approach taken by the U.S. Navy in developing the George Washington (SSBN 598) missile submarine from the Skipjack (SSN 585) design.
China’s long delay in developing a “modern” SSBN indicates that China’s strategic offensive goal is for regional nuclear strike capabilities with primarily long- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles launched from land sites. Still, many Westerners have long believed that SSBNs would be a major component of China’s long-range strike forces.
-- Christian
'Big E' Will Soon be the Oldest
The U.S. Navy’s first nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier - the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) - will soon be the Navy’s oldest “flattop.” Today the oil-burning carrier Kitty Hawk (CV 63) is the oldest. Both ships were completed in 1961. The Kitty Hawk is based in Yokosuka, Japan; the only American carrier based overseas. She will be retired next year, and be replaced in Japan by the nuclear-propelled George Washington (CVN 73).
The Navy has recently awarded contracts for more than $40 million to the Northrop Grumman Corp. - and to the firm’s yard at Newport News, Virginia - to continue maintenance of the Enterprise and for inactivation planning. The “Big E” is schedule to be decommissioned in 2013, having been in service for 52 years - a record for U.S. aircraft carriers.
Decommissioning of the Enterprise will be the most complex effort yet undertaken to remove a nuclear ship from service. Previously the Navy has decommissioned nine nuclear cruisers (each with two reactors) and more than 100 nuclear submarines (all with one reactor except for a radar picket craft, the USS Triton [SSRN 586], which had a two-reactor plant).
The Enterprise has an eight-reactor nuclear plant. The cost of removing those reactors and providing burial for them, “cleaning” portions of the ship’s massive engineering spaces, and other decommissioning procedures are expected to cost several hundred million dollars.
With the Enterprise’s decommissioning, the number of large carriers in the Navy will drop to ten. However, the Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is expected to be completed in 2015, raising the number of carriers back to the authorized 11-ship force.
Of the 18 Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines built from 1976-1997, all are still in service. Four of them have been removed from strategic service and have been converted to SSGN cruise missile subs. USS Ohio (SSGN 726) and USS Florida (SSGN 728) rejoined the fleet last year, USS Michigan (SSGN 727) just rejoined the fleet a couple of weeks ago, and USS Georgia (SSGN 729) should rejoin this fall. The remaining 14 Ohios continue to serve as strategic nuclear deterrents much as they did during the Cold War.
Unlike the attack sub force, which has been nearly halved since 1990 with more cuts to come, the missile sub force has not been cut back nearly so much. Though Northrop Grumman's Newport News recently said it was ready and willing to start designing the next class of boomer, no current plans call for new boats.
If the attack sub fleet finds itself scrambling to justify its existence in an age of asymmetric land warfare, the missile subs have an even tougher task in convincing budgeters of the need for a massive nuclear deterrent in a post-Mutually Assured Destruction world. In fact, the four boats converted to SSGNs were to have been retired beginning in 2002 rather than undergo the upgrade to the D-5 Trident II missile.
How many ballistic missile subs are required to provide the US Navy the deterrent it needs? A study published last year suggests that a force of 10 SSBNs would strike the right balance between capability, cost-savings, and treaty agreements. Current treaty plans indicate a total of around 1440 nuclear warheads for US subs, meaning about 4 per missile if all 14 boats are retained. Each missile now carries up to 8 warheads. The report notes:
This distributes the available warheads across a large force which maximizes survivability but affords little savings in that additional missile airframes must be purchased to outfit a submarine force with a 45-year lifespan. The Navy should reduce the SSBN force to 10 submarines, which would increase the number of warheads per missile to six. Reducing the size of the SSBN force would save money in two ways. First, fewer D-5 missile airframes need be purchased. Second, depending upon the future missions assigned, the cost of continuing to operate four SSBNs in strategic service is eliminated. This second cost savings is reduced as the four submarines removed from the strategic mission would still be put to sea but not with the expense of maintaining a nuclear arsenal.
The study also recommends what to do with the four subs removed from strategic service. Two of them converted to SSGNs (bringing the total to six), particularly useful as special operations will continue to grow in importance in the coming years and talk of a intermediate range conventional ballistic missile means no shortage of work for the SSGN force. The other two could be used as training platforms, replacing two retired Lafayette class boats in that role.
Also, two recent columns by controversial Washington Post military blogger William M. Arkin noted the missile sub issue. In What the Weapons Makers Want he likened the boomers to the Air Force's long-range strategic bombers, and received a response from an officer on an Ohio-class sub claiming that the boats are contributing nothing, nothing at all, to the national security of the United States. Arkin discussed this response in More Subs, Fewer Boots on the Ground. Read the letter and the response for yourself and see if there's anything there. Also, check out Bubblehead's commentary on the matter.
After more than 23 years of service, the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN 708) inactivated in a ceremony June 22 at Pier 3 at Naval Station Norfolk.
Concerns remain that our shrinking fleet is going to leave us with our pants down at some point, and that our anti-sub warfare capabilities (or, rather, our lack thereof) could leave serious gaps waiting to be exploited. Two world wars showed that submarine fleets were able to have a drastic effect on the wider military and economic efforts of the combatants.
While no one is going to challenge our supremacy in the realm of carrier-centered naval power, even just the threat of submarines could potentially keep those carriers from operating when and where we need them to. We've seen anti-mine capabilities whither over time. Are ASW capabilities going to suffer the same fate?
The attack sub fleet is part of the ASW effort, and when you couple the shrinking hunter fleet with the retirement of the S-3 Vikings, the delays in the P-3 Orion's follow-on (the P-8A Poseidon MMA), and questions about the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, I suspect that we've got reason to be concerned about our ability to combat enemy submarines that could threaten our surface forces and logistics fleet, let alone commercial ships.
The USS Hawaii (SSN 776) was just commissioned last month, so it's not like the fleet just shrank the other day. USS North Carolina (SSN 777) will join the fleet next year. But the long-term plan is to reduce the number of attack boats in the fleet by a significant number. Not every boat retired in the coming years will be replaced by a new one. We currently have 53 operational attack subs in the fleet.
A 2005 study by the Navy itself said that 48 is the "minimum number of attack submarines needed to maintain an acceptable level of risk at an acceptable cost." But the current plan to acquire Virginia-class subs like the Hawaii and North Carolina will put us under the 48-boat level for sixteen of the twenty-seven years between 2007 and 2034, bottoming out at 40 boats in 2028 and 2029. For more, see the Heritage Foundation articles The Navy Needs to Close the Projected Gap in the Attack Submarine Fleet and Congress Should Accelerate Submarine Procurement.
The Navy’s problem-plagued Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) continues to have performance and reliability problems long after its delivery to the Navy. The craft, which was to have been the harbinger of a fleet of advanced submersibles carried into hostile waters on U.S. nuclear submarines, has suffered from poor contracting practices, lenient oversight, and an unqualified builder, according to a recently released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The craft was accepted by the Navy in 2003, despite shortcoming and continued problems. That was some six years beyond the original delivery schedule. Although it has been operationally deployed aboard a nuclear-propelled attack submarine, problems continue and the Department of Defense has halted production of additional units.
Several attack submarines as well as the four cruise missile-SEAL transport submarines (SSGN) converted from giant Trident “boats” were each to carry one and two ASDS vehicles, respectively. Instead the submarines now deliver SEALS by “wet” vehicles, with shorter range and fewer capabilities -- which can be carried in seven dry shelters that can be attached to submarines -- or by rubber boats, much the same as commandos were landed from submarines in World War II.
The Senate Armed Services Committee asked the GAO for the review of the ASDS program. The GAO report, released in late May, was critical of the Navy accepting the vehicle from the Northrop Grumman Corporation, and for continuing to pay the contractor for repairs, maintenance and upgrades, mostly under labor-hour contracts or agreements based on actual costs plus a pre-negotiated fee. The Navy’s contracting procedures provided little incentive for the firm to meet schedules or cost goals, and the contractor exceeded cost estimates on almost one-half of the delivery orders and missed schedule targets on 20 of 26 orders.
Navy officials justified those contract structures as reasonable given the high risk associated with implementing new and complicated technologies, but shifted to more incentive-based fee structures over the following two years. The GAO report said that there were early signs of better performance in the later period, although it was too early to gauge results.
The GAO found that Navy officials also failed to follow best contracting practices by frequently not settling on terms such as cost and scope of work before authorizing the contractor to proceed. In some cases, terms were not agreed upon until after the work was complete. Navy officials told the GAO that they were now taking more time with requirements development and pushing the
contractor to be realistic in its cost and schedule estimates, and said all contract terms have been fully defined before award during the last two years.
The Navy is evaluating how much it will cost to complete “fixes” and modifications to the single ASDS and whether it makes sense to even do so. A decision is expected within a year. To date an estimated $885 million has been spent on the troubled program, according to the GAO.
The HAWK is currently our oldest carrier, launched in May of 1960. Plans are to have her role as our only forward-deployed aircraft carrier taken over by USS George Washington, expected to sail into Yokosuka, Japan sometime next summer.
Carrier Air Wing 5 is the wing assigned to Kitty Hawk. They are based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, japan. The Hornets (F/A-18 C, E and F), Hawkeyes (E-2C), Hoovers (S-3, for a short while longer), helos (SH-60) and Jammers (EA-6B) aircraft will operate in the western and central Pacific operating areas, then swap decks when the new flattop arrives.
Here's to you, Kitty Hawk!
Oldest U.S. Carrier Makes Last Voyage
(ASSOCIATED PRESS 23 MAY, 2007)
TOKYO - The USS Kitty Hawk, the U.S. Navy's oldest ship in full active service, embarked on its last major maneuvers Wednesday before being decommissioned next year.
The 46-year-old vessel - the only American aircraft carrier permanently deployed abroad - eased out of its berth at the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo, escorted by a carrier strike group of cruisers and guided missile destroyers, Naval spokesman John Nylander said.
The voyage, to last several months in the western and central Pacific Ocean, was expected to be the last major mission for the ship before it is replaced next year by the USS George Washington and sent back to the United States for decommissioning, said Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, commander of the Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group.
"This is the last trip for USS Kitty Hawk," Wren told reporters.
The Kitty Hawk, with a crew of more than 5,500, was commissioned in 1961 and has served in Vietnam and Iraq.
The oil-powered ship was deployed to Yokosuka in 1998, and will be replaced with the nuclear-powered George Washington as part of the U.S. military's effort to modernize its forces in East Asia - an area of potential flashpoints with North Korea or China.
But the vessel's replacement sparked a backlash in Japan, where critics oppose the basing of a nuclear-powered warship in domestic waters. Japan's government backed the idea, however, saying the George Washington would boost regional stability.
Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports hundreds of times since 1964, and the United States has provided firm commitments to Tokyo regarding the safe use of Japanese harbors by the nuclear-powered vessels.
It’s a debate that's been raging since the early 1990s – one that pits American Sailors against their Marine brethren.
As the last of the Navy’s battleships was put into mothballs in 1992, the Corps increased its plea for a replacement of the venerable 16-inch guns that, since WWII, had softened the enemy before storming ashore. But the Navy has spent billions on aircraft carriers and cruise missile ships, largely ignoring a combat capability it sees as a relic of a bygone era.
These days, the Marines have the puny 5” guns of the Navy’s destroyer and cruiser fleet to guard their backs and soften up targets – a gun that at 13 nautical miles range, barely touches the lethality of the retired battleship’s arsenal.
But soon there could be hope. After years of back and forth, the Navy now seems serious about developing - and paying for – an advanced cannon round that can support Marines ashore with volume fires from their 5” gun-equipped ships.
Built with guidance fins, a GPS-enabled seeker head and a rocket motor to launch the round higher, the Extended Range Guided Munition can hit targets farther away from shore more accurately than today’s 5” ammo.
Using the Raytheon-developed ERGM, the Navy hopes to reach out and touch bad guys from at least 43 miles. That’s nearly double the range of a battleship’s guns, which put warheads on foreheads at 24 miles.
But don’t get your hopes up Devil Dog. This has been a constant tug-of-war between the Marines and Navy since the decommissioning of the battleships in the early 1990s. The Navy loves its planes and long-range missile firing ships. Why isn’t that enough fire support for Marines who rarely assault beaches these days?
But the Marines still want dependable volume fires in any weather. Cruise missiles and F-18s aren’t going to cut it when the sky turns into soup or a ship’s captain has to justify firing a $750,000 Tomahawk missile for covering fire to Marines in contact. Ain’t gonna happen.
The Navy may be stalling for the next-gen gun – an electromagnetic rail gun to replace the 5-incher. But Marines need this support now, and it’s good to see the Navy’s starting to take this requirement seriously.
As a follow-up to my EMALS interview with Capt. Rorke, the cats and traps czar at NAVAIR, I spoke with Capt. Michael Schwartz, the Future Aircraft Carrier Program Manager at NAVSEA.
Capt. Schwartz provided some details behind Capt. Rorke's somewhat cryptic references regarding the future catapult system's "shipboard integration challenges." And DT is pleased to report all is well.
First, EMALS did indeed exceed its alloted real estate at one point, but that issue actually forced engineers into the realization that - because of excess capacity - they could get away with three energy storage devices per catapult instead of 4. Real estate concerns gone.
Schwartz also explained EMALS has the reliablity and survivability features that the legacy system does not: Any of the energy storage devices can serve any of the cats. "Right now [with the current steam catapult system] if a component breaks, that cat is down," Schwartz said. "With EMALS that won't be the case."
And the weight problem? Well, get a load of this: Each catapult exceeds its target weight by 100 tons. The solution? No action required. They're simply going to suck it up. Schwartz explained that the USS Gerald R. Ford is designed to weigh 100,000 tons, give or take 5,000 tons. So a mere 400 tons is noise.
And here is where old skool brownshoes start to feel the years raging by: Because there's no steam plant to warm up and components to elongate, etc., there will be no need to shoot "no loads" before flight ops commence. And the EMALS system doesn't have a water brake to stop the shuttle at the end of the stroke. The system simply uses reverse magnetic polarity to stop. So there won't be that skull-jarring smash at the end of each cat shot anymore. Peace in Wardroom One! The squadron bubbas will actually be able to hear each other's stories now.
Additionally, cat shots can be programmed to be extremely smooth while still giving aircraft the proper end speed off the bow (and waist). No more INS alignment-dumping shots like Cat 4 on Indy back in the day. Strap on some AIM-54s and a TARPS pod . . . now that was a shot, my friends. And this sort of programming around EMALS has built-in safeguards that will eliminate the need for aviators to roger a weight board as they taxi up to the cat. (So what are Super Hornet WSOs supposed to do while the pilots are spreading the wings?)
Throw in UCAS sharing the flight deck come 2020 and you have a recipe for paralyzing future shock. Alas, Capt. Schwartz allayed my fears somewhat: "We want to honor the time-tested mechanisms that have served to make carrier aviation safe," he said. "People will still be in the loop where required."
The newly-named USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the first of the next generation of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and with these ships are plans for the incorporation of radical new technology.
The most basic mission of an aircraft carrier is to launch and recover . . . duh . . . aircraft. The Electro-magnetic Aircraft Launch System is being fielded to take care of what we call the "shooting off the pointy end" or launch part.
In very basic terms, the legacy steam catapult system uses energy to "push" the shuttle down the track to launch aircraft. EMALS uses magnetic fields to "pull" the shuttle to affect the same end.
EMALS consists of four major subsystems:
Linear Induction Motor (LIM)
The LIM, developed in a configuration for the flight deck, is a compact, modular, integrated structure. The motor design will tolerate the range of conditions experienced in the flight deck environment and operating scenarios. The simple moving shuttle will interface with the aircraft in the same manner as the existing catapults.
Power Conversion Electronics
The power conversion electronics derive power from the energy store and convert this power to constant-current ac with increasing frequency and voltage to drive the shuttle along the launch stroke. Based on solid-state technology that GA uses in its line of commercial power equipment, the power electronics are packaged as compact modules in cabinets that are located below-deck in the carrier.
Shipboard Energy Store
The shipboard energy store consists of rotating energy storage machines connected to the power trains and LIM.
Control System
The EMALS achieves a peak-to-mean force ratio much lower than those of steam catapults by using a state-of-the-art control system to control the current into the LIM. (Source: General Atomics)
So what are the basic advantages of EMALS over the time-tested steam catapults? "We don't have all that steam piping running all over the ship," Capt. Steven Rorke, NAVAIR's program manager for shipboard launch and recovery systems, explained during a recent interview with DT. "The steam stays in the plant generating electricity and then the electricity runs around the ship."
The second major attribute is the growth potential of the system in terms of dealing with what Capt. Rorke called "the air wing of the future" including unmanned vehicles. "We can control the launch sequence much more precisely."
And lastly, Rorke claimed EMALS will require fewer Sailors to operate and maintain.
"The technology is proven," said Rorke. "We developed a full-scale but about half-length track that we tested at the Naval Engineering Station at Lakehurst to prove the control theory and the logic. We're in the phase now of building shipboard representative equipment."
But although "the technology is proven," like all good acquistions programs, issues remain unresolved. For EMALS the main issue is non-trivial: Will it fit on the carrier? "We're not the only customer on the ship," Rorke said. "Finding real estate to put everything in is a challenge."
And as with most aircraft development programs, keeping the weight of the system under control is a challenge.
In any case, the folks at General Atomics, NAVAIR, and NAVSEA have some time to figure it out. CVN 78 isn't scheduled to sail into harm's way until 2015.
I had an interesting chat yesterday at the Navy League’s “Sea Air Space” symposium in Washington with an official from Raytheon who was pitching a new system aimed at communicating with submarines more quickly than previous methods.
The funny thing about it is how simple the system really is. And I kept wondering, “Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before?”
It’s called Deep Siren, and it’s a first step in providing real-time communications with submarines operating far below the ocean surface. It all started back in late 2004, when at a Navy/industry symposium the service’s then chief of nuclear reactor programs told an audience that industry should get off its duff and develop a way to talk to subs in a timelier manner.
In the past, subs had to come to the surface to communicate, using antennas that received pre-recorded messages from home base. A sub commander read down the list to see which messages he already had and took in the ones he didn’t. He then fired off his message, and slinked back to the murky deep. Not exactly a good way to have a timely conversation with your commander, admitted William Matzelevich, electronic systems sales executive for Raytheon.
So, what Matzelevich’s team did, is they took a standard Navy sono-buoy, rejiggered the guts a bit, tweaked the algorithms and acoustics and set up a “secret decoder ring” housed in a laptop that can translate the messages into comprehensible language. Sound strange? It isn’t.
Basically, the system Raytheon’s developed allows a sub commander, or a surface commander, to send a message or data through a commercial Iridium satellite phone connection to one of these communications sono-buoys. The buoy then transmits the message through a series of “boinks and bings” to the sub, which can receive the signal up to 150 miles away from the buoy. The computer onboard the sub translates the “boinks and bings” into language: “Reposition to coordinates, etc., etc., etc…” The sub captain can then respond to the message sending his own series of “boinks and bings” that then rings the ship captain’s Iridium phone.
It remains to be seen how far this initiative gets. So far, the program is suckling off Pentagon and Navy experimental program dollars that are never very consistent – it’s still not a program of record for the Navy. But the Navy is moving ahead to fund an overall communications architecture for its fleet that will include real-time or near-real-time communications with subs. Hopefully something like this will become standard, especially since today’s subs have become an integral part of joint operations where speed is key.
-- Christian
HTS - The Future of Navy Motors
American Superconductor Corporation recently announced the successful completion of factory acceptance testing for the world's first 36.5 megawatt (49,000 horsepower) high temperature superconductor (HTS) ship propulsion motor at Northrop Grumman's facility at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center. This is the final milestone before the Navy takes possession of the motor.
The motor was designed, developed and manufactured under a contract from the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) to demonstrate the efficacy of HTS primary- propulsion-motor technology for future Navy all-electric ships and submarines. The power and torque of this HTS motor is comparable to the requirements for the Navy's new Zumwalt class of destroyers, known as DDG 1000. In comparison with the conventional copper motors being used on the first two DDG 1000 hulls, the HTS motor is less than one-half the size and weight, and is more efficient over a much wider range of ship speeds. This results in weight and space advantages, enabling an increase in payload capacity for both naval and commercial vessels.
Why HTS?
High Power Density: The HTS field winding produces magnetic fields higher than those of conventional machines resulting in smaller size and weight.
High Partial Load Efficiency: HTS motors have higher efficiency at part load (down to 5% of full speed), that results in savings in fuel use and operating cost. The advantage in efficiency can be over 10% at low speed.
Low Noise: HTS motors have lower sound emissions than conventional machines.
Low Synchronous Reactance: HTS air-core motors are characterized by a low synchronous reactance which results in operation at very small load angles. Operating at a small load angle provides greater stiffness during the transient and hunting oscillations.
Harmonics: HTS motors generate voltages free of harmonics.
Cyclic load insensitivity: HTS motor field windings operate at nearly constant temperature unlike conventional motors and, therefore, are not subject to thermal fatigue.
Maintenance: HTS motors compared to conventional motors will not require the common rotor overhaul, rewinding or re-insulation.
The Navy announced yesterday it would lift a month-long stop-work order on the service’s troubled Littoral Combat Ship program. DoD release follows…
March 15, 2007 -- Secretary of the Navy Recommends Way Ahead for Littoral Combat Ship Program
Based on a comprehensive review of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) acquisition program, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced today that he is prepared to lift a previously issued stop work order for construction of LCS 3.The ship is currently under contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. Maritime Systems & Sensors unit, Moorestown, N.J. Lifting the stop work order is contingent upon the Navy and Lockheed Martin reaching agreement on a renegotiated contract.
As a result of a nearly two-month assessment, the Navy has revalidated the warfighting requirement and developed a restructured program plan for the LCS that will improve management oversight, implement more strict cost control, incorporate selective contract restructuring and ensure that an important warfighting capability is provided to the fleet consistent with a realistic schedule.
This plan will ensure best value to the Navy for the completion of LCS ships 1-4, procurement of existing designs in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to fill the critical warfighting gap and establish a sound framework for transition to a single selected design in fiscal 2010.The Navy will work closely with Congress on reprogramming actions necessary to bring this program forward.
"It is vital that the Navy continue through first of class construction challenges to complete LCS 1 and LCS 2.When these ships are delivered, we will be able to fully evaluate their costs and capabilities," said Winter. "LCS 3 construction may be resumed under revised contract terms that rebalance the risk of cost growth between the government and industry. LCS 4 construction will continue as long as its costs remain defined and manageable."
Under the restructured program plan, the Navy will recommend deferral of procurement of LCS in fiscal 2007 and use those funds to complete the construction of LCS 1-4.The Navy intends to continue with a plan to procure a reduced number of ships in fiscal 2008 and 2009 within existing budget resources and with the approval of Congress because of the compelling need to address critical warfighting gaps in the littorals and strategic choke points.
The Navy will transition to a single seaframe configuration, incorporating a Navy-specified open architecture combat system, in fiscal 2010 after an operational assessment of all critical factors between LCS 1 and LCS 2.The Navy will hold a full and open competition of the selected design (flight 1) for the fiscal 2010 seaframe procurement to reduce life cycle costs of the program.
"LCS is needed now to fill critical, urgent warfighting requirements gaps that exist today. It is imperative that the Navy deliver this warship class and its important capabilities to the fleet as soon as possible," said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen. "It is just as imperative that we do so in the most cost effective manner possible."
The LCS is an entirely new type of U.S. Navy warship. A fast, agile, and networked surface combatant, LCS's modular, focused-mission design will provide combatant commanders the required warfighting capabilities and operational flexibility to ensure maritime dominance and access for the joint force. LCS will operate with focused-mission packages that deploy manned and unmanned vehicles to execute missions as assigned by combatant commanders.
Operational experience and analyses indicate that potential adversaries will employ asymmetric capabilities to deny U.S. and allied forces access in critical coastal regions to include strategic choke points and vital economic sea lanes. Asymmetric threats will include small, fast surface craft, ultra-quiet diesel submarines and various types of mines.
LCS will also perform special operations forces support; high-speed transit; maritime interdiction operations; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and anti-terrorism/force protection. While complementing capabilities of the Navy's larger multi-mission surface combatants, LCS will also be networked to share tactical information with other Navy aircraft, ships, submarines and joint units.
So, this is one we picked up from the “been-there-done-that” set over at Socnet.
Seems as if the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation has developed a space-age naval vessel using so-called “M-Hull” technology to provide a high-speed, low-draft insertion craft for special operators. Called “Stiletto,” the nearly 90 foot-long ship is built entirely out of carbon fiber, the biggest U.S. ship constructed with the lightweight material.
The secret to the design – which looks more like the type of thing Batman would cruise down the Gotham City river – is its hull form, which re-directs the bow wake to cushion the ride. At 40 knots for 500 nautical miles, that could make a big difference on your vertebrae. Manufacturer M-Ship Company says the Stiletto reduces crew shock by up to 50 percent.
But the sci-fi looking ship has its skeptics. Carbon fiber isn’t exactly bullet-proof, and when you’re inserting a team into enemy waters, ballistic restance is kind of important. The quad-screw propulsion system pumping out 1,650 horses is likely to sound like a B-52 coming in for a landing, and the lack of gun-mounts could concern special operators who rely on heavy firepower to overwhelm their enemy if it comes down to fisticuffs.
It’s important to remember, however, that the transformation office is using the ship to experiment with and validate different technologies, tactics and configurations that could translate into future vessels fielded to special operations teams.
The US Navy will be down to 10 carriers for a while as the good ship USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) is decommissioned later this month.
Time, tide, and over 40 years of service in all the oceans around the world has taken its toll on this great ship, and on March 23 the aircraft carrier, launched in 1967 and commissioned a year later, will be stricken from the rolls of active navy ships.
This will leave the US with only 10 active carriers until the USS George H. W. Bush is commissioned sometime in late 2008. A 10-carrier fleet may seem scandalous to those familiar with US Navy bird-farm numbers, but with Kennedy having launch and recovery equipment problems over the past few years and not having her flight deck certified to operate fixed-wing aircraft, we really have been operating with that reduce number of carriers for a while now.
Kennedy, one of the last oil-burners in the fleet, is currently on her last at-sea period, finishing up a port visit to her namesake's hometown, Boston.
After decommissioning, she will likely be towed up to Philadelphia Naval Ship yard, taking the place at the pier where USS America waited so long for her ignoble yet valuable weapons test sinking last year. Such a fate will most likely not be the case for Kennedy, if for nothing else her name will result in her possibly being the first "Super Carrier" museum to adorn a waterfront one day.
I'd say if you are in the Mayport, FL area later this month, go on down and give the ol' girl a send off befitting her great heritage and wonderful service over all these years. She's been a good one.
--Pinch Paisley, cross posted with more at the Instapinch
Taking on LockMart
Coast Guard commandant Admiral Thad Allen has all but surrendered to critics who’ve been saying that the service’s sprawling $24-billion Deepwater modernization program is fatally flawed and rife with corruption, according to The New York Times:
“We have been running some parts of the Coast Guard like a small business when we are a Fortune 500 company,” Admiral Allen said in a speech on Tuesday to several hundred Coast Guard officials. “We need to evolve with changing times.” A new deputy commandant for mission support will oversee the design, acquisition and construction of new ships and aircraft and the maintenance of the fleet once they are built, functions that are now managed separately.
That will allow the Coast Guard to avoid giving so much authority for design and construction choices to contractors, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which renovated the first eight trouble-plagued ships in the Deepwater program.
The boats in question are the 123-foot Island-class patrol boats first fielded more than 15 years ago. Last year, former Lockheed Martin engineer Mike DeKort called out the firm for allegedly botching improvements to the boats’ communications. A report from the Coast Guard Inspector General this week confirms some of the flaws, including bad wiring and leaky system security.
The eight boats were withdrawn from service a couple months ago, causing a minor panic in a service that was already short of patrol boats as it awaits the introduction of two classes of brand-new boats over the next decade.
In an email on Tuesday, DeKort declared victory:
The ICGS [partnership between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman] parties involved have demonstrated themselves to be incompetent and ethically, technically and professionally bankrupt. Also – the IG told me very clearly that the CG and LM were not cooperating with their investigation. They could not get data they asked for or run re-tests they asked for.
But read the IG report carefully:
Aspects of the C4ISR equipment installed aboard the 123′ cutters do not meet the design standards set forth in the Deepwater contract. Specifically, two of the four areas of concern identified by the complainant were substantiated and are the result of the contractor not complying with the design standards identified in the Deepwater contract. For example, the contractor did not install low smoke cabling aboard the 123' cutter, despite a Deepwater contract requirement that stated, “all shipboard cable added as a result of the modification to the vessel shall be low smoke.” The intent of this requirement was to eliminate the polyvinyl chloride jacket encasing the cables, which for years produced toxic fumes and dense smoke during shipboard fire. Additionally, the contractor installed C4ISR topside equipment aboard both the 123' cutters and prosecutors, which either did not comply or was not tested to ensure compliance with specific environmental performance requirements outlined in the Deepwater contract.
Honestly, these are relatively minor complaints. And bear in mind that the boats were withdrawn from service due to hull buckling, not due to the problems DeKort pointed out. Before the buckling became apparent, the first couple modernized boats actually performed quite well, according to one former crewman, Master Chief Eric Gallett. He dismissed DeKort’s allegations as missing the point. The boats’ major strengths were their networked computers.
As for the hull buckling … these boats were designed to last 15 years. And they did. The Coast Guard ran into problems when it tried to keep the boats past their intended service life. Keeping an aged fleet afloat while awaiting new ships is one of the service’s major challenges, as I describe in the current issue of Defense Technology International:
At the Coast Guard Yard in southern Maryland, the [Deepwater] revolution seems a long way off, and the rust is right in your face. At this 108-year-old facility, the Coast Guard’s only government-owned shipyard, 400 workers commanded by Captain Steve Duca gut, repair then piece back together the service’s aging medium cutters and patrol boats, keeping them afloat and livable until they can be replaced with ships like Bertholf. Duca’s is delicate work – “like surgery,” he says. And it’s increasingly urgent. With more than 80 cutters larger than 100 feet, the Coast Guard has the world’s 12th-largest navy. But its fleet is, on average, around a quarter-century old, making it the 38th oldest of the world’s 40 largest navies. Deepwater has suffered delays. The last new ships and aircraft won’t join the force for another two decades, several years later than originally planned. So an old fleet is just getting older.
I’m not one to stand by defense contractors just for the Hell of it. When they’re wrong, they’re wrong. But in this case, Lockheed Martin is guilty only of minor crimes. But these crimes have been blown out of proportion by critics. The 123s worked just fine before their ancient hulls gave out. But when these hulls did give out, folks like DeKort saw an opportunity to attack the contractors. And that’s just not fair.
“May God bless this ship and all who sail in her,” said Meryl Chertoff, wife of Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, as she cracked a bottle of Champagne on the towering bow of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf at the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi in November. The newly-christened Bertholf, the first of the so-called National Security Cutters, is the product of two defense giants’ controversial coupling and the biggest piece yet of a sprawling service-wide modernization program. In 2001, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin formed a joint venture, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, to win the then-$11-billion Deepwater contract to replace most of the Coast Guards’ ships, aircraft and command systems. Since then, Deepwater’s cost has ballooned to $24 billion for 90 new ships and 200 aircraft.
Perhaps worst, the program’s much-needed modernized small cutters have proved to be a total wash. Fixating on these leaky, over-budget 123-foot boats, critics in Congress have assailed the joint venture. U.S. Representative Bob Filner (D-Calif) even characterized the firms’ allegedly shoddy work as “criminal if not treasonous.”
But critics have ignored the successes of other Deepwater designs and perhaps miss the point of the partnership. Integrated Coast Guard Systems is the lead systems integrator on Deepwater, but it farms out work on many of the individual cutter and aircraft designs to other companies. Northrop Grumman is building the big cutters and four Global Hawk drones, but other firms are responsible for scores of smaller cutters, short-range boats and vertical-takeoff drones.
EADS provided kits for helicopter upgrades and has delivered the first of 36 HC-144 patrol planes based on its C-235 transport. Lockheed Martin handles upgrades to the service’s HC-130 Hercules patrol planes as well as much of Deepwater’s electronics, but General Dynamics contributes key parts of the latter. To Integrated Coast Guard Systems, platforms are secondary to integration, to the network that links the platforms together. And that network, more than any new ship or airplane, promises to eventually revolutionize the U.S. Coast Guard, assuming the service’s fleet hasn’t rusted away to nothing in the meantime.
But that's a big if. Read the rest of the story in the latest issue of Defense Technology International. Pics here.
Navy chief Admiral Mike Mullen has fired the captain overseeing the Littoral Combat Ship program, Defense News reports:
Capt. Donald Babcock, the Navy’s LCS program manager, was relieved of his duties Jan. 29 by his boss, Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton – who also is being reassigned. Hamilton relieved Babcock due to “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a Navy source, who added that Babcock would be reassigned to “administrative duties.”
Both men got their pink slips after an audit revealed that the Lockheed Martin version of the LCS would come in at around $400 million, nearly double the target cost. Two weeks ago the Navy suspended work on the second LockMart LCS for 90 days, long enough to get new managers in place and, hopefully, put the fear of God in Lockheed Martin.
With 55 ships planned, the LCS is a lynchpin of the Navy's future fleet. The class is designed to work close to shore at high speeds and to carry "modular" weapons and sensors packets to enable it to swing between missions. The idea was to populate coastal waters with large numbers of LCSs anchored by a Zumwalt-class land-attack destroyer. But that concept is in jeopardy if the Navy can't keep down costs on both ships. Already the first Zumwalt is careening towards a $3-billion pricetag. Toss in cost overruns on the LCS and the Navy's future surface fleet is dead in the water.
Far from being discouraged, naval analyst Bob Work sees the pink slips and the work stoppage as positive signs. "The Navy needed to say it had a problem. The second thing they had to say was that we have to build affordable ships. Mullen has shown that he is dead serious about doing that."
The new chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s sea-power subcommittee is calling for a bigger Navy fleet. “Numbers do matter,” Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, said last week. Taylor’s district includes major shipyards. Noting that the Navy has shed around 50 major warships under the Bush Administration, Taylor added, “I want to turn that around.”
Taylor is not the first admiral, wonk or elected official to lament an apparent erosion of the Navy’s strength. Problem is that Taylor, like many others, is fixated on numbers of ships, which these days is one of the least reliable metrics for quantifying naval power. In fact, today’s Navy, while operating fewer warships than at any time since the 1930s, remains more powerful than the next 17 largest navies combined -- a “17-navy standard.” This is the greatest margin of superiority in modern history. The 19th-century British Royal Navy, the world’s previous great naval power, was only slightly larger than its nearest competitor the French navy. What’s more, our 17-navy-standard lead is probably going to grow in coming years.
And it only grows further if you count ships operated by other U.S. services including the Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command and the Army. The Coast Guard alone has embarked on an expansion that will transform it into one of the world’s top 15 navies. Military Sealift Command operates the majority of the world’s large sealift ships.
Today’s numbers game started in the 1980s with President Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship buildup plan. We never quite got there, and post-Cold War cuts resulted in a shrinking force, which alarmed Navy types and resulted in the first of several plans establishing a minimum number of ships. The 1992 Base-Force plan called for 450 major combatants. But aging ships, rising shipbuilding costs and the 1990s “procurement holiday” steadily eroded numbers. “In 1997, the Navy said we’ve got to establish a floor and that’s going to be 300 ships,” says Robert Work, senior defense analyst at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “So the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review says we’ve got have 300 ships.”
That’s slightly more that what we’ve got right now, if you count only major Navy warships. The problem, Work says, is that “the Navy was psychologically incapable of accepting that number.”
Why? Because of tradition, a very powerful force in today’s U.S. military.
“There was thing called the TSBF -- the Total Ship Battle Force,”
Work explains. “It has an old history in navy-versus-navy conflicts,
where attrition was high and numbers were very important. From 1890 to
now, the Navy has followed the TSBF.”
Obsessed with numbers, in 1997 the service and its congressional and
think-tank allies launched a campaign to grow the fleet. Recent plans
for 375 ships gave way to a more realistic total of 313 endorsed by
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen. Critics such as Taylor
seem to think even that number is too low. But those 313 ships would
mean an only slight improvement to our current superiority over every
other navy in the world.
And here’s why: due to huge advancements in weapons, sensors and
aircraft, today’s fleet carries more missiles than ever, can launch
more aircraft sorties than ever and has brand-new capabilities that no
earlier fleet has possessed. Plus, today's ships are big -- much bigger than past ships.
In subsequent posts, we’ll take a look at all the reasons why
today’s U.S. Navy is more powerful than ever, and probably does not
need to grow or get more money. Part two will address the “Vertical
Launch System revolution.”
Not too long ago, the Littoral Combat Ship was looking like the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy's future: a 400-foot, reconfigurable ship that could chase terrorists, hunt for mines, and scout for subs in coastal waters all around the world. Best of all, the LCS was cheap -- the main ship would cost about $220 million. So the Navy could afford to buy 55 of them, making up the biggest component of the planned 313-ship fleet.
But now, LCS is running into serious problems. So serious, the Navy has ordered Lockheed Martin to stop work on one of the two LCSs the company is building, Navy Times reports. The order, which lasts 90 days, came after estimates for the ship jumped from $220 million to between $331 million and $410 million.
The increase is related to "contractor poor performance" and increased labor costs, Navy spokesman Lt. John Gay tells the Washington Post.
For example, a key part of the propulsion system was delayed 27 weeks because of a manufacturing error, driving up costs, he said...
The order applies to the second of two vessels that Lockheed is building for the Navy. Work on the first one, which is 70 percent completed, is to continue so the Navy can launch it and evaluate the design...
While it is not uncommon for the cost of the first versions of a new line of ships to increase, Lockheed knew the requirements, Gay said. "It remained unchanged, that is why we are concerned," he said.
Lockheed acknowledged a problem with a part related to the propulsion system, saying it had been cut incorrectly by a subcontractor, but the company also blamed changes the Navy made to the way the ship was to be constructed and a shortage of the kind of steel it required...
A Navy official was unavailable last night to respond to Lockheed's claims, but earlier said steel-related cost issues already had been accounted for.
The cost of stopping and restarting the program could be about $14 million, Quigley said, adding that Lockheed is likely to attempt to recoup those costs from the Navy.
General Dynamics, which is building a pair of its own LCSs -- with a radically different, trimaran design isn't affected by the stop-work order, Navy Times notes.
But the price of GD’s first ship also is rising, although one source claimed the price for the first GD ship remains well under $300 million, and that “the estimate for the second GD ship will be around $240 million to $250 million.”
...A similar cost review will be performed on the General Dynamics ship.
The news comes about a week after the Navy reassigned its admiral in charge of ship-building, Charles Hamilton, to a new position. According to Navy Times, "sources said the reassignment was not due solely to problems with the Littoral Combat Ship."
Aegis Turns 20
Some weapons don't age well. Designed to counter the threat of the day, they go into mothballs when the threat evaporates. Take the Bradley Linebacker, an M-2 Bradely infantry fighting vehicle with a Stinger anti-air missile module attached to the turrent. The Linebacker was designed to protect armored formations against Soviet attack jets and helicopters. Well, the Soviet Union went away in 1989 and the Bradley Linebacker lasted just a few years before the Army began stripping off the Stingers and returning them to their original role hauling troops.
Other weapons just keep on ticking, years or decades past their planned expiration date. The Boeing B-52 is still our primary bomber 50 years after its introduction. The Vietnam-era M-14 rifle has enjoyed a recent revival for squad marksmen in Iraq. And the Navy's Aegis radar, built by Lockheed Martin and designed to defend aircraft carriers from Soviet missile attacks, has reached 20 years and 100 units delivered, as I describe over at Military.com. These days the powerful radar (the stop-sign-shaped thingy on the pictured cruiser's superstructure) has taken on roles in the littorals and against ballistic missiles. In fact, of all our ballistic missile defense systems, Aegis coupled with the Raytheon SM-3 missile is the only one that works consistently.
The key to Aegis' longevity is its raw power and smart program management. Aegis did incremental "spiral development" years before that was a Pentagon standard. And Aegis has adopted a commercial open architecture in order to keep up with rapid advancements in computing:
Engineers at [Lockheed Martin's] Moorestown [facility in New Jersey] have been ripping out Aegis' traditional military-grade computers and replacing them with cheaper, faster commercial computers such as IBM's Blade server. Going to so-called "commercial off-the-shelf" computers means Aegis can be upgraded every time IBM comes out with a faster computer -- say, every two or three years. This helps the Navy keep up with the ever-increasing pace of technological development.
"We have not reached the limit of Aegis," [Aegis engineer Alan] Ostrow says.
John J. McKeon is the author of Demented Choirs, a novel set in 1905 during the building of HMS Dreadnought, the first revolutionary weapons system of the 20th century. This is his first post for Defense Tech.
When a nation has a big technological lead over its potential military rivals, how long can that lead be expected to last?
The United States enjoys such an edge today, with no other nation either willing or able to compete in firepower, communications or mobility. Other nations, at other times, have occupied similarly advanced positions.
History suggests these advantages don’t last long, and pursuing them can lead to unexpected places. For example:
It was in search of just such a long-lived war-fighting advantage that Great Britain set out in 1905 to build what was then the most extraordinary weapon in the world, the great battleship HMS Dreadnought.
Britain built Dreadnought in secrecy and with unprecedented speed. The haste itself was a signal to Imperial Germany that His Majesty could build more and bigger ships, and build them faster, than the Kaiser. In addition, German warships had to traverse the Kiel canal to reach open water, and bigger ships, with deeper drafts, could not do so.
If Germany wanted to keep pace, she would have to widen and deepen the canal, which would -- in theory -- make it cripplingly expensive to join in an arms race.
Dreadnought was the first "all big gun" ship; carrying ten 12-inch guns mounted in five turrets of a new design. Two were "wing turrets" on either side, another innovation. Dreadnought's propulsion system was also novel, and required by the emphasis her designers placed on speed.
Those designers forsook heavy iron plate armor, opting for lighter weight. "Speed is armor," said Admiral Jacky Fisher, then First Sea Lord and the driving force behind the modernization of the British navy. Dreadnought would simply outrun any other vessel it might encounter, and lob 850 pound shells from well out of the enemy’s firing range.
"Three 12-inch shells bursting on board every minute would be HELL!" Fisher declared.
New generations of American naval vessels, like the Zumwalt-class destroyers, put considerable emphasis on assets like radar-invisibility rather than the old, Industrial Revolution mantra of bigger/faster. Moreover, naval designers these days are creating platforms intended to evolve with new technology, rather than merely freezing in place the advantages of the moment.
Dreadnought gave its name to a whole class of ships, which soon included German vessels as well as British, Japanese and American. But Dreadnought itself was rapidly eclipsed. Within a decade after 1905, Britain had built more than 30 ships larger than Dreadnought, and Germany had built 28.
By August 1914, when Europe came to the precipice of war and leaped off, Dreadnought was already a relic.
Several readers have given me all kinds of grief for not posting about the USS Kitty Hawk incident. My apologies -- I didn't feel like I had a whole lot to add to the story, about a Chinese Song-class sub shadowing an American carrier group.
The In From the Cold intel blog has some insights, however. "Spook86" notes that America's sub-detection capabilities have been on the decline for a while, now.
With the collapse of the old Soviet Navy in the early 1990s, the USN [U.S. Navy] began to de-emphasize its ASW [anti-submarine warfare] capabilities, figuring that the preeminent submarine threat had essentially evaporated, and it would take years -- perhaps decades -- for a similar challenge to emerge.
But Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, tells us not to be to hard on the sub-hunters:
Noah, I have no inside information on this event, but it is very difficult to detect a quiet diesel submarine and the Song-class submarines are quality submarines. Operating in international waters in the vicinity of a US battle group is perfectly normal -- good operational training.
The Chinese very well could have staged this event to make a point about the vulnerability of the Battle Group to submarine attack. The US Navy is fully aware of [those] vulnerabilities...
The Chinese are building a credible submarine force which will make it very difficult for the US Navy to maintain sea control dominance in or near coastal waters off of China.
McKinney concludes with a question: Did the Chinese "stage this event" to coincide with Adm. Gary Roughead's visit to China? Roughead currently serves as "CINCPACFLT" -- Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
UPDATE 11/15/06 11:50 AM: This will make China-hawks' heads explode. But the chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Admiral William Fallon, says the incident highlights the need for closer Sino-American ties.
"There is a need to have a fundamental understanding," he said, adding that Admiral Gary Roughead, head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, was currently visiting China for the first naval exercise between the United States and the People's Liberation Army.
"This is the kind of thing that we must encourage and continue so we can move ahead from what I would characterize as kind of Cold War thinking and truly broaden the dialogue."
Meanwhile, as Brad notes in the comments, Barnett is yawning.
Defenseless Taiwan?
Taiwan has just commissioned its second and last pair of former U.S. Kidd-class destroyers, significantly boosting its naval surface power and improving its ability to repulse a Chinese amphibious assault. But according to Defense News, they likely represent the island nation's last major arms purchase for some time:
The commissioning comes as the United States, the island’s main arms supplier, increases pressure on parliament, in which the opposition has a slim majority, to pass a scaled down budget to buy more U.S. weapons. The budget has been bogged down in parliament for two years by opposition lawmakers who say the package, which would include eight diesel submarines, is too expensive and provocative.
In the 1980s and early '90s, Taiwan pulled way ahead of rival China in defense technology, especially in regards to aircraft and missiles. Taiwan even fielded its own light fighter design, the Ching-Kuo, and armed it with locally-built air-to-air missiles.
A couple months ago, Lockheed whistleblower Mike DeKort prophesied the imminent unraveling of the Coast Guard's $25-billion Deepwater modernization effort due to contractor failures. Looks like he might have been right. Defense Newsreports that the centerpiece Fast Response Cutter, a Northrop Grumman-led program to field around 60 patrol boats for coastal rescue, has been put on hold due to design flaws:
The Coast Guard wants to build a total of 58 FRC cutters, which are badly needed to replace worn-out 110-foot cutters now in service. A previous plan to rebuild the 110-foot cutter fleet ended after the first converted ships developed serious hull integrity problems.
Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Pascagoula, Miss., has strongly been pushing its composite design, to be built at its facility in Gulfport, Miss. The Coast Guard had earlier planned to order a prototype composite FRC cutter in 2006, but those plans are now on hold.
After two false starts, the Coast Guard "need[s] a patrol boat right away," says Rear Admiral Gary Blore, head of Deepwater. Defense News sketches some of the possibilities:
Blore noted that 19 international manufacturers with 27 different designs responded to a request for information put out in February to seek patrol boats that might meet Coast Guard requirements. None of the initial submissions met those requirements, Blore said, so the service modified some of its specifications. As a result, “five or six” of the designs show promise, Blore said.
The Coast Guard is looking for a vessel from 140 to 160 feet in length, Blore said — shorter than a number of the foreign designs. The FRC-B plan is based on a “parent-craft concept,” Blore explained, where the Coast Guard chooses a design, purchases construction rights, and builds the craft in the U.S. A similar approach, he noted, was used on the 110-foot Island-class cutters the FRC is intended to replace.
Under current plans, the Coast Guard could build 12 FRC-B cutters and 46 composite-hull FRC-A cutters, Blore said, although he allowed that those figures could change as composite craft are delivered and the program gains maturity.
Navy Captain Don Babcock was in a hurry, when I met him earlier this year, in his office, tucked in a red-brick battleship shell factory along the Potomac River. Most people is his position, running big military development programs, tend to think in deadlines of approximates: a funding decision will come some time in the next few weeks, a test will happen some time in the spring, a system will be fielded in fiscal year 2009 - or was that 2010? Babcock, on the other hand, had a big, digital clock on his wall, detailing the exact number of days, minutes, hours, and seconds until his first Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, would be commissioned.
The restless attitude seems to be paying off. The first LCS -- the "Freedom" -- was christened on Sunday. And that's a pretty major milestone for the Navy. Because the LCS is much, much different than anything in the American fleet today. Unlike the Navy's new DD(X) destroyer, the Freedom didn't cost billions to put together. And it's not planned for 1000 different kinds of missions, as a I noted in a Popular Mechanics article earlier this year:
Instead, each LCS will concentrate on a specific coastal mission: antisub warfare, mine clearance or ship-to-ship fights. Every LCS comes with a core crew of 40 and a weapons suite that includes a 57mm gun and missile interceptors. The boat is then customized with "mission modules" -- 40-ft. cargo containers, crammed with sonar arrays for sub-hunting, unmanned helicopters for surface warfare or robotic swimmers for minesweeping. The modules can be swapped out in less than a day. Then a second crew of about 35 comes on board to run the new machines. If the DD(X) is a 14,000-ton Swiss Army knife, then the LCS is a 3000-ton power drill-with interchangeable bits. "We're making a huge course change in the way we do business," Babcock says...
With a top speed of 45 knots or more, the LCSs will be fast enough to chase down terrorists in small boats. They're stealthy enough for effective reconnaissance. And, at about $400 million each, fully loaded -- about a tenth of the new destroyer's price -- the LCS is affordable enough for the Navy to send dozens of them skipping around the seas. It's a distributed, fast-moving response to a distributed, fast-moving foe.
Now, there a still a bunch of question marks surrounding the program. The basic shape, for instance. The Freedom looks like a speedboat on steriods. The second LCS, the Independence, will be a 419-foot trimaran. But the idea of building a cheap, adaptable, plug-and-play fleet that's future-proofed for uncertain times looks like a winner. And, unlike so many other Pentagon projects these days, the Littoral Combat Ship looks like it just might happen on time.
UPDATE 09/26/06 9:51 PM: Check out this sa-weeet video of the LCS being launched.
(Big ups: JH, TW)
Lasers Speak to Subs
Communicating with subs underwater is beyond tough. Sound moves through seawater in very strange ways, with water temperature, salinity, and density speeding up and slowing things down -- garbling conversations in the process. Electromagnetic transmissions (like radio) are no better -- the sea has some funky electrical conductivity. During the Cold War, sub authority Joe Buff notes, the Navy managed to get super-simple, one-way messages to its subs, with a pair of giant (28-mile!) extremely low frequency transmitters, based in the Midwest. But those transmitters were shut down, a few years back.
The Navy's new idea is to get specially-tuned lasers to handle the job, instead. The service has handed out a pair of small business innovation research contracts to Bothell, WA's Aculight Corporation and Bedford, MA-based Q-Peak to build blue-green, quick-burst lasers for transmitting messages across the deep. Acluight, for example, wants to use a combination of semiconductor and fiber lasers to produce a low power beam (around 10 watts) at about 532nm spectrum range. The idea is to get pulses as quick as half a nanosecond, repeating as much as 10 million times per second.
Blue-green lasers have been discussed for a while as potential sub-talkers, with good reason. Seawater has a lot of organic junk floating around inside, which makes it "turbid" -- "nearly opaque to light over much of any distance," Buff explains.
Blue-green light's frequency is best at penetrating through this turbidity, given the mix of sizes in microns of the particles and other stuff that prevents seawater from being transparent. (Of course, some areas such as the Bahamas are famous for the clarity of their water, but this is very much the exception, not the rule, globally speaking.) This same turbidity is essential to giving submarines their invisibility while submerged, so it's a double edged sword.
Lockheed's Bad Boats
In 2002, Lockheed Martin's Integrated Coast Guard Systems won a contract to stretch and improve as many as 49 Coast Guard patrol boats as part of the service's $24-billion Deepwater modernization effort.
Three years later, with just eight boats re-delivered, the Coast Guard called off the program, citing hull buckling and electronics problems. And it accelerated a new class of patrol boats to fill the gap, with testing beginning in the next couple years.
Something was up ... but nobody outside of the Coast Guard and Lockheed knew just what until former Lockheed engineer Michael DeKort posted a crude video to YouTube, as Defense Tech noted a couple weeks back.
In the video, DeKort alleged serious contractor misconduct on the patrol boat project. The story got some play on network TV, mostly on account of the YouTube angle, but an unsatisfied DeKort approached Defense Tech parent Military.com with detailed information including supporting documents. Read the first of our two-part expose here:
DeKort says the selection of the [Lockheed Martin] Aegis team [to work on the boats] was beginning of the program's problems. Aegis engineers are software experts; the patrol boats required little software work.
"Aegis has nothing to do with most of what we were doing on these boats," DeKort says.
That mismatch resulted in a number of contractor failures stemming from bad management, according to DeKort. He says that, in winning the contract, leaders promised to meet deadlines that were impossible at costs that were optimistically low -- around $8 million per boat. The resulting pressure encouraged corner-cutting, DeKort claims.
He says he observed three serious failures that were not corrected before the first boat re-entered Coast Guard service in March 2004:
1) Project leaders left a blind spot in the boat's security system when they omitted one of five video cameras to save money. When DeKort raised this issue with team leaders, they said the solution was "to lock the window" in the blind spot and periodically "check for broken glass" such as an intruder might leave behind.
2) In installing a new Forward-Looking Infra-Red camera, the team used a cheap cable that wasn't weatherproof, meaning it might fail in rain or high seas, depriving the boat's crew of its "eyes in the dark".
3) Perhaps most seriously, according to DeKort, the team used unshielded cables in the terminals that connect the boats to the military's secure internet. "Any foreign government monitoring these boats, from shore or from 'fishing boats', will be able to pick up all the communications from these boats. Since we have no shielded cables, these boats will emanate like an antenna.
Owing to this program failure and other complications, the Coast Guard has identified a "critical shortfall in patrol boat hours," according to Rear Admiral Gary T. Blore, Deepwater’s new program executive officer. The service is scrambling to find solutions. One proposal is to boost operating funds for the two Cyclone-class patrol boats donated by the Navy a few years back.
Tune in next week for part two of my Military.com series, where I take a look at some of the underlying causes of the patrol boat fiasco.
China is about to buy a six pack of heavily-armed hovercraft, Defense News reports. Sino-hawks here are already starting to freak out over the sale.
"A few years ago, the 'don’t worry, be happy' school of analysis of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] said that we should all be reassured that the PLA couldn’t attack Taiwan because it didn’t have enough hovercraft. Clearly, this is changing," University of Miami's June Teufel Dreyer tells the military trade.
The 540-ton Zubr LCAC, the world’s largest amphibious assault hovercraft, can reach speeds in excess of 60 knots, can travel 300 nautical miles and can shoulder various large loads: 130 tons of cargo, 500 troops, three 50-ton medium battle tanks, 10 BTR-70 armored personnel vehicles or eight BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles.
At the moment the PLA has to rely on conventional landing ships for such an operation. The slow process for the troops and vehicles to swim from their carrier ships to the beachhead makes them highly vulnerable to enemy firepower. The LCAC’s ability to deliver troops, vehicles and cargos directly to the beach makes a huge advantage. China has developed several models of its own indigenous LCACs, but most of these are unarmed small designs carrying no more than 20 soldiers.
The deal to buy the hovercraft from Russia's Almaz Shipbuilding has been in the works for five years. And the initial order is teeny: just six ships. But "there are signs that China plans to build its own version of the Zubr-class craft," Defense News says.
"It could be that the Chinese want to test the vehicles or purchase a few and then begin... produc[ing] them in the PRC [People’s Republic of China]," Dreyer observes. "The amount ordered here, six, won’t be enough to mount an invasion. But it’s a start."
Mines, anyone?
Let's face it: nobody cares about mine warfare. We're talking slow boring ships plodding around looking for submerged hunks of metal. No guns. No missiles. No screaming fighter jets. No men in green facepaint slipping ashore in the dead of night. Even if mines are, historically, the biggest threat to U.S. warships, mine warfare is so unsexy that it's bound to get ignored until after a billion-dollar amphibious ship gets a hole ripped in it.
But all that's about to change. In a radical move signalling serious commitment to mine warfare, the Navy is abandoning (slow, hard to deploy) dedicated minehunters in favor of (fast, easily deployed) mine-clearing drones aboard destroyers and Littoral Combat Ships. The service is also revamping its airborne minehunting fleet, moving from big, unwieldy Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragons to the smaller Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk carrying wide range of new systems. Finally, Mine Warfare Command is merging with the Navy's antisubmarine warfare office to create a new "undersea warfare center of excellence".
Picture floating nuclear reactors sailing the seven seas—generating emergency power at disaster sites, providing fresh water during droughts, and warming the shivering citizens of Siberia.
Now, add indomitable ice floes, highly enriched uranium, hellacious weather, and terrorists slavering over lightly guarded nuclear fuel. Apply a "Made in Russia" stamp and file these titans under Technological Terrors.
On June 14 the Severnoye Mashinostroitelnoe Predpriyatie (more commonly known as Sevmashpredpriyatie, or Sevmash shipyard, one of many Russian sites bursting with nuclear waste, signed a contract to construct a floating nuclear power plant. Sevmash will install pairs of KLT-40S reactors (also sometimes called KLT-40C because of transliteration errors, or just KLT-40) on barges. The Russian icebreaker fleet uses the same KLT-40 reactor type, fueled by high-enriched uranium (roughly 40% enriched). However, according to the Uranium Information Center, the floating reactors have been modified to use low-enriched fuel. Other specific differences between the reactors on the icebreaker fleet and those on the floating plants remain unclear.
(Note: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a short blurb [titled "Russia’s Sea Change"] about these floating plants in its latest issue. However, their piece asserts the reactor design will tentatively be a VBER-300. My sources almost uniformly say that the KLT-40S will definitely be the reactor for this initial, pilot project. The VBER-300 is being discussed for use in a proposed larger floating reactor, but the larger version is, as of now, only hypothetical.)
At full capacity, the two reactors together will provide up to 70 megawatts of power. They are also capable of desalinating water, though it is unclear whether this can be done at the same time as power production. There are 11 other possible sites for these plants in Russia, but very few regional leaders have expressed interest. Rosatom, the Russian civilian nuclear power agency, now hopes to sell them to interested countries in Asia once the design has been successfully demonstrated. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have already expressed interest.
On the surface, this may not seem such a bad idea. Proposals for mobile nuclear plants as desalinators havealonghistory — they don’t produce greenhouse gases and they could get to remote locations easily. Such a humanitarian sheen takes the edge off nuclear jitters, too. Fuel will be stored onboard and, to assuage proliferation concerns, the Russians claim that the barges will come back to Russia every 4-12 years for fuel disposal.
All indications, though, point to (dare I say typically Russian?) poor planning, with potential for serious problems.
The most glaring problem: the barges won’t be able to move without help. According to a Russian general cited in Pravda Online, a small squadron of tugboats (likely 8-10) will move the plants around. For most of their lives, these plants will sit, barnacle-like, in shallow waters, and their emergency usefulness will be nil.
Barnacled behavior also makes for a precarious security situation: in a civil war, for example, the plants would be prime, immobile targets for rebels or terrorists. No one knows whether Russia’s overstretched navy or the host country—whatever it may be—will provide security.
It also seems that no plans exist to harden the barges against ice, even though the first dozen or so will be used off the often-icebound northern coast of Russia. Perhaps officials figure a couple more drowned reactor cores will be mere drops in the ocean of radioactive waste already dumped in the region.
And while the fuel, which will formally remain in Russian custody, is supposed to be low-enriched uranium, it could be switched out for highly enriched—even weapons grade—fuel with relatively minor changes to the reactor. The use of a design that originally used HEU makes this possibility even more worrisome. Russia already has massive stocks of HEU, which, if used, would let the reactor run longer without refueling. Though HEU is admittedly easy to blend down, if Russia runs out of money, or gets lazy, using the HEU as is might be an attractive alternative to tugging the barges back to the motherland for more fuel every few years.
China has offered funding in exchange for a role in building the barges, but Russian officials declined because of technology transfer concerns. They were probably concerned that China would learn enough to build its own plants and steal market share from the Russian project.
Interestingly, Rosatom decided not to capitalize strongly on the need for desalination capacity, but rather to focus on the much more emotionally charged nuclear power generation capability of their plants. I’m at a loss for why this might be. Focusing on the humanitarian aspects of these plants would improve their marketability for buyers abroad.
Moscow will fund the first few plants—to be sited in the frigid, poor northern states of Russia, who scarcely need convincing—but the viability of the project depends on finding foreign buyers. Since Russian experts believe the desalination market alone will reach $12 billion by 2015, the focus on power production is baffling. Perhaps there is more to the project, but it is hard to tell for now.
Scanty reliable information on these plants exists, but we know they are being built. Rosatom officials have so far only offered broad, vaguely condescending platitudes as reassurance that these plants will be safe. Some claim that security will not be a problem because Sevmash is located in a high-security zone, but Pravda Online reports the plant will actually be open to the public. Others say the plant will have "five independent safety barriers," and that "[l]eakage won’t occur even if a plane or a helicopter crashes into the floating block." The Russians will perhaps forgive me if I don’t find these reassurances effective, especially in light of their usual utter frankness.
Rosatom acting director Sergey Obozov stated that "the reliability of offshore NPP [nuclear power plants] will be the same with the Kalishnikov gun." Even if reliability is not an issue, the comparison to AK-47s is unfortunate. Do we really want cheap floating nuclear plants proliferating into volatile regions, used indiscriminately by terrorists and despots?
(Eric Hundman is a research assistant at the World Security Institute's Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. He graduated from Yale University in 2006 with degrees in physics and political science.)
Lebanon: Catamaran to the Rescue
The U.S. Navy's evacuation of Lebanon is done. Now, the focus is on delivering humanitarian aid to the Lebanese. At the center of the effort: the Navy's giant, super-quick catamaran.
Until recently, the experimental, Australian-built HSV-2 Swift was working as a mine warfare command and control ship. But with "its enormous 28,000 square foot mission deck, the ability to traverse littoral waters, the capability of handling speeds in excess of 40 knots, and maneuverability that doesn't require tugboat assistance," as Navy Newsstand notes, the catamaran was a natural for the Lebanese operation. "The vessel has the cargo space of about 17 C-17 aircraft and the access of a Cyclone-class patrol boat," said Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Pournelle, executive officer of Swift's Gold Crew.
The "wave-piercing, aluminum-hulled catamaran," originally designed as a commercial vessel, now comes with military enhancements, "such as a helicopter flight deck, small boat and unmanned vehicle launch and recovery capability, and an enhanced communications suite," the Navy says.
But it's the catamaran's ability to quickly get to an from ports -- without help -- that Navy leaders seem to find most attractive.
[Just before the Lebanese mission] "on the afternoon of July 11, Swift left Bahrain's Mina Salman pier with a shipload of cargo destined for USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) moored at Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates. Twelve hours later, the Navy-leased catamaran arrived alongside Supply, ready to off-load.
"The cargo was only touched twice," said Swift's Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Rob Morrison. "[Normally] we'd have to load a truck with the cargo, off-load it at the airport, load it back onto an aircraft, fly it to its destination, off-load it, and move it by truck to the ship, where it's delivered to the ship and finally loaded aboard..."
Upon arrival, Swift's crew had the cargo loaded onto the flight deck, thus allowing Supply's crane immediate access to the palleted goods. Within an hour, the transfer was complete.
UPDATE 07/25/06 9:35 PM: HSV-maker Incat is also working on a funky heavyweight elevator for the catamaran. It's designed to take copters up to the flight deck, or lower amphibious vehicles straight in the water, between the ship's twin hulls. "Sounds like a perfect way to
deploy a Marine platoon or company for quick-response missions like
embassy evacuations and small raids," reader JG says.
Sea Swap = More Bang for Your Buck
For decades, the Navy has assigned two crews apiece to its ballistic missile subs, or "boomers". One crew is out at sea in the sub while the other is training and resting back home. The idea is that double crews let you squeeze more sailing days out of your ships. Boomers are ideally suited because they sail on rigid schedules that let you plan rotations far in advance.
In 2004, with the fleet shrinking and ships in high demand on the Pacific and in the Persian Gulf, the Navy launched a program to double-crew several destroyers. The ships stayed at sea while crews flew out to man them on six-month rotations. This saved months of sailing time by eliminating the need to bring a ship home just so the crew could rest.
The program, called Sea Swap, was a qualified success. Crews bitched about losing that sense of ownership that comes with being a ship's sole crew. Morale was an issue. But in operational terms, Sea Swap worked: three destroyers could do the work of five by staying on station longer, avoiding long ocean transits and saving on wear and tear.
The Navy announced two weeks ago that it is ending Sea Swap as an experiment. It will study the results and decide whether and how to apply the lessons learned to future classes of ships like the LCS and DDG-1000 (formerly DD(X)).
In the meantime, the Navy's smallest fighting ships have permanently adopted a Sea Swap model. Once upon a time, the eight-ship class of coastal patrol boats (PCs) was scheduled for disposal, but now they're in high demand in shallow "green" waters like those of the Persian Gulf, as I write in the current National Defense Magazine:
Last year, recognizing the utility of these craft in green waters, the Navy halted all efforts to dispose of the remaining boats and even began negotiations with the Coast Guard to take back transferred PCs. The Navy moved two West Coast-based boats to Little Creek, a move that consolidated all operations and training at the Virginia base. At any given time, three boats are at Little Creek for drydocking and training while the rest remain forward deployed. Thirteen 30-person PC crews that are based at Little Creek fly out to the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, on six-month rotations.
Sea swapping effectively nearly doubles the size of your fleet without adding any new hulls. Expect the future Navy to do with all its ships what it has done with boomers, destroyers and PCs, cheaply turning 300 ships into 500.
Check out some of my patrol boat pictures at Flickr.
P.S. -- Check out one of several recent reviews of my graphic novel WAR FIX!
Duncan Hearts JFK, Hates Cash
No one, it seems, is ready to let JFK die. Certainly not U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who has proposed that NATO take ownership of the soon-to-be-mothballed U.S. aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. Not that they can afford the thing. Or have the aircraft to fly off of it.
Hunter apparently envisions NATO operating helicopters and "vertical-lift aircraft" (ie, tilt-rotors, which no NATO nation besides the U.S. owns). While NATO has successfully pooled its resources to operate a small fleet of E-3 AWACS, and will probably do the same with future fleets of ground-surveillance aircraft and airlifters, it neither needs an aircraft carrier nor has the $200 million per year it would take to keep one in service. For the record, NATO's annual budget is just $1.5 billion, a third of which comes from the U.S.
This is the latest -- but not wackiest! -- scheme to keep the JFK in service. Last year, when the Navy proposed axing the Kennedy to fund new shipbuilding, Rep. John Warner (R-Vir.) and his allies with economic ties to big naval facilities tried a million and one things to save the old ship. The loopiest scheme involved foisting the flattop on the Coast Guard -- yes, that Coast Guard -- for use as a mobile disaster-relief base.
Madness.
For the record: while cost-effective in terms of their ability to persist in hostile environments and put lots of bombs on targets, carriers are enormously expensive and manpower-intensive. Except for long-term, high-intensity operations, they're not worth the hundreds of millions of dollars annually it takes just to keep them afloat. That's why only the U.S. Navy (and soon the Royal Navy) operates large carriers. If the Coast Guard were to take on a carrier, it would have to abandon its long-overdue Deepwater shipbuilding plan.
Besides, disaster relief is a secondary role that carriers in Navy service can undertake while working up for or winding down from combat deployments. Keeping a carrier on Coast Guard retainer would mean a very expensive vessel doing nothing for 11 months out of the year.
NATO cannot afford a carrier any more than the Coast Guard can. Nor does NATO need a carrier when member states such as the U.S., Great Britain, France, Spain and Italy already contribute large and small carriers to NATO operations.
But this isn't really about giving NATO carrier capability. This is about sour grapes. Hunter: "Typically the United States brings the T-bone steaks and some of our allies bring the plastic forks. The John F. Kennedy might be a center for ... inspiring our allies to do more with respect to defense."
Yes, it's true that most of our NATO allies spend less of their GDP on defense than we and the Brits do. A serious commitment to collective defense is in order. But saddling the cash-strapped alliance with an old, redundant aircraft carrier is not going to help.
There's a quiet revolution afoot in the Navy and Marine Corps, a new way of doing things that promises massive leaps in capability. It's called Seabasing, and nobody outside of the services seems to know anything about it.
In a nutshell, Seabasing involves grouping together cargo ships and amphibious assault ships into a huge offshore logistics and aviation base. Think traditional amphibious operations times ten, and sustainable for a month or more. Or think a huge Forward Operating Base (FOB), only afloat.
The idea behind Seabasing is to avoid the diplomatic complications of basing ground troops and aircraft in host countries. Turkey showed us back in 2003 that even seemingly staunch allies can waver at the last minute when they blocked the 4th Infantry Division from opening a northern front in Iraq. Seabasing sticks to international waters and grants us flexible, sustainable access to most of the world's trouble spots.
Seabasing hinges on hardware, oh yes, but it's mostly old hardware. In contrast to the pet projects of other services like the Air Force's F-22 or the Army's Future Combat Systems, there is no single Seabasing budget line to attract the attention of critics. Rather, Seabasing calls for using existing big-deck assault ships -- the Tarawas and Wasps and their eventual replacements, the LHA(R)s -- to support the aviation component, and San Antonio-class LPDs and Maritime Prepositioning Ships (MPSs) to support the people and cargo part. Lewis and Clark-class logistics ships, designed to support carrier battle groups, will shuttle between ports and the Seabase with fuel, dry goods and ammo. You see? Every piece of the puzzle has a traditional use that disguises its future major role in the Seabase. Clever, huh?
Besides the big ships, the most important component of the Seabase is what the Navy-Marine Corps team calls "connectors". These are the smaller platforms that shuttle people and stuff between the Seabase ships and between the Seabase and the beachhead. There are some connectors already in widespread use in the fleet, such as Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCACs), traditional landing craft and helicopters. Emerging connectors include catamarans and V-22 tilt-rotors. There has been some talk of designing new tilt-rotors and air-cushions for the connector role, too.
Really, Seabasing is a concept -- or, to use an Army phrase, a "system of systems". The inherent modularity of the idea means you can swap new platforms into the Seabase as necessary. Want a larger aviation component? Add an aircraft carrier or two. Want more forcible entry in a dense air-defense environment? Plug in some submarines carrying SEALs plus more LCACs and Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles. Need to sustain ground operations against an armored opponent? Base an Army division aboard your amphibs in place of the traditional Marine Expeditionary Force. Is it a natural disaster you're dealing with and not some rogue state? Convert berthing into medical wards, detach medevac choppers to the assault ships and maybe even add a hospital ship.
The possibilities are endless.
One problem: Just one quiet, lurking diesel sub could mean serious trouble for your big, fat immobile Seabase. That means work for flotillas of Littoral Combat Ships equipped with anti-sub modules, I imagine.
In March, Marine Commandant Michael Hagee addressed the Senate Appropriations Committee on the subject of connectors. Read his testimony ...
High-speed connectors will facilitate the conduct of sustained sea-based operations by expediting force closure and allowing the persistence necessary for success in the littorals. Connectors ... will link bases and stations around the world to the Seabase and other advanced bases, as well as provide linkages between the Seabase and forces operating ashore. High-speed connectors are critical to provide the force closure and operational flexibility to make Seabasing a reality.
* Joint High Speed Sealift. The Joint High Speed Sealift (JHSS) is an inter-theater connector that provides strategic force closure for CONUS-based forces. The JHSS is envisioned to transport the Marine Corps’ non self-deploying aircraft, personnel, and high demand-low density equipment, as well as the Army’s non self-deploying aircraft and personnel, and Brigade Combat Team rolling stock and personnel, permitting rapid force closure of this equipment. Additionally, the JHSS will alleviate the need to compete for limited strategic airlift assets, and reduce closure timelines by deploying directly to the sea base rather than via an intermediate staging base or advanced base. The JHSS program is currently in the early states of capability development and has merged with the Army’s Austere Access High Speed Ship program. Current fielding of the JHSS is projected in Fiscal Year 2017.
* Joint High Speed Vessel. The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) will address the Combatant Commanders’ requirements for a forward deployed rapid force closure capability to support the Global War on Terror. The JHSV will enable the rapid force closure of fly-in Marine forces to the sea base from advanced bases, logistics from pre-positioned ships to assault shipping, ship-to-ship replenishment, and in appropriate threat environments, maneuver of assault forces to in-theater ports and austere ports. Army and Navy programs were recently merged into a Navy-led program office with an acquisition strategy intended to leverage current commercial fast ferry technology, and acquisition of a modified non-developmental item (NDI). Contract award for new vessels is expected in Fiscal Year 2008, with delivery in 2010. To meet the current and near-term Combatant Commanders’ requirements, the Department of the Navy continues to lease foreign built vessels until the JHSV is delivered.
* Westpac Express (WPE) is providing support to III MEF and other Okinawa-based forces, enabling III MEF to expand off-island training and engagement while reducing battalion-training days spent off island. Additionally, WPE played a key role supporting the Indian Ocean tsunami relief effort. HSV-2 Swift provides a test bed for research and development prototypes as well as an operational platform in support of current real world requirements. Most recently, HSC-2 played a key role in support of JTF Katrina, providing high-speed delivery of supplies, equipment, and personnel to ships and ports along the US Gulf Coast.
* Joint Maritime Assault Connector. The Joint Maritime Assault Connector (JMAC), previously known as the Seabase-to-shore connector, will replace the venerable legacy landing craft air cushion (LCAC) as a critical tactical level platform supporting Marine Corps assault forces, as well as joint forces operating within the Sea Base. In comparison to the LCAC, the JMAC is envisioned to have many enhanced capabilities, such as the ability to operate in higher sea states, increased range, speed, and payload, increased obstacle clearance, and reduced operating and maintenance costs. The JMAC is planned for fleet introduction in Fiscal Year 2015.
Marine aviation will undergo significant transformation over the next ten years as we transition from 13 types of legacy aircraft to seven new platforms. We developed a new transition strategy to better balance numbers of assault support and TacAir aircraft based on operational requirements. This strategy supports our Seabasing concept and enables Ship-to-Objective Maneuver utilizing the Joint Strike Fighter, MV-22, and Heavy Lift Replacement, recently designated CH-53K. At a distance of 110 nautical miles, a squadron of MV-22s will lift a 975-Marine battalion in four waves in under four hours. Similarly, the CH-53K will replace our aging, legacy CH-53E helicopter, lifting more than twice as much over the same range and serving as the only sea-based air assault and logistics connector capable of transporting critical heavy vehicles and fire support assets. An Assault Support Capability Analysis is underway to determine the optimal mix of MV-22 and CH-53K aircraft required to support Ship-to-Objective Maneuver and Distributed Operations. Similarly, the Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter represents a transformational platform that will generate 25 percent more sorties and provide a multi-spectral engagement capability for the Expeditionary Strike Force.
* CH-53K. The CH-53K is our number one aviation acquisition priority. Consequently, the CH-53K received full funding in 2005 and has reached "Milestone B" status—initiation of system development and demonstrations. Our current fleet of CH-53E Super Stallion aircraft enters its fatigue life during this decade. The CH-53K will deliver increased range and payload, reduced operations and support costs, increased commonality with other assault support platforms, and digital interoperability for the next 25 years. The CH-53K program will both improve operational capabilities and reduce life-cycle costs. Commonality between other Marine Corps aircraft in terms of engines and avionics will greatly enhance the maintainability and deployability of the aircraft within the Air Combat Element. The CH-53K will vastly improve the ability of the MAGTF and Joint force to project and sustain forces ashore from a sea-based center of operations in support of EMW, Ship-to-Objective Maneuver, and Distributed Operations.
* Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is our number one ground acquisition program, and it replaces the aging Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) that has been in service since 1972. It will provide Marine surface assault elements with better operational and tactical mobility both in the water and ashore, and will exploit fleeting opportunities in the fluid operational environment of the future. Designed to launch from amphibious ships stationed over the horizon, it will be capable of carrying a reinforced Marine rifle squad. The EFV will travel at speeds in excess of 20 nautical miles per hour in a wave height of three feet. This capability will reduce the vulnerability of our naval forces to enemy threats at sea and ashore. Our surface assault forces mounted in EFVs will have the mobility to react and exploit gaps in enemy defenses ashore. Once ashore, EFV will provide Marines with an armored personnel carrier designed to meet the threats of the future. The EFV has high-speed land and water maneuverability, highly lethal day/night fighting ability, and enhanced communications capability. It has advanced armor and nuclear, biological, and chemical collective protection. These attributes will significantly enhance the lethality and survivability of Marine maneuver units.
hybrid sailors for hybrid ships
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will revolutionize the way the Navy operates. Designed to accomodate a wide range of "mission modules" equipped with different sensors, weapons and unmanned vehicles, LCS will bring unprecedented flexibility to the fight. But there's a catch: to save money, the 3,000-ton ship will be crewed by just 75 sailors. That ain't many.
The trick to pulling off efficient manning of a multi-mission vessel is training your sailors to perform a wider range of tasks than ever before. The Navy's got a plan to do this. It involves lots of schooling, higher standards and a work environment that encourages personal initiative. It calls the product a "hybrid sailor".
The first LCS won't join the fleet for a couple years, but the Navy is already training up its first hybrid sailors. The test cases are the 30-man crews of the Navy's 8-vessel coastal patrol boat community. Check out my story in today's Military.com Warfighter's Forum for more:
One hundred and eighty feet long and displacing just 320 tons (versus more than 8,000 tons for a destroyer), the patrol boats, called PCs by their crews, are among the smallest Navy fighting ships. Their small size means they can maneuver in waters that are too shallow and too crowded for destroyers and cruisers, making them ideal for operations on the Arabian Gulf and in other littoral waters where the world's pirates, smugglers and insurgents hide. But for their crews of just 30, the PCs are a lot to handle -- and so are their diverse and dangerous missions.
PC sailors must wear many hats. Besides the gunner's role indicated by his rank, [Gunner's Mate 1st Class Jacob] Frasier also serves as assistant section leader, master helmsman, ammunition administrator, conning officer and small boat coxswain -- and he's working on his officer-of-the-deck qualification. This is far more responsibility than most big-ship sailors bear, but it's typical of PC sailors, and it's a preview of things to come for the Navy-at-large. Today's destroyers have more than 300 people aboard, but to save money, the new 3,000-ton Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, is designed for a crew of just 75. Manning an LCS will demand the same flexibility and broad responsibility that today's PCs sailors demonstrate every day.
The Navy's submarine force is in trouble. A shrinking number of boats is struggling to meet steady demand from regional commanders. Meanwhile, the cost of the only U.S. submarine currently in production, the super-high-tech Virginia-class attack boat, has risen to $2.3 billion apiece. At that price, the Navy can afford to buy only one per year. Do the math: since attack boats last only 30 years, building one boat per year means your fleet is eventually going to shrink to 30 boats from the current 55. Long-range plans call for 48 attack subs, so how is the Navy going to get there?
Some observers have called for the Navy to start production of new, smaller and cheaper boats, perhaps even diesel-electrics rather than nukes. But the long ranges that U.S. boats must travel, their need for big hulls (for mission flexibility) and the strong pro-nuke culture of U.S. submariners means diesels aren't a realistic option.
Plus, no U.S. shipyard has built diesel boats in more than 50 years, so where would you get them from? Germany? Sweden? Both countries build fine diesel boats, but Congress ain't likely to go begging to these reluctant allies for cheap submarines. No, nukes are where it's at, and nukes never come cheap. The Navy wants to buy two Virginias per year to sustain fleet numbers, but it refuses to do so unless the price drops to $2 billion. The two U.S. submarine manufacturers -- Newport News and Electric Boat -- want the work, but can they knock $300 million off the Virginia's price?
Aviation Week has run a story on efforts to trim Virginia's cost:
The most effective way to lower the per-hull price of Virginias, by more than $150 million apiece, is a more efficient build rate to distribute overhead costs and increase learning efficiencies, according to [Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Ships Allison] Stiller, Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan, head of Naval Sea Systems Command, and Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton II, program executive officer for ships. An additional $25-$80 million in savings is possible through a "reallocation" between the shipbuilders, they said.
A second story goes into detail:
Seven capital-expenditure (capex) projects have been approved or are in development to help General Dynamics Corp.'s Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Newport News slice costs off the Virginia-class submarine program, Navy Rear Adm. William Hilarides said April 17. ...
Five capex efforts have been approved, including a light fabrication project at Electric Boat's Quonset Point shipyard. There also is a centralized coating facility there, and Electric Boat has a module transportation project underway as well. For its part, Newport News has a modular outfitting facility and has upgraded its horizontal machining center. ...
Meanwhile, the boat's bow design will be simplified under new design work already budgeted and should be implemented in the FY '10 sub, Hilarides said. The design will move sonar hydrophones and the vertical launching system, but it will not affect any expected capabilities. ...
Nevertheless, Hilarides said the Navy would consider removing the special forces' lock-out chamber on the Virginia boats if capabilities had to be cut. Other options include using passive instead of active sonar and a classic propeller instead of the "propulsor," which provides more stealth, he said.
The lock-out chamber in question allows SEALs to exit and enter the sub while it's submerged. If the chamber goes, the subs lose much of their special operations capability -- one of their major selling points. If this happens, the U.S. Navy won't be the first sea service to surrender submarine-based special operations. This year, on cost grounds, the Royal Navy retired its only sub with a lock-out chamber.
--David Axe
UPDATE: 9:59 AM: Speaking of commando-carriers, the star-crossed, $446 million mini-sub known as the "Advanced SEAL Delivery System" has finally been sent to Davey Jones' locker. But I hear SOCOM is still going to have to pay through the nose for the one System that's actually (kinda, sorta) working.
UPDATE: 11:39 AM: "I've been on USS Virginia, and, trust me, her ability to deploy SEALs and their gear is not severely compromised by the proposed removal of her special nine-man commando lock-out chamber," says Joe Buff, who knows a thing or two about subs. "One could, in extremis, make the case that this new chamber is redundant."
Like every U.S. Navy nuclear submarine in service, the Virginia-class also has at least two conventional lock-out chambers, otherwise known to the crews as escape trunks. While these escape trunks are smaller that the new-style lock-out chamber, and thus it takes longer for a full SEAL team to depart or reenter the sub, the existing trunks are perfectly functional for launching undersea commando missions. SEALs have used them quite successfully on American SSNs for many years. In addition, much of the SEALs' equipment is brought along externally, in a pressure-proof Dry Deck Shelter (DDS), a piece of equipment that has also been around for years and which the Virginia class is fully equipped to carry. A DDS can hold the latest mod of SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV) underwater scooter, or inflated rubber boats with milspec muffled outboard motors. While the failure of the ASDS project is a definite disappointment, SEALs are a hardy and adaptable breed. Again, they can get the job done, riding to and from their target the old-fashioned ways. As a case in point, the early-flight Los Angeles-class USS Dallas, still in commission, has been dedicated to supporting SOCOM ops in the Global War on Terror, with a very high op tempto and a great record of effectiveness. (I've been on her recently, too.) Her "special" warfare equipment? Conventional lock-out escape trunks, and a DDS on her back.
Stealth Ship Chief Speaks
On Thursday, we took a look at the Stiletto, a wild new stealth ship that the Defense Department has built to sneak special forces onto shore.
On Sunday night, Stiletto program manager Greg Glaros paid us a visit, answering some reader comments and questions about the ship.
Thanks for your comments - Stiletto was constructed in 15 months starting Oct 04. She is made completely out of carbon fiber. Her purpose is to insert emerging technology at little cost [...] and to provide a venue for operational experimentation. It is not perfect, nor is she designed to solve everyone's needs (no she does not submerge - we left that to the billion $ club). What she is designed to do is expand our technical competence against an elusive adversary and learn operationally in a very short period of time.
With regards to its survivability or operational relevancy we will all learn by her mere existence. [One reader said the ship might be "easy to kill."] Easy to kill??? We seem to easily lose sight that most military systems are all easy to destroy by a willing enemy. Our objectives should be focused on matching our adversaries at scale with an ability to cope and adapt – surely the Stark, Cole, M-1 Abrams, and Hummers have taught us how easy it is to kill systems designed to survive everything our engineering imagined – unfortunately what our engineer imagine often do not align with what our enemy intends…
During the last two weeks Stiletto out performed our expectations – with advanced speeds in calm waters and not so calm...and out performing in other areas in a time frame and within a cost that seems to be out of the reach of our requirements procss and acquisition system.
Time to operational market matters...
SEAL Ship: Silent But Deadly
Every shipbuilder in the Navy these days talks about how his hulking destroyer or Cold War sub is now going to sneak SEALs onto shore. A couple of weeks back, Military.com overlord Chris Michel was down in San Diego, and saw a pretty cool new prototype ship that's been designed from scratch to handle the mission.
The 89-foot, 60-ton Stiletto will be one of the quickest ships in the fleet, using four Caterpillar C32 engines to cruise at 50 knots or more. It'll also be one of the sneakiest, according to New Scientist.
Stiletto's hull has a double-M shape that channels the wake under the craft. There it mixes with oncoming air to produce froth that lifts the ship part-way out of the water, reducing drag and increasing stability, says Greg Glaros, the programme's leader at the defence department's Office of Force Transformation.
While a crew of three runs the Stiletto, a dozen SEALs can slip off the back of the ship, in an 11-meter rigid inflatable boat -- or they can send a set of flying drones out on spy missions from the upper deck. The ship can stay on station for eight hours while the robots or the special forces are out on their operations. And the Stiletto can keep an even keel while it waits; it's cleared to operate in Sea State 5 -- waves twelve feet high and 157 feet long.
If the Stiletto works out as planned, it'll be good news for special forces. Because while every ship-maker says they've come up with the ideal commando-delivery system, several of the options haven't worked out as planned.
Take the Advanced SEAL Delivery System. "The subs were originally expected to cost $80 million each; the first one alone has cost $446 million," notes the Times-Dispatch. "The vessel was noisier than planned -- bad news for a submarine. Designs were changed to muffle the sound, and now the mini-sub vibrates too much." Which is defnitely not how commandos like to travel.
UPDATE 1:28 PM: Of course, Inside Defense had details on the ship months ago. A few:
* One reason for the unique shape is the ship was designed like an aircraft... OFT’s first director, Arthur Cebrowski, who died last month, was “very firm that we’re going to build an aircraft on the sea"... The hull has four distinct arches, which look like wings, that utilize air pressure to funnel water and glide along the surface.
* Through its “maritime data bus,” or on-board computer, the vessel will have the ability to “plug and play” with different sensors, linking with unmanned vehicles and other crafts of varying sizes, he said. With only one panel of windows for looking ahead, Stiletto will use deck cameras to give the crew a sense of what is happening around the ship.
* Production of the Stiletto prototype began in October 2004, costing $6 million in funds from OFT. Nearly the same amount has been earmarked by OFT and SOCOM combined for experimentation and testing.
Robert Novak has an editorial on the Navy's plan to decommission it's last two battleships, the Iowa and the Wisconsin. He's pitching a line for the Marine Corps, whose commandant General Mike Hagee told Congress two years ago that the loss of naval surface fire support would place his troops "at considerable risk."
The Senate Arms Services Committee is considering a bill that would turn the two ships into museums. I was on a tour of the Wisconsin at Norfolk and I can tell you it's a hell of a ship. Very impressive, especially with the World War II veterans telling you stories on the tour about its history. What's interesting is Novak's story of an "anti-battleship bias" within the Navy, that the Navy somehow never liked the big ships since World War II and it's all a military-industrial complex plot to get funds for the next generation destroyer DD(X).
[As Defense Tech guru David Axe noted a few weeks back, Navy vets are leading a campaign to put the two mothballed battleships back into service as alternatives to the $3-billion-per-copy new-jack destroyer, which is being touted as a fire-support platform but, according to the Naval Fire Support Association, will provide only a fraction of the firepower of the old BBs at far greater cost, and much later. -- ed.]
Now I don't know the Navy well enough to see if this anti-battleship conspiracy story is true or not, and I'm hoping that someone from the Navy side can clarify this story. My observations within the Pentagon were that the Navy surface guys pretty much rule over their cousins in the Navy air, shore, and submarine fleet. It somehow seems strange to think that the Navy surface community would eschew these ships. This 2004 GAO report provides some more background. Seems that the last time the Navy used battleships was during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, then they made plans to mothball the ships. Congress intervened and told them to keep at least two ships on inactive duty while the Navy was to develop an alternative firepower solution by modifying the 5 inch guns on the destroyers. That hasn't happened yet.
These battleships are old, they're expensive to maintain, and the industry doesn't support manufacture of the ammunition for the big guns. The Marine Corps does have air support and field artillery systems for fire support. I don't see the justification to keep battleships just so you have an option to fire on North Korean military structures, as Novak alludes. Maybe it's time for the big guns to go silent?
THERE'S MORE: Check out heavy-gunned debate going on over at Murdoc's place.
New Navy Builds Up
Today's Times has a quick but interesting story on the Navy's efforts to build a new fleet of ships -- more than 90 of 'em over the next fifteen years.
[[Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael] Mullen is seeking a fleet that will give the Navy a greater role in counterterrorism and humanitarian operations.
The plan calls for building 55 small, fast vessels called littoral combat ships, which are being designed to allow the Navy to operate in shallow coastal areas where mines and terrorist bombings are a growing threat. Costing less than $300 million, the littoral combat ship is relatively inexpensive. [It's also going to be ready really soon, Sea Power magazine notes; late 2006, perhaps. Crews have already begun to train for the sip. -- ed.]
Navy officials say they have scaled back their goals for a new destroyer, the DD(X), whose primary purpose would be to support major combat operations ashore. The Navy once wanted 23 to 30 DD(X) vessels, but Admiral Mullen has decided on only 7, the Navy official said. The reduction is due in part to the ship's spiraling cost, now estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion per ship...
The choices have led some analysts to suggest that the Navy is de-emphasizing the threat from China, at least in the early stages of the shipbuilding plan. Beijing's investment in submarines, cruise missiles and other weapon systems is expected to pose a major threat to American warships for at least a decade. That gives the Navy time, some analysts argue, to build capabilities that require less firepower and more mobility, a priority for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"This is not a fleet that is being oriented to the Chinese threat," usual suspect Loren Thompson tells the Times. "It's being oriented around irregular warfare, stability operations and dealing with rogue states."
But, Navy people: is that right? The Times isn't so sure. As the paper notes, "the Navy would keep 11 aircraft carriers, just one fewer than the dozen it has maintained since the end of the cold war."
THERE'S MORE: Those plans to grow the fleet to 313 ships, they "would require nearly one-fifth more money each year for shipbuilding," according to Defense News. "One defense analyst said the plan would require the Navy to spend an average of $13.4 billion on new ships starting in 2007, a big jump from the $11 billion level of recent years."
Gunboats Back in Style
After years of trying to give away its 14 Cyclone-class patrol boats, the Navy is reversing course, according to Navy Times. Now the Cyclones will form the backbone of a revitalized coastal gunboat community based in Little Creek, Virginia.
The 60-meter Cyclones were commissioned in the early '90s with the intention of using them to transport SEALs and other special forces in litorral waters. But the special operators never liked the Cyclones: they were too big and drew too deep for many waterways. So in the late '90s, the Navy offered them to foreign navies. There was only one taker -- the Phillipines navy, which acquired the first of the class -- before events intervened.
The towers fell, the U.S. invaded Iraq and the Navy found itself with a lot of foreign littorals to police but with few suitable platforms. So four Cyclones were based in Bahrain, from where they sortied to guard Iraq's only two oil terminals off Basra.
Despite their sudden utility, the Navy still wasn't comfortable with the tiny Cyclones. They were simple, cramped and lightly armed (cannons and machine guns only) in a fleet dominated by supercarriers and large multi-mission destroyers. The Navy exiled two boats to the Pacific and convinced the Coast Guard to take five of the ships. Coasties didn't know what to do with the boats and weren't afraid to say so.
Against the backdrop of all this fumbling, the Navy was starting to think hard about its future fleet. The consensus was that it needed more hulls suitable to the litorrals. Grand plans were drawn up for a large force of corvettes (LCS) and catamarans (JHSV). Then somebody realized the Navy already had coastal vessels at its disposal. Last week, the commander at Little Creek announced that the Coast Guard Cyclones would be returned to the Navy, the two Pacific boats would make their way to Virginia and new doctrine would be developed to employ the Cyclones as coastal gunboats and mobile training units for small navies.
To quote Navy Times: "Hueber said the idea is to train up foreign navies so they can patrol their own maritime borders. The [Cyclone], because of its size, crew and mission, relates best to what smaller navies actually do."
That's right, it's gunboat diplomacy for the 21st century.
--David Axe
Calling all Catamarans
In this age of rising shipbuilding costs, uncertain naval strategy and shrinking procurement budgets, nobody knows for sure what the future U.S. fleet will look like. But one thing's for sure ... it'll include a lot of pontoon boats.
The JHSV is a catamaran -- basically a 100-meter pontoon boat. Catamarans and their three-pontoon cousins, trimarans, have been the subject of a lot of military experimentation of late. The Marines are using a catamaran, the WestPac Express, to transport infantry battalions to training events in the western Pacific. The Navy has two JHSV prototypes, HSVX-1 and HSV-2, that have been pressed into service in hurricane-relief efforts, while the Office of Naval Research has been testing LCS concepts with its FSF-1 catamaran. The Army has a trimaran, TSV-1X, that it uses for expeditionary logistics.
The idea behind the JHSV is to equip Military Sealift Command (or -- and I'm speculating here -- Transportation Command) with a fleet of fast, cheap vessels capable of transporting and deploying a battalion-sized Marine landing teams, an Army Stryker company, Special Forces teams or an equivalent load of cargo at austere shallow-water ports. JHSV would support two H-60 or H-6 helicopters and vertical-launch UAVs like Scan Eagle.
"The JHSV will not be a combatant vessel," reads a Navy press release. "Its construction will be similar to high-speed commercial ferries used around the world, and the design will include a flight deck and an off-load ramp which can be lowered on a pier or quay wall -- allowing vehicles to quickly drive off the ship."
Think of the JHSV and its brothers as super-LCACs, or amphibious LCSs minus the guns. The Navy and Marines would use them as ship-to-shore connectors in their Seabasing concept. The Army might employ them at the theatre level for rapid maneuver, replacing its current trimarans. Special Forces Command wants catamarans as offshore commando bases, in the same vein as the new SSGNs, but a lot cheaper. Retired Rear Adm. George R. Worthington, in the October Proceedings, advocates arming the Special Forces catamarans with loitering missiles for coastal land-attack.
In fact, JHSV's low price-tag, around $100 million (versus $1 billion for the new San Antonio-class amphibious transport) all but guarantees its place in the future fleet. The first production vessel is slated for FY2008.
Two of the four Kidds sailed for Taiwan in October. The other pair is getting a facelift at Detyens shipyard in Charleston, S.C, before its 2007 handover. The Kidds will replace Taiwan's 60-year-old Gearing-class destroyers. Combined with recent procurement of Perry- and Knox-class frigates and French-built Lafayette frigates, the $415-million Kidd deal significantly improves Taiwan's ability to oppose a Chinese amphibious assault on the island.
Which is why many Chinese -- including (full disclosure here) my girlfriend -- oppose the transfer.
That much we all know. But getting Adm. Milliken to say it was next to impossible. In a recent interview, Milliken touted the Kidds' commonality with U.S. systems and their utility in the War on Terror(?). But even when I directly asked, he refused to even acknowledge that the Kidds might one day fight for control of the Taiwan Strait.
Milliken isn't the only one treading lightly when it comes to the Kidds. This weekend, I called on Detyens to photograph the Kidds under renovation. At first, shipyard officials were happy to host me. Then someone from higher phoned down to have me kindly turned away.
One manager told me that even the official launch ceremony for the first pair of destroyers was a deliberately low-key affair, with Taiwanese naval officers attending in civilian clothes. Desperate for material, I had to make do shooting pictures through Detyens' chain-link fence.
The way Milliken describes them, ship transfers are a key facet of U.S. diplomacy. More than hardware changes hands. As part of the Kidd deal, as many as 1,200 Taiwanese sailors and officers all will have spent more than two years in Charleston learning English, training on the destroyers and adopting American ways of doing things. For friendly navies, accepting old American warships and other technology means becoming a virtual adjunct of the U.S. Navy. In this way, American naval power is far greater than our 280 hulls imply.
Consider that just two classes of American warships provide the operational backbones of six important allied navies. Perry-class frigates equip the Taiwanese, Spanish, Polish and Australian navies. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are the basis for the most capable ships in the Japanese, Korean and (soon) Australian navies. And Spain's F100 frigates are built around the Burke's combat systems. So close are our naval ties to Spain that Alvaro de Bazan (F101) joined the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group for its May 2005 deployment.
Look for ship-transfer diplomacy to become only more important in coming years as Milliken and his successors dispose of the many young hulls being retired by the shrinking U.S. Navy.
-- David Axe
Kidding Around
It's as if the U.S. Navy added 30 destroyers in three years. That's how much the Pentagon is beefing up Tawain's fleet, with two pairs of retired Kidd-class anti-air destroyers. The first set was transferred on Oct. 29. The second pair will be handed over in 2007.
The Kidds were retired by the U.S. Navy in the mid-1990s and purchased by Taiwan in 2001. With the advent of the Arleigh Burke class armed with Aegis radar, Vertical Launch System for SM-2 missiles, the rail-launcher-armed Kidds became redundant, despite being less than 20 years old when retired.
At 9,000 tons displacement, the Kidds will increase by one-third the tonnage of Taiwan’s major surface combatant force. (Lately the U.S. has been decreasing its surface fleet by as many as ten hulls and tens of thousands of tons per year.)
Besides significantly bulking up Taiwan’s navy, the Kidds will give the force its first modern air-defense capability and should prove a significant deterrent against China’s largely-outdated surface fleet, which depends heavily on land-based air cover. The Kidd deal has understandably angered China. While many in the U.S. are eager to tout China as the next superpower and a naval rival, cooler heads point out that China is heavily dependent on maritime trade and energy imports and that its naval modernization is largely intended to secure sea lines of communication and to counterbalance Indian intrusion into regional waters. Besides, on the seas China is still a generation behind the U.S. and years behind Taiwan. The Kidds only extend that disparity.
The sailors didn't find any terrorists, while Janes' Joshua Kucera was aboard the PM L'Her, a French navy vessel patrolling the Gulf of Aden. But they sure ate well.
Even fighting the war on terrorism, the French lose none of their élan. The goose liver pâté is just the appetizer for my first meal on board the PM L'Her -- soon will come a delicate Jambon à la Russe, then pasta with fresh barracuda bought during the ship's last port call in Oman, followed by a dessert of brioche with pear sauce. And this is lunch.
The ships would be equipped with arrays of 360 transducers each 1 metre square - effectively big flat-panel loudspeakers - running along either side of the hull below the waterline. When the ship's sonar detects an incoming torpedo, the transducers simultaneously fire an acoustic shock wave of such intensity that the torpedo either detonates early or is disabled by the pulse's crushing force, according to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is funding the project.
But these are no ordinary loudspeakers: instead of having a membranous diaphragm that can vibrate in response to a range of audio frequencies, each of the devices has a ram-like cylindrical metal armature at its centre. This is projected outwards by electromagnets at very high speed, producing a shock wave. The array can be fired as many times as needed.
When the six rows of 60 transducers on each side of the ship fire at once, the cumulative action should generate a "destructive pressure pulse capable of disabling an enemy's torpedo", according to DARPA.
It's a pretty impressive feat, considering the blueprints for this "Sea Fighter," or "X-Craft" were only drawn up two years ago. Thank a little slab of ol' fashioned pork for getting the job done, Murdoc says.
By finding funds outside the normal defense appropriations process, and by ignoring special interests such as traditional ship builders and Navy officials who "want to keep building big slow ships," Hunter said he, Issa and Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Escondido, [yeah, the same guy who got caught in bed with local defense contractors -- ed.] helped military and private industry visionaries "conspire to beat the bureaucracy..."
Hunter said the money for the project ---- about $79 million ---- came from congressional "add-ons," which are often referred to as "pork."
In 2003 the Navy's Office of Naval Research awarded San Diego-based Titan Corp. an exclusive contract to develop the vessel. The Sea Fighter was built in only two years ---- an unprecedented feat in the world of naval acquisitions.
"I knew if we got this thing in the water we could sell it to the Navy," Hunter said.
The Sea Fighter is the latest example of how the Pentagon's old rules for buying gear aren't keeping up with the defense technology's Lance Armstrong. Jammers to stop roadside bombs are essentially rotting on the vine, waiting for Defense Department bureaucrats. Companies like General Atomics, maker of the Predator drone, are self-financing their research, because they can't wait for the endless Washington decision loop to close.
Maybe that works for companies with big bankrolls and Congressional pals. But it leaves out tens of thousands of others who might be able to give American troops a hand.
The Navy's FCS
Not to be outdone by the boys in green, the US Navy has its own future combat system, complete with cost overruns, ballooning weight, and dubious performance in early tests. It's called the DD(X), noted previously here at Defense Tech.
Since the House slashed the money for the program, the Navy has responded according to DefenseNews:
U.S. Navy leaders are shooting back, touting the ship’s improved war-fighting abilities in coastal regions and technological benefits and claiming the $3.3 billion warship gives taxpayers more bang for their buck.
“DD(X) has a significant advantage over the DDG destroyer in the littorals,” said Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak, the Navy’s head of warfare requirements and programs.
New radar, underwater sensors and computers will make the new destroyer a superior near-shore hunter of ships and subs than the Arleigh Burke-class warships that have been coming out of the shipyards since 1989, Sestak said.
For example, Navy analysis indicates that the DD(X) will be “significantly better against Boghammers, swarming small boats armed with missiles” that are operated by Iran, he said.
Sestak said the analysis indicated that losses due to enemy attacks can be reduced by up to 31 percent if a DD(X), rather than several DDGs, is present.
“I would not take the DDG into the littorals as I would a DD(X),” he said.
The DD(X) certainly appears to have some fantastic potential, including a stealthy design and advanced automation that would keep crew size very small. But, like all new ideas, there are some problems:
• Designers have substituted an Advanced Induction Motor (AIM) for the planned Permanent Magnet Motor (PMM) in the ship’s power system after the PMM failed in tests earlier this year. Although the AIM incorporates proven technology, it is heavier, larger, noisier and less power-dense than the PMM, requiring several changes in the ship’s design.
• The volume search portion of the dual-band radar still is encountering technical problems, although the multifunction radar has successfully completed its tests to date.
• Fire and shock testing for the composite-construction superstructure have been delayed due to questions about the materials to be used.
• The peripheral missile launch system needed to be redesigned after an “immense explosion” caused damage during tests a year ago.
While these issue are probably all surmountable, the question becomes "should the effort be made if it's going to cost so much?". The ships are going to cost between $2 billion and $5 billion per copy, though the House's recent budget capped that at $1.7 billion.
For that many clams, most folks would like to see more than a couple of 155mm guns supporting the troops on shore, a primary mission of the DD(X). In fact, the two remaining battleships are supposed to stay in reserve until their fire-support capability can be matched by a new system. Despite this requirement, the Navy is moving to permanently deactivate the battlewagons.
While battleships couldn't contribute much to the current battles in Iraq or Afghanistan, two other potential hot spots (namely China and North Korea) present many opportunities for heavy bombardment by either the current low-tech 16" shells or the proposed guided and/or extended-range versions. At an estimated $1.5 billion per ship to reactivate and upgrade, they look like a steal compared to the DD(X).
Whether or not reactivating battleships makes sense for the Navy, the DD(X) program is in serious trouble, and with it the future of new big ships in the fleet.
The DD(X) National Team and the Navy conducted the third consecutive successful guided-flight test of the 155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) June 16.
Preliminary results indicate the munition successfully conducted preplanned maneuvers along a 60 nautical mile flight path during the 280-second flight.
“This important test highlights another successful milestone to develop and field long-range, GPS-precise gun munitions for our fleet,” said Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, the program executive officer for ships. “The success of LRLAP is vital to our efforts to deliver DD(X) to the fleet as planned. Each one of these shots brings us closer to that goal.”
“The DD(X) development team, both in the Navy and industry, continues to make major strides to demonstrate critical new capabilities such as LRLAP for DD(X),“ according to Capt. Charles Goddard, the DD(X) program manager. “Our rigorous development and test program is focused using prototype systems to fully evaluate and mature these technologies for DD(X) and other future ships.”
NOTE: This will be my final post at Defense Tech. Noah will return tomorrow and, after a couple of days to clean up the mess we left and restock the fridge, Defense Tech will be back to normal. It's been a blast posting here, and I hope to see some of you at Murdoc Online from time to time. I thank Noah for the great opportunity.
As a technology demonstrator, SEALION I is not armed but is designed accept a variety of modular mission payloads and could accept a modular weapons system, according to program officials. SEALION II is being designed to accommodate a short-range strike missile, to demonstrate a modular payload with a precision-strike capability.
Navy officials said "there will be no test firing of the missiles from SEALION II nor will the craft be delivered with missiles."
SEALION II will be slightly longer that SEALION I and feature several new capabilities, including a pop-up infrared imaging system built by DRS Technologies (Parsippany, N.J.), as well as a modular mission payload bay. The boat also features the Craft Integrated Electronics Suite, built by Azimuth Inc., a West Virginia-based company specializing in high-technology services. The electronics suite, along with a local area network computer, will enable SEALION II to operate with a two-man crew, instead of the three needed by SEALION I.
As I noted on my own site, Special Forces always get the cool stuff.
Not sure what to make of this one. It was spotted earlier this week by a blogger near the radar testing range of the Navy Research Lab at Chesapeake Beach. He's got some more pics.
Being a sub-hunter has gotten tough, lately. The new diesel subs that Iran and China are buying up are tiny, quiet, and can swim through the crannies that hug the coasts. That makes 'em really hard to find. And it's a major reason why the U.S. Navy is switching from passive sonars to Slayer-loud, active sonars that makes whales slam dance onto dry land.
Australian scientists may have found a better way to find these quiet subs, The Engineer reports -- one that doesn't drive whales psycho.
The Australian development, called MAGSAFE, uses the detection of changing magnetic fields to identify and monitor a moving submarine. The method, which is unique in that it captures 12 magnetic field-related data values per reading as opposed to the single number measured by a conventional magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) magnetometer, arises from research into new minerals exploration technologies that detect magnetic fields...
The technology is basically a 'tensor gradiometer', which is a device that can measure minute changes in magnetic field gradients. It uses three independent rotating sensors, which use high-temperature superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) to monitor the magnetic field gradient.
In theory, the system means that pilots whose aircraft are fitted with MAGSAFE detectors will be able to measure the range, depth and bearing of a submarine, how fast it is going and if it is diving - all from one flyby. (Big ups: RC)
No More U.S. Battleships?
"For the first time since the 1890s, the U.S. Navy soon could be without a battleship," Defense News says.
The Senate, in its version of the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, authorizes the Navy to dispose of the battleship Wisconsin and transfer it to the state of Virginia.
And a provision in the House version of the defense bill would transfer the battleship Iowa to the Port of Stockton, Calif.
Only two battleships remain in Navy custody: the Wisconsin, berthed at Nauticus maritime center in downtown Norfolk, Va., and the Iowa, moored in a mothball fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif. Per an agreement dating from the 1990s between the Navy and the Senate, the ships have been kept because their 16-inch guns can provide fire support for Marines on shore. The agreement mandates the Navy to keep the ships until an equal or greater fire support capability is operational.
But the Extended-Range Guided Munition (ERGM) intended to provide that new capability remains mired in developmental problems, and it’s not clear when — or even if — that weapon ever will be fielded.
Two other ships in the four-ship Iowa class, the Missouri and New Jersey are now museum ships in Hawaii and New Jersey, respectively.
NAVY WANTS UNDERWATER SPYCAM NET
Submarines have been part of America's arsenal since the Civil War. But we still don't have a very good idea about what lies below. Even the coastal, or littoral, waters remain something of a mystery -- which is why the USS San Franciscoran aground in January. And trying to track the sneaky little diesel subs that Tehran and Beijing are stockpiling? That can be even harder still.
The Office of Naval Research's solution: a semi-autonomous "network of fixed bottom and mobile sensors" that can track ships and subs along in the shallows. According to Defense Industry Daily, the Navy's big thinkers have just handed Penn State a $27.7 million contract to put together this "Persistent Littoral Undersea Surveillance Network," or PLUSNET.
Not to be outdone, the mad scientists at Darpa are working on their own undersea spy network, "a floating field of smart, long-term, station-keeping sensors capable of observing the ocean environment at a known location over an extended period of time."
The program will exploit local environmental effects (wind, waves, solar energy, temperature differentials, etc.), and geo-location technologies to establish long-term, station keeping ocean environment sensors... capable of maintaining less than a 250m watch radius for 90% of the time and a 2,500 meter watch radius for 100% of the time over a four week period in currents as high as 2 knots...
DARPA is seeking concepts that will provide either an entirely new military capability or will enhance existing capability by orders of magnitude (based on demonstrable relevant metrics), rather than extensions to existing systems or minor improvements to present capability.
THERE'S MORE: Undersea authority Joe Buff tells Defense Tech...
The worldwide fleet of diesel subs, always at their best in their own littoral waters, will some year soon break a thousand. Getting the look-and-listen grid installed before adversary diesel subs can sortie from port, before access-preventing enemy minefields can be laid, and before the opponent can plant their own anti-incursion robotic sentries, would save lives, time, and potentially huge amounts of money. The U.S. Navy needs to establish dominance here, and get it right the first time. Call it "preemptive surveillance."
To minimize casualties, this ought to be done with robotics. The question is, can the gadgets to do all this be developed, operationally tested, and pre-packaged in useable form, fast enough to be cost effective? I sure hope so. The Advanced Deployable System (ADS) is a portable mini-SOSUS which already exists, but it needs a land-based headquarters that's forward deployed and thus vulnerable. The oceans are also becoming crowded with autonomous civilian research probes called Ocean Rovers, to the degree that hordes of these things could become counter-detection or collision hazards for military submarines.
FUTURE NAVY SINKING?
"The Navy's new destroyer, the DD(X), is becoming so expensive that it may end up destroying itself," the Times' defense tech reporter, Tim Weiner, writes today. "The Navy once wanted 24 of them. Now it thinks it can afford 5 - if that."
The price of the Navy's new ships, driven upward by old-school politics and the rusty machinery of American shipbuilding, may scuttle the Pentagon's plans for a 21st-century armada of high-technology aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines.
Shipbuilding costs "have spiraled out of control," the Navy's top admiral, Vern Clark, told Congress last week, rising so high that "we can't build the Navy that we believe that we need in the 21st century."
The first two DD(X)'s are now supposed to total $6.3 billion, according to confidential budget documents, up $1.5 billion. A new aircraft carrier, the CVN-21, is estimated at $13.7 billion, up $2 billion. The new Virginia-class submarine now costs $2.5 billion each, up $400 million. All these increases have materialized in the last six months.
The Navy says it can make do with fewer big ships patrolling the oceans. It wants more fast boats and aircraft to fight offshore and upriver, a speedier force to counter terror. But Congress, seeking to sustain America's shipyards, wants as many big ships as possible.
Admiral Clark, who plans to retire later this year, says both strategies could be sunk by soaring costs.
INFLATABLE, UNMANNED HUNTER
In the not-too-distant future, the U.S. Navy could be hunting subs and protecting ships using robotic, inflatable boats. That's the plan, at least, from a team of American and Israeli defense contractors.
The Navy and Coast Guard already use a bunch of rigid-hull inflatable boats to zip across choppy waters and brings SEALs to shore. The services have "high hopes" that unmanned inflatables could handle even more jobs, C4ISR Journal says. Like spotting mines and subs, for example.
The advantage of using an unmanned surface vehicle in these roles, Rear Adm. William Landay III noted, is that it will be able to operate autonomously for an extended period of time – perhaps 24 hours – and at night, when the Navy normally doesn’t do towing [sonar arrays] with helicopters. “We may not even find an enemy submarine [but] it may keep him out of where you want, and in the littorals [coastal waters] that in many cases is just as good as finding him.
United Defense Industries and Haifa-based Rafael Armament Development Authority are trying to convince the Navy that their Protector unmanned surface vehicle is the right robo-boat for the job. The 30 to 35 foot-long Protector can skip across the seas at speeds of up to 40 knots. Day and night cameras, a laser range finder, and a 12.7 mm machine gun all come standard. "A light projector, public address system and a microphone," are optional, according to Defense Daily. The Israeli Navy is already trying one out, a Rafael spokesperson tells DD.
NAVY'S NEW TARGET: SWEDISH SUB
"The Navy has formally agreed to lease a Swedish submarine and its crew for a year so U.S. nuclear-powered subs... can practice hunting it," the Virginian-Pilot reports.
The Swedish navy will send a Gotland-class sub to San Diego, where it will help [U.S. Fleet Forces Command] train to combat the potential threat of diesel-powered submarines in the hands of rogue nations.
The 200-foot submarine, which displaces 1,490 tons and carries a crew of about 30, will become frequent prey of American sub hunters nearly twice its size. Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines, for example, are 360-feet long, carry a crew of 140 and displace 7,147 tons when submerged.
The U.S. is interested in studying the quietness of the diesel-powered boats, since it no longer has any of its own, Jim Brantley, a spokesman for the Fleet Forces Command, said Wednesday. (thanks to reader JH for the tip)
WWII PLAGUE SUB FOUND
St. Patrick's Day was just supposed to be another day of routine training for undersea researchers at the University of Hawaii. But then, they found something extraordinary 870 meters down, off of Barbers Point, Oahu: a mammoth, World War II-era Japanese sub, meant for biological combat.
The submarine is from the I-400 Sensuikan Toku class of subs, the largest built before the nuclear-ballistic-missile submarines of the 1960s. They were 400 feet long and nearly 40 feet high and could carry a crew of 144. The submarines were designed to carry three "fold-up" bombers that could quickly be assembled...
An I-400 and I-401 were captured at sea a week after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Their mission, which was never completed, reportedly was to use the aircraft to drop rats and insects infected with bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and other diseases on U.S. cities.
When the bacteriological bombs could not be prepared in time, the mission reportedly was changed to bomb the Panama Canal. Both submarines were ordered to sail to Pearl Harbor and were deliberately sunk later, partly because Russian scientists were demanding access to them.
"It is not the first World War II-era 'monster' that the HURL [Hawaii Undersea Research Lab] scientists have found," notes the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. "Last year, off Pearl Harbor, they located the wreck of the gigantic seaplane Marshall Mars, one of the largest aircraft built and used as a transport plane by the U.S. Navy. Two years earlier in the same area, the HURL crew also found the wreckage of a Japanese midget sub that was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941." (via Boing Boing)
SHARK SKIN SHIPS?
"A new environmentally friendly coating based on sharks' skin may soon help the U.S. Navy increase ship speeds while saving fuel," Wired News reports.
The coating... will be applied on the hull of ships below the waterline, where all manner of algae, barnacles and other wee beasties attach themselves, slowing ships and reducing their maneuverability...
Of the $550 million to $600 million the Navy spends annually on powering its ships and submarines, at least $50 million stems directly from drag due to marine growth fouling the vessels' hulls, said Stephen McElvany, an environmental quality program officer in the Office of Naval Research's physical science division.
Existing antifouling paints such as tributyltin, or TBT, kill algae and barnacles when they latch on. TBT is being banned worldwide by... the U.N. body responsible for overseeing shipping-related issues...
To find a way to persuade algae to move on rather than killing them, Anthony Brennan, a University of Florida professor of materials science, and his colleagues turned to nature. Sharks don't have algae or barnacle problems despite being underwater all their lives. Shark skin is made up of tiny rectangular scales topped with even smaller spines or bristles. This makes shark skin rough to the touch. This irregular surface makes it difficult for plant spores to get a good grip and grow into algae or other plants.
"It's like trying to walk across a bed of nails when some nails are longer and unevenly distributed," Brennan said.
Using a combination plastic-and-rubber coating, Brennan replicated a version of shark skin that is made up of billions of tiny raised, diamond-shaped patterns, visible under a microscope. Each "sharklet" diamond measures 15 microns, or 15 thousandths of a millimeter, and contains seven raised ribs that resemble different lengths of raised horizontal bars.
In lab tests, the coating -- provisionally named Gator Sharkote -- reduced by 85 percent the settlement of spores from a very common and detrimental type of algae called Ulva, a green seaweed often seen on the sides of ships.
"The only place the spores land right now is where we have a defect in the pattern," Brennan said.
The Navy has had a wicked case of shark envy, lately. A few months ago, the service started looking into how sailors could use sharks' electric sensors to spot underwater mines.
THERE'S MORE: Over on the Defense Tech forum, there's an impassioned defense of TBT, the old-school ways to clean ships.
(photo credit: Callaghan Fritz-Cope/Pelagic Shark Research Foundation)
NAVY SINKS 'AMERICA'
"No one has been able to land a [big] punch on an American [aircraft] carrier for over half a century," StrategyPage notes. "There is no practical knowledge about exactly how sturdy, or not, these big ships are."
So the Navy is going to sink the USS America, decommissioned since 1996, to find out what happens when the 1060-foot long carrier gets hit, hard.
In $22 million worth of "experiments that will last from four to six weeks," the AP reports, "the Navy will batter the America with explosives, both underwater and above the surface, watching from afar and through monitoring devices placed on the vessel."
These explosions would presumably simulate attacks by torpedoes, cruise missiles and perhaps a small boat suicide attack like the one that damaged the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
At the end, explosive scuttling charges placed to flood the ship will be detonated, and the America will begin its descent to the sea floor, more than 6,000 feet below...
Certain aspects of the tests are classified, and neither America's former crew nor the news media will be allowed to view them in person, Dolan said. The Navy does not want to give away too much information on how a carrier could be sunk, Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, said.
Why the America? No other retired supercarriers were available on the East Coast when the test was planned, Dolan said. The others - the Forrestal and the Saratoga - were designated as potential museums, she said.
JIMMY CARTER: SUPER SPY?
The rumors are that the Navy's newest nuclear sub, the USS Jimmy Carter, has been designed for spywork, with a "special capability... to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them," according to the AP.
The rumors are right, Military.com's undersea warfare experts believe. Here's what retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, had to say:
The Navy has for years carried out special surviellance missions with nuclear submarines. Most of these missions utlilized attack submarines that were not extensively modified. Specialized communications intercept equipments were installed in existing spaces on board these submarines. A few have been modified for special oceanographic missions and capabilities. In the past, these included USS HALIBUT, USS SEAWOLF, USS RICHARD B. RUSSELL, and USS PARCHE. Each of these submarines was modified to accomodate these new missions. In the case of USS JIMMY CARTER, all of the modifications were made before the submarine was delivered to the Navy. This submarine will be utilized to conduct many specialized missions, some of which will be routine unclassified oceanographic research operations which will advance our knowledge of the ocean. Some of the missions will be highly classified missions which I am unable to comment on. (emphasis mine)
Undersea thriller author, submarine authority, and Military.com columnist Joe Buff notes that a 2001 Wall Street Journal article unveiled the NSA's desire to tap undersea cables. "It is reasonable to presume that [the ability] to do this underwater, by properly trained Navy divers, is now achievable," Buff writes.
Ironically, an earlier nuclear sub named USS Seawolf, commissioned in the 1950s, was secretly modified with a hull section that allowed saturation divers to work on the seafloor at considerable depths. (Saturation divers spend a long period living and resting in a shirtsleeves environment with a mixed-gas atmosphere pressurized to equal the depth of their job site. After days or even weeks of daily work shifts, they then undergo a long period of hyperbaric decompression to be able to return to sea-level air. France claimed several years ago to have had men in "soft" scuba outfits -- not hard exoskeleton suits -- perform useful manual tasks on the bottom at 3,000 feet.)
In my opinion USS Jimmy Carter is highly likely to include such facilities, essentially a modern-era Sea Lab built into the submarine itself.
Click here for more, as Buff goes deep into mechanics of listening in on undersea chatter.
The issue of how to collect the tapped communications in real-time also isn't new. In addition to the undersea tap referenced in the [Journal] article, which by the way affected the Soviet Navy's Pacific Fleet headquarters and waters in the Sea of Okhotsk off the western Pacific, another tap was emplaced to listen in on Northern Fleet communications near Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea off of the North Atlantic -- this tap was not betrayed by the spy mentioned in the article, because he did not know about it. The idea was seriously discussed in the American intelligence and submarine community of laying an undersea cable from that tap to Iceland, using submarines and divers, so that a listening station could monitor the cable's message traffic continuously. Open sources state that this cable wasn't built, partly because the Cold War ended and the cost didn't seemed justified.
However, with technology at least fifteen years more advanced now, it is quite possible that Carter can carry within her 100-foot long, 42-foot diameter special "wasp waist" hull section's "garage space" a considerable length of fiber optic cable. (Wasp waist refers to the narrow inner pressure hull, which allows for the ocean-interface garage space volume between the pressure hull and the outer hull that conforms to the overall streamlined teardrop shape of the vessel.)
This hypothetical cable need not be led up onto land in friendly turf for it to be useful. It need only establish enough "stand-off distance" from the tap, out into neutral or international waters, where various means of transmission of intercepts are more feasible without enemy detection or interference. These include a hard-wired or acoustic-link modem station that is monitored by submarines that deploy there in rotation for Indications and Warning missions. Or, as the article says, various radio buoy transmitters and other means could be used to continually relay intercepts on to the NSA for detailed analysis. Spread-spectrum or frequency agile, super high frequency (SHF) or extremely high frequency (EHF) transmitters, with very low probability of interception, mounted on low-observable buoys, constantly "talking" to U.S. spy satellites, are surely within current technical means if budgeting were available.
These transmitters could be powered for lengthy periods using the latest generation of fuel cell or semi fuel cell technology, some types of which are open to the sea and in fact use naturally circulating seawater as their electrolyte. Such radio buoy bandwidth would be adequate to convey information from a fiber optic cable, especially given mathematical data-compression techniques and artificial intelligence routines in an attached computer that could quickly "learn" which cable lines and which message traffic were truly of strategic interest to the United States. (A communications laser might be used instead of a radio, just as some submarine/satellite comms links now use laser beams.)
It is also worth noting that the garage space and "people tank" facilities within Carter's added hull section are almost certainly mission reconfigurable, that is, easily altered to serve different mission profiles. This is the case with the USS Virginia design, and it appears likely that the same new, hyper-flexible approach to submarine architecture was applied to Carter's special modifications; the design and construction work of the two overlapped, witness both ships being commissioned into the Navy in 2004/2005. Thus Carter is able to do many different and exciting things with her 50 commandoes, her garage space, and her ocean interface for deploying and retrieving unmanned (and autonomous?) undersea vehicles and perhaps also aerial vehicles.
THERE'S MORE: Two years before the Journal's story broke, Inside Defense told the world about the secret modifications being made to U.S. subs.
TRICKED-OUT CATAMARAN READY TO SAIL
High-tech ship to patrol the coasts: kinda cool. Tricked-out, ultra-fast, aluminum catamaran to test out all the gear: awwwwww yeah!
This Saturday, on Whidbey Island in Washington state, the Office of Naval Research will christen its "Littoral Surface Craft – Experimental, or "X-Craft." The 262-foot long vessel, with a crew of 16 Navy sailors and 10 Coast Guardsmen, is designed to try out the technologies that will be going into the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the Navy's shoreline fighter of the future. By checking out the relatively low-cost X-Craft's hydrodynamic performance, structural behavior, and engine efficiency now, the Navy hopes to save a bundle later when it builds the LCS.
The X-Craft will also be able to switch from fleet protection to sub-hunt to anti-mine to amphibious assault mode quickly, by using a series of 16, interchangeable "mission modules" -- standard twenty foot containers, tucked into the X-Craft’s climate-controlled mission bay.
A multi-purpose ramp "will allow X-Craft to launch and recover manned and unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles up to the size of an 11-meter Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat," according to the Navy.
"From its flight deck, X-Craft will be able to operate with two H-60 type helicopters or VTUAVs [helicopter-esque drones] at a time."
The X-Craft, weighing in a 950 metric tons and able to speed long the waves at up to 50 knots, will be finished up this April. And then it will move down to San Diego, where the catamaran will have its home port.
SUB AGROUND: UNDERSEA PEAK TO BLAME?
It's still unclear why the USS San Francisco ran aground Friday night. But retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, has a guess: underwater mountains, or "sea mounts."
"I expect that we will find out from the Navy that this grounding was the result an unknown sea mount or one that was incorrectly charted," he tells Defense Tech.
Submarines have run aground in the past in the "open ocean" while running submerged generally due to a navigation error. With the advent of GPS and navigation satellites, these types of incidents are extremely rare today. I assume from the news that a sailor was critically injured and damage was
done to the forward ballast tanks, that the submarine must have been moving
at high speed and collided with a "sea mount", an underwater mountain. The
force of this type of collision could do a lot of damage and could injure
people in the submarine. You might check out the USS RAY (SSN 653) which had a submerged collision with a sea mount in September 1977.
All of this is speculation. Submarines do not have an underwater "radar" to
detect sea mounts. They rely on accurate charts and accurate navigation to
ensure that they steer well clear of known shallow areas. All submariners,
particularly the navigation team, are trained to operate the ship in an
extremely conservative and safe manner to avoid these types of incidents.
THERE'S MORE: CNN has confirmed Adm. McKinney's hunch.
AND MORE: Military.com's Joe Buff tells you everything you ever wanted to know about submarines' navigational charts, collision alarms, and crash-prevention techniques. Great stuff.
ROBO-CRAPPIE ANYONE?
The People's Daily (China) reports that the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an "underwater bionic robotic fish." Apparently these things are big in Asia. A Japanese toy company has a whole line of fish, jellyfish, turtles and an ammonite. An ammonite?
Anywho ... at the bottom of the AFP wire story, I noticed a reference to "robotic lamprey parasites." I expected the typical "perfidious CHICOMs" story, but the article was actually all about research by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) into biomechanical robots--including the aforementioned robotic lamprey parasite.
Did anyone else know that DARPA was funding an entire biomechanical bestiary, including birds and cockroaches? The FY 2005 Defense Budget contains $ 90 million in unclassified funding for "Biologically Based Materials and Devices," including $ 38 million for "Bioinspired and Bioderived Materials."
Some of the fish-related work is being performed at MIT. Insomniacs may wish to peruse “A Swimming Robot Actuated by Living Muscle Tissue” prepared by Drs. Hugh Herr and Robert G. Dennis for DARPA. Herr and Dennis detail the exploits of one RoboPike, which is the follow-on to–-I swear every word of this is true-–RoboTuna. I know you don’t believe me, so here is the fact sheet.
Inside sharks' heads are jelly-filled canals called "the ampullae of Lorenzini," which the predators use to detect the itty-bitty electrical charges a fish makes when it flexes its muscles, or swims counter to the earth's natural magnetic fields. It's a real-live sixth sense. And it's way more accurate the sharks' eyesight.
The Navy is hoping the kind of sensors work better than sonar, too. Acoustic mine detectors have a hard time operating in the crowded, shallow waters near the coasts. There's too much happening there to get a clear signal. But with an electrical charge, there's a chance to could be noticed, instead. So the Navy is asking for proposals on how to build a set of Lorenzini's ampullae for people.
The device should be small – less than three feet long, the Navy counsels. And it should be able to pick up electrical signals of small, moving objects in fresh, brackish, or salt water.
At first, the Navy is looking for a few companies just to develop ideas for the detectors. Then, a few prototypes. But if all that goes well, the Navy promises, the system "will have immediate use in surveillance and monitoring operations with Homeland Security, Global War on Terrorism, Joint Forces Operations, and future combat systems under development." Happy hunting.
(photo credit: Callaghan Fritz-Cope/Pelagic Shark Research Foundation)
But already, the mad scientists over at Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research division, are bored.
They want a sub that can run with a fraction of the crew of current boats. So Darpa has put together a new, $97 million effort to build the submarines of the future, code named Tango Bravo. Last week, the agency held a classified meeting with defense contractors and researchers interested in bidding on the project.
At the heart of the Tango Bravo project is a problem that's older than U-Boats: how to run a sub without packing the crew in like fish in a can. Why the concern? Well, it's not for the sailors' comfort. "People are expensive," notes GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike.
For years, the Navy has been pushing to run bigger and bigger ships with fewer and fewer sailors. It took a crew of about 320 to run the World War II-era Fletcher destroyers. Today, an Arleigh Burke destroyer uses the same number of men – but, at 8300 tons, it's three times as big.
Things have been different on submarines, however. While crew sizes have basically remained stable, sub sized have only doubled – a lot less than the destroyers' three-fold increase.
One way to cut down on the number of people is to automate the sub, particularly its attack center and sonar battlestations. Those areas require 17 people on the Virginia class submarines, Darpa notes. The agency wants to see that crew cut to eight, with "a set of systems should be proposed which can replace the current VIRGINIA Class sonar, fire control, and tactical data display systems."
But even with a crew trim, space on a sub is still beyond cramped. "There's never enough room for people," says retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force. "On the Los Angeles class [of subs], a third of the crew didn't have bunks of their own. Seawolf – same problem."
Tango Bravo's solution: take the torpedoes, and store them outside the sub, not within. "They take up a lot of room inside what we call the people tank," Adm. McKinney notes. And it's something that's been done on a number of submarines before. Tomahawk missiles were kept in the ballast tanks in some of the later Los Angeles-class subs, for example, to increase the number of torpedoes that could be kept aboard. What's more, the latest Mark 48 torpedoes aren't even maintained on the ship, McKinney observes. "They're prepped before hand, and then left alone."
SONAR = WHALE WOES?
For years, environmentalists and the U.S. Navy have been duking it out over a new class of ultra-loud sonars -- and whether the machines are bad for the local whale population. The Navy says it needs the active sonars, to track quiet, electric submarines that roam coastal waters. But the devices can crank up to 238 decibels -- 4.3 billion times as loud as the sounds that can cause people pain. Green groups say that whales, which rely on their hearing to mate, feed, and navigate, are effected even more dramatically. Sometimes, they even run aground as a result.
The Navy has long disputed that its sonars have harmed any whales. But now, according to the Washington Post, the service "has acknowledged that vessels on maneuver off Hawaii last month used their sonar periodically in the 20 hours before a large pod of melon-headed whales unexpectedly came to shore."
"There is no evidence of a relationship here between the sonar use and the whale behavior," a Navy spokesman said.
STEALTH SHIPS' SECRET: PLASTIC
Air Forces have been getting better and better at making their planes practically invisible to radar. Now, Navies may be starting to catch up, according to Military.com.
The site highlights "three new high-profile designs: the Visby corvette, designed by the Swedish shipbuilders Kockums, the British Type 45 Destroyer, designed by BAE Systems, and the U.S. Navy's DD(X) destroyer, under construction by Northrop Grumman."
The ships each have their own ways of escaping detection. The Visby's: plastic.
It is the largest vessel ever constructed of carbon fiber -- a super-hard, lightweight plastic that is also used in the making of race car chassis and racing yacht hulls. Specifically, the boat's surface is composed of two layers of carbon fiber filled with a Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)-like foam, or what Kockums calls sandwich-construction carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). This composite material has been proven to reduce a ship's "signature," so that not only is it more difficult to pick up on radar, but also less vulnerable to mines and other types of electronic detection, such as infrared. Since the material is not made of steel, it also escapes detection by magnetic waves. And since the Visby, at 600 tons, is about half as light as a conventional corvette, it has quicker escape abilities. That's not even mentioning the lower maintenance costs for a ship composed of plastics as opposed to one built from steel, and the lower fuel consumption costs.
bore a seal on the bow bearing 7.5 tons of steel from the site. The shield included two gray bars to symoblize the Twin Towers; a banner over that declared "Never Forget."
Of the 18 Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines built from 1976-1997, all are still in service. Four of them have been removed from strategic service and have been converted to 
Coast Guard commandant Admiral Thad Allen has all but surrendered to critics who’ve been saying that the service’s sprawling $24-billion 
At the Coast Guard Yard in southern Maryland, the [Deepwater] revolution seems a long way off, and the rust is right in your face. At this 108-year-old facility, the Coast Guard’s only government-owned shipyard, 400 workers commanded by Captain Steve Duca gut, repair then piece back together the service’s aging medium cutters and patrol boats, keeping them afloat and livable until they can be replaced with ships like Bertholf. Duca’s is delicate work – “like surgery,” he says. And it’s increasingly urgent. With more than 80 cutters larger than 100 feet, the Coast Guard has the world’s 12th-largest navy. But its fleet is, on average, around a quarter-century old, making it the 38th oldest of the world’s 40 largest navies. Deepwater has suffered delays. The last new ships and aircraft won’t join the force for another two decades, several years later than originally planned. So an old fleet is just getting older.
Taylor is not the first admiral, wonk or elected official to 
But now, LCS is running into serious problems. So serious, the Navy has 
Some weapons don't age well. Designed to counter the threat of the day, they go into mothballs when the threat evaporates. Take the 
History suggests these advantages don’t last long, and pursuing them can lead to unexpected places. For example:
The In From the Cold intel blog has some 
In the 1980s and early '90s, Taiwan pulled way ahead of rival China in defense technology, especially in regards to aircraft and missiles. Taiwan even fielded its own light fighter design, the 
A couple months ago, 
The restless attitude seems to be paying off. The first LCS -- the "Freedom" -- was 
The Navy's new idea is to get specially-tuned lasers to handle the job, instead. The service has handed out a 
In 2002, Lockheed Martin's Integrated Coast Guard Systems won a contract to stretch and improve as many as 49 Coast Guard 
"A few years ago, the 'don’t worry, be happy' school of analysis of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] said that we should all be reassured that the PLA couldn’t attack Taiwan because it didn’t have enough hovercraft. Clearly, this is changing," University of Miami's 
No missiles. No screaming fighter jets. No men in green facepaint slipping ashore in the dead of night. Even if mines are, historically, the 
Until recently, the experimental, Australian-built 
In the meantime, the Navy's smallest fighting ships have permanently adopted a Sea Swap model. Once upon a time, the eight-ship class of coastal patrol boats (
Read the hilarious details in 
The idea behind Seabasing is to avoid the diplomatic complications of basing ground troops and aircraft in host countries. Turkey showed us back in 2003 that even seemingly staunch allies can waver at the last minute when they 
The trick to pulling off efficient manning of a multi-mission vessel is training your sailors to perform a wider range of tasks than ever before. The Navy's got a plan to do this. It involves lots of schooling, higher standards and a work environment that encourages personal initiative. It calls the product a "
Some observers have called for the Navy to start production of new, smaller and cheaper boats, perhaps even diesel-electrics rather than nukes. But the long ranges that U.S. boats must travel, their need for big hulls (for mission flexibility) and the strong pro-nuke culture of U.S. submariners means diesels aren't a realistic option.
On Sunday night, Stiletto program manager Greg Glaros 
Every shipbuilder in the Navy these days talks about how his 
If the Stiletto works out as planned, it'll be good news for special forces. Because while every ship-maker says they've come up with the ideal commando-delivery system, several of the options haven't worked out as planned.
The Senate Arms Services Committee is considering a bill that would turn the two ships into 
The plan calls for building 55 small, fast vessels called 
The towers fell, the U.S. invaded Iraq and the Navy found itself with a lot of foreign littorals to police but with few suitable platforms. So four Cyclones were based in Bahrain, from where they sortied to guard Iraq's only two 
One manager told me that even the official launch ceremony for the first pair of destroyers was a deliberately low-key affair, with Taiwanese naval officers attending in civilian clothes. Desperate for material, I had to make do shooting pictures through Detyens' chain-link fence.
The Kidds were retired by the U.S. Navy in the mid-1990s and purchased by Taiwan in 2001. With the advent of the 
The sailors didn't find any terrorists, while Janes' Joshua Kucera was aboard the 
It's a pretty impressive feat, considering the blueprints for this "Sea Fighter," or "
Not to be outdone by the 
For that many clams, most folks would like to see more than a couple of 155mm guns supporting the troops on shore, a primary mission of the DD(X). In fact, the two remaining battleships are supposed to stay in reserve until their fire-support capability can be matched by a new system. Despite this requirement, the Navy is moving to permanently 
Not sure what to make of this one. It was 
Australian scientists may have found a better way to find these quiet subs, The Engineer reports -- one that doesn't drive whales psycho.
"For the first time since the 1890s, the U.S. Navy soon could be 
In the not-too-distant future, the U.S. Navy could be hunting subs and protecting ships using robotic, inflatable boats. That's the plan, at least, from a team of American and Israeli defense contractors.
The Swedish navy will send a 
The 
Of the $550 million to $600 million the Navy spends annually on powering its ships and submarines, at least $50 million stems directly from drag due to marine growth fouling the vessels' hulls, said 
So the Navy is going to 
The rumors are right, Military.com's undersea warfare experts believe. Here's what retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, had to say:
High-tech ship to patrol the coasts: kinda cool. Tricked-out, ultra-fast, aluminum catamaran to test out all the gear: awwwwww yeah!
A multi-purpose ramp "will allow X-Craft to launch and recover manned and unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles up to the size of an 11-meter 
The first in the U.S. Navy's new class of 
For years, environmentalists and the U.S. Navy have been 
Air Forces have been getting better and better at making their planes practically invisible to radar. Now, Navies may be 
